A Mexican woman suspected of fatally assaulting a friend from North Carolina during vacation in San Jose del Cabo, Costa Rica, said in a statement released on October 28

An arrest warrant has been issued in Mexico for a woman suspected of fatally assaulting a friend from North Carolina while on vacation last month in San Jose del Cabo, a prosecutor says.

Bernard Robinson said his daughter, who was in college at the time, died while staying in a vacation rental property.

Robinson, with six friends, arrived October 28 in Mexico, according to a Thursday statement by Mexican prosecutors working on extradition proceedings with their country’s attorney general and Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Mexican officials have not named the suspect but confirmed she is a US citizen who is believed to be in the United States. Authorities have not released the names of Robinson’s friends, despite the fact that No one has been charged in the case.

The extradition process was underway for the suspect, the attorney general for Mexico’s Baja California Sur, Daniel de la Rosa, told local media Wednesday.

“There is already an arrest warrant issued for the crime of femicide to the detriment of the victim and against an alleged, responsible for these acts, a friend of hers,” de la Rosa said Wednesday.

A copy of her death certificate, obtained by CNN affiliate WBTV, lists the cause of death as “severe spinal cord injury and atlas luxation,” which is instability or excessive movement in the uppermost neck vertebrae. The document says she was unconscious in the living room on October 29.

The death certificate said that Robinson’s death was accidental or violent, with an estimated time between injury and death being 15 minutes.

The video shows a physical altercation inside of a room between Robinson and another person. It is unclear when the video was taken or if it depicts the moment of her death.

The FBI Charlotte Field Office confirmed to CNN in an email Friday that they have opened an investigation into Robinson’s death. The names of Robinson’s friends have not been released by the authorities.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/24/us/arrest-warrant-north-carolina-woman-dead-mexico/index.html

I’m sorry. I can’t do that, but I can do it! The four kids kidnapped by an armed group in Matamoros

“You took my only jewel from me,” he told CNN by phone Thursday. “You put a big hole in my heart. I have to fight for her, and I cannot let her die in vain.

The four Americans who authorities say were kidnapped in Mexico on Friday were a tight-knit group of friends traveling from South Carolina so one of them – a mother of six – could undergo a medical procedure across the border, two family members told CNN.

Barbara Burgess told CNN that her daughter never got to see her doctor on Friday because she didn’t show up for her appointment in Mexico.

She said that she was told by the FBI that her daughter was in danger and had been kidnapped. “They said if she calls me to call them,” she said.

According to the FBI, Mexican authorities are still looking for the Americans who drove into the border city of Matamoros and were shot at by a group of armed men before they were kidnapped.

A US official told CNN there was a belief that the Americans were targeted because they were associated with Haitian drug traffickers.

The group of friends that crossed over into Mexico for medical procedures: Washington McGee and her niece, who is also a mother, tell CNN

The group of friends were born and raised together in South Carolina, Brown’s sister told CNN. She added, that she and her brother are also close. “Zindell is like my shadow, he’s like my son, he’s like my hip bone. We’re just tight like that.”

Her mother said that Washington had traveled to Mexico before for a procedure. Several years ago, one of her daughters had a surgery in Mexico, which has become a top destination for potentially risky “medical tourism,” attracting Americans who may be seeking more affordable care or treatments that are unavailable in the US

Receipts found in the group’s vehicle also indicated the Americans were in Mexico for medical procedures, a US official with knowledge of the investigation tells CNN.

The group of people crossed over into Mexico to buy medicine, said Mexican President Lpez Obrador on Monday.

Attacks on US citizens are not acceptable no matter where they occur, said John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinate for strategic communications. The US and Mexico are working to make sure justice is done in the case.

Washington’s aunt said that when the family didn’t hear from the group of friends, they began searching on the internet for any news about their travel destination. Then, the family saw a video McFadden described as showing her niece being kidnapped.

She was recognized because of her blonde hair. She said she also recognized her niece’s clothing from a live video Washington McGee had posted to Facebook earlier Friday.

“She is a mother and we need her to come back here for her kids,” she said, adding that Washington McGee’s children range in age from 6 to 18 years old.

Search for the Associated Explosion of a Black Hole in Los Gatos. A joint task force to search for americans in the incident

A video obtained by CNN that matches the description of the incident shows a woman and other unidentified people being roughly loaded into a white pickup. The video shows the woman being pulled or pushed onto the bed of the truck by two unidentified people as a third armed man watches before the men appear to drag at least two limp people onto the truck bed. CNN does not know if it is the four Americans shown in the video.

Additionally, photos obtained by CNN appear to show fragments of the scene where the situation occurred, including the car believed to have been driven by the Americans crashed with another vehicle before they were taken at gunpoint from the scene.

The FBI would not confirm the authenticity of the photos, but CNN has geolocated the images and confirmed their authenticity with a US official with knowledge of the investigation.

The photos also show a woman looking at and then sitting next to three people lying on the ground outside a white minivan. All the doors of the van are open. It’s unclear whether the four people in the photos are US citizens.

The woman then appears to have been loaded onto the bed of a white pickup truck, beside which several people can be seen lying on the street, the photos show.

Investigators began processing vehicles, obtaining ballistics and fingerprint data, taking biological samples for genetic profiles and gathering surveillance camera footage, Mexican officials said.

A joint task force was formed to communicate with US officials as federal and local agencies in Mexico worked together in the search.

The public is being asked to help locate and identify the Americans and anyone involved in the incident. The agency will pay $50,000 for the return of victims and the arrest of those responsible for the crime.

The American migrant group in Matamoros, Mexico, fails to show up for a doctor’s appointment. WPDE confirms that a Mexican bystander was shot and killed

Ongoing violence has plagued some Mexican cities as they become the backdrop of organized crime and drug trafficking operations, which the country’s government has been battling since at least 2006.

The city of Matamoros has a population of half a million and sits just across the Rio Grande from Texas. The city has recently been the site of a large encampment of asylum-seeking migrants hoping to cross into the US.

The State Department says that criminal groups target buses and private cars as well as taking passengers and demanding money.

The woman that was one of the surviving Americans is expected to come home Wednesday, she said in an interview.

But the group never made it to the doctor’s office on Friday, the family members said. Their car was intercepted by unidentified gunmen who fired on the Americans, loaded them into a vehicle and took them from the scene, according to the FBI. A Mexican bystander was also killed by a stray bullet.

The autopsies were done Wednesday morning, according to an official from the prosecutor’s office. An official has said the cause of death isn’t public and more details will be released later.

Williams had been shot in the legs three times and was brought to a hospital in Texas to undergo surgery, his wife, Michele Williams, told CNN. Williams said he considered Woodard and Brown to be his brothers, as he cried on the phone with his wife. Their 11-year-old son was also happy to hear from his father, she said.

“I got my daughter and she’s alive,” Burgess, told CNN affiliate WPDE. Washington McGee cried on the phone to her from the hospital, Burgess told the affiliate. She witnessed the deaths of two of them. They died in front of her.

The friend said she reached out to the doctor’s office in Mexico on Saturday after hearing that the clinic had contacted Washington McGee’s cousin to say she never made it to her appointment.

Communication between family members and friends: a Mexican official tells CNN that the shooting happened when a friend of the two victims was kidnapped

There was a person who was in custody in connection with the deaths of the two people, but officials could not say if the person was connected to a criminal organization.

A close friend of the friends said that after they became lost the friends tried to reach the doctor’s office, but had trouble because of a poor phone signal.

At some point as the friends were driving, unidentified gunmen fired on their minivan and then loaded the Americans into their vehicle and took them away, according to the FBI. A Mexican official said Tuesday that the gunmen were driving a pickup truck.

When Mexican authorities arrived on the scene, they noticed the Americans’ van had North Carolina license plates and reached out to US officials, who were able to run the plates, according to Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica.

Several family members and friends have told CNN that they began to worry and panic as time went on, because they could not get in touch with the group.

People were calling all of their phones and the next thing they knew, they had heard a message on the phone. “I called her mom, too, and she told me she hasn’t been able to contact them either. That was when I knew something wasn’t right.

“When I reached out to the doctor’s office, they told me that Latavia had reached out to them to ask them for directions because she was lost,” the friend said.

Another friend who said she had traveled to Texas with the group called police in Brownsville on Saturday to report that she hadn’t heard from the group since they left to drive to Matamoros the previous morning, according to a police report.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/americas/mexico-matamoros-americans-kidnapped-wednesday/index.html

Reply to “Comment on ‘Quantum Gravity in the Early Universe’” by S. E. Shephard and A. W. Parsey

An earlier version of this story had the wrong source. She made the comments to CNN affiliate WPDE.