Early this week, a man witnessed a horrific scene in rural northern Mexico: a scorched, bullet-ridden vehicle that had been carrying his family members. Down the road were two other vehicles, similarly damaged. Over the past few days, the scene has come to be known as the site of a brutal massacre, where nine women and children — dual U.S.–Mexican citizens who lived in a nearby Mormon community — were slaughtered.
But right now, the New York Times reports, officials have more questions than they do answers. Who murdered these women and children, and why? While some officials are speculating that members of a drug cartel mistook the vehicles as belonging to a rival gang, others — including relatives of the victims — say that the traditionalist family was targeted due to the community’s history of speaking out against drug-related violence. Here’s what we know so far.
On November 4, gunmen opened fire on three cars traveling in broad daylight along a rural road from the Mexican state of Sonora toward Arizona, the Los Angeles Times reports. Inside the cars were three mothers and their children. Some were shot at close range; others, including 6-month-old twins, burned to death after the vehicles caught fire. (It’s unclear how the cars caught fire, or if they were set on fire.) The three mothers and six of their children were killed, though several children survived. One survivor, who is approximately 12, hiked several miles to his family members in La Mora to inform them of what had happened.
“When you know there are babies tied in a car seat that are burning because of some twisted evil that’s in this world, it’s just hard to cope with that,” Kenny LeBarón, a relative, told the New York Times.
A video of the crime scene, posted to Facebook by another man related to the victims, shows a small fire burning inside a charred vehicle.
Per the Times, the victims belong to the LeBarón family, who are dual U.S.–Mexican citizens who have lived in a fundamentalist community, La Mora, near the Arizona border for decades. (While members of the community call themselves Mormon, they are not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
In 2009, the community made headlines after a local drug cartel kidnapped a 16-year-old member of the LeBarón family and held him for a $1 million ransom, which the community refused to pay. In response to the kidnapping, the fundamentalist group pressured the government to intervene, and the cartel eventually returned the boy. After the fact, the LeBaróns, concerned for their safety, armed themselves, which is a violation of Mexican law. Ever since, the family has spoken out about the need for looser gun laws.
A motive for the murders has not yet been determined, and there are two competing theories. While Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has stressed that officials are still collecting information, members of his administration have speculated that the family was killed after one drug cartel mistook it for a rival gang. According to the Los Angeles Times, the scene of the murder is located in a region disputed by two criminal gangs: the Sinaloa cartel and La Linea, which is associated with the Juarez cartel.
But relatives of the victims believe the gunmen knew exactly who they were killing. The LeBaron family has a history of speaking out against drug-related violence in Mexico, so they aren’t buying officials’ line.
“This was no crossfire,” Alex LeBaron, a relative of the victims and member of the Chihuahua state legislature, said on Mexico’s W Radio. “It couldn’t have been a mistake. This is terrorism, plain and simple.”
Jorge Castañeda, the former Foreign Minister of Mexico has also given credence to this theory. “They had stood up to the drug cartels and they did have certain frictions either with the cartels or with neighboring communities over water rights,” he said, per CNN.
On early November 6, Mexican officials announced that an unidentified suspect has been arrested in connection with the massacre. According to CNN, the suspect was found in a town bordering Arizona. He was found with two bound and gagged victims he had taken hostage, as well as multiple assault rifles and vehicles.
While few details have been released, more are expected to be made public soon. “We are waiting for some more intelligence in order to issue an official statement,” the attorney general of Chihuahua, Cesar Peniche Espejel, told Mexico’s Imagen Radio following the arrest.
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