The drug wars, the homicide, the violence south of the border is taking its toll on Americans.
By LISE OLSENHouston Chronicle HOUSTON — A 22-year-old man from Houston and his 16-year-old friend are hauled out of a minivan in Mexico, shot execution style by thugs in a black Lincoln Continental, and left dead in the dirt.
The body of a 65-year-old nurse from Brownsville is found floating in the Rio Grande after a visit to a Mexican beauty salon.
An American retiree, an ex-Marine, is stabbed to death as he camps on a Baja beach with his dog.
More than 200 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2004 – an average of nearly one killing a week, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation into the deaths.
Rarely are the killers captured.
The U.S. State Department tracks most American homicides abroad, but the department releases minimal statistics and doesn’t include victims’ names or details about the deaths. The Chronicle examined hundreds of records to document the personal tragedies behind them.
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