Pictures show the remote lair where four kidnapped Americans were taken after being seized in a bloody ambush that left three people dead.
The four had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, USon Friday, travelling in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates when cartel gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in the gang-war hotspot.
Two of the Americans, who have been identified as Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard, were killed along with a Mexican member of the public hit in the cross fire.
The two surviving Americans, Eric James Williams and Latavia "Tay" McGee, were rescued by authorities after three days being held by the gunmen.
According to the governor of the region Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal, the Americans were moved about “to create confusion and avoid efforts to rescue them.”
Eventually the hostages were found in a cramped wooden hut along with the body of their friend with the second body found outside.
Mexican police arrested Jose Guadalupe N., 24, who was found guarding the scene.
The Americans had driven across the border to get Ms McGee to a tummy tuck appointment.
Their minivan crashed and was fired on shortly after they crossed into the border city of Matamoros on Friday as drug cartel factions tore through the streets, the region’s governor said.
A stray bullet also killed a Mexican woman about a block and a half away.
Video and photographs taken during and immediately after the incident show the minivan sitting beside another vehicle, with at least one bullet hole in the driver’s side window.
A witness said the two vehicles had collided. Almost immediately, several men with tactical vests and assault rifles arrived in another vehicle to surround the scene.
The gunmen walked one of the Americans into the bed of a white pickup, then dragged and loaded up the three others. Terrified civilian motorists sat silently in their cars, hoping not to draw attention.
Two of the victims appeared to be motionless.
Authorities have said they believe it was a case of mistaken identity and the cartel may have thought the four were Haitian drug smugglers.
The state prosecutor said Mexican authorities believe “that it was confusion, not a direct attack.”
The four victims had no criminal record.
The two dead — Woodard, age 33, and Brown, in his mid-20s — will be turned over to US authorities following forensic work at the Matamoros morgue, the governor said.
The surviving Americans were taken back to US soil on Tuesday escorted by Mexican military Humvees and National Guard trucks with mounted machine guns.
The governor said the wounded American, Eric Williams, had been shot in the left leg and the injury was not life threatening.
“It’s quite a relief,” said Robert Williams, 38-year-old Eric’s brother, reached by phone Tuesday in North Carolina. “I look forward to seeing him again and actually being able to talk to him.”
