Mexico - John, 76, & Wanda Casias, 67, found strangled, Nuevo Leon, 31 Jan 2012

Baptist missionary couple from the U.S. found strangled in Mexican city dogged by drug violence

A missionary couple from Texas were slain in their home outside the violence-plagued northern industrial city of Monterrey, the U.S. Embassy and their family said Wednesday.
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The family was originally from Amarillo, but relatives said John and Wanda Casias moved to Mexico in the late 1970s or early 1980s and made it their home.
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John Casias was a Baptist preacher and the couple ran the First Fundamentalist Independent Baptist Church in Santiago, Alirez said.
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Fighting between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels has inflicted a surge of violence and other crimes on Monterrey and the surrounding area since 2010.
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much more at Daily Mail link above

It's getting so dangerous to go into Mexico now, but we keep doing it. Here in San Diego, the other day a couple from San Ysidro went with their children to Tijuana to attend a child's bday party at a family member's home. Just when they were waiting for the children to eat their cake so they could leave, two gunmen burst in and separated the men from the women and children. They took the men in the kitchen and killed them all.

The only thing is there was one male, a 13 yo boy who had been herded into the kitchen with the men. When his grandfather objected to him being there as he was 'just a little boy,' the gunman turned around and said, '..........not today,' and proceeded to shoot the boy in the head.

What is this world coming to that a human life holds no value?

They held the funeral for the youngster yesterday and have had grief counselors at the school he attended. He was a really good kid and was friends with 1/2 his school.

Heartbreaking,
fran

Ugh...I hate this. We used to go to Mexico every year for vacation. My husband said we will absolutely not be going there anymore...and that makes me sad. Its getting worse to instead of better.

we have been to mexico many times, beautiful but no way are we going back there anytime soon....it is downright scary.

We almost took a job in Mexico doing missionary type work last year....We did consider the safety aspect as we have four children, but I didn't realize it was THIS scary..... The people we met when we visited (we were in North Baja) were gracious and wonderful and the only time I felt unsafe was at a roadside checkpoint.

Going to Mexico is like going skydiving. You do it once and don't tempt fate twice. I've done both once and won't do either again.

The country is a war zone now. And has taken a step down to third world status IMO. I really don't know how they're going to recover from all this violence.