Found Deceased Mexico - Alex, 22, & Jose Alvarado, 21, Erica Rivera, 26, El Control, 13 Oct 2014

EL CONTROL, Mexico (October 27, 2014) A Texas woman says her adult daughter and sons are still missing in northern Mexico, two weeks after witnesses saw armed men take them. Raquel Alvarado says witnesses saw armed men take her daughter Erica Alvarado Rivera, 26, and sons, Alex, 22, and Jose Angel, 21, on Oct. 13 in El Control, a small town near the Texas border west of Matamoros. The three are from Progreso and were visiting their father in Mexico. Alvarado said Monday that witnesses identified the armed men as members of the Hercules group, a police unit that provides security to Matamoros' mayor.

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Four bodies were found Wednesday east of the border city of Matamaros, near where three young Americans went missing more than two weeks ago, a Mexican state official said...

A second state official said investigators were trying to determine if the dead include three siblings from Progreso, Texas, who disappeared with a fourth person Oct. 13. The official, who said the bodies were badly decomposed, insisted on speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the press...

Mexican authorities on Wednesday asked the siblings' father what they were wearing when they disappeared, Alvarado said.

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Three bodies found in Matamoros are now confirmed to be those of missing Progreso siblings...

The group was eating at a taco stand when a group of armed men, who identified themselves as members of a Matamoros police unit, kidnapped them...

The new report from Mexican media state the victims may have been shot to death, their bodies later burned.

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State Attorney General Ismael Quintanilla Acosta says the father of the three identified them from photographs of the bodies showing tattoos. Clothing found with the bodies near the border city also match that of the three siblings from Progreso, Texas, who disappeared with a fourth person.

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Authorities are investigating a possible police connection to the killing of three U.S. citizens visiting their father in Mexico who were found shot to death along with a Mexican friend more than two weeks after going missing.

Parents of the three siblings, whose bodies were identified Thursday, have said witnesses reported they were seized by men dressed in police gear calling themselves "Hercules," a tactical security unit in the violent border city of Matamoros heavily racked by cartel infighting. Nine of the unit's 40 officers are being questioned, Tamaulipas state Attorney General Ismael Quintanilla Acosta said.

It would be the third recent case of alleged abuse and killings by Mexican security forces and the first to involve Americans.

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The mother of three Americans whose bodies were found in Mexico on Wednesday said a soldier at a military installation in Matamoros witnessed the siblings enter the barracks earlier this month with members of a recently formed police unit called Grupo Hercules...

“He told us Erica was very beaten, and Jose Angel's legs were injured,” said Raquel Alvarado, 46, the mother said referring to her daughter and one of her sons who were killed. “They hit her as though she were a man”...

Days later, Pedro was tipped off to the location of the black Jeep Cherokee his daughter had driven to his home in El Control, Mexico, the day before she was abducted. Raquel Alvarado said the vehicle was found in a the parking lot of a car dealership owned by a close confidant of Matamoros Mayor Leticia Salazar, who established the Hercules unit. Several of Erica's personal belongings were still inside, her mother said. The Jeep was immediately returned to family, even as members of Grupo Hercules followed Pedro to his home in El Control.

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The Mexican father of the three Americans, Pedro Alvarado, had previously identified his children from photos of the bodies. But the prosecutor's statement said DNA tests permitted them to officially confirm the deaths of Erica Alvarado Rivera, 26, and her brothers, Alex, 22, and Jose Angel, 21, all of Progreso, Texas. They disappeared Oct. 13 along with Jose Guadalupe Castaneda Benitez, Erica Alvarado's 32-year-old boyfriend.

Each of the four dead had been shot in the head and the bodies were burned, most likely from lying in the hot sun for so long, Tamaulipas state Attorney General Ismael Quintanilla Acosta said Friday.

His office's statement said that in addition to questioning nine of the 40 officers in the Hercules unit, investigators were interviewing the unit's director, City Clerk Joe Mariano Vega, and city public safety director Juan Sanchez.

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OkieGranny said:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...-told-her-children-were-beaten-at-5861441.php

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Mexican human rights investigators on Tuesday interviewed employees at an import car lot where the parents of three young Americans shot to death in Mexico say they found their vehicles.

Inside a tall iron gate, a team of five from the National Human Rights Commission was seen conducting interviews and taking photographs at the property in downtown Matamoros. The Alpha car import business is owned by Luis Alfredo Biasi, social welfare secretary for the city of Matamoros. Later Tuesday, the National Human Rights Commission released a statement saying it had started investigating the siblings' disappearances in October and is now looking into their homicides as well.

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While Mexican officials investigate whether the Matamoros mayor's tactical police force had anything to do with the murders of three Texans and one Mexican national in October, a U.S. intelligence report suggests another possible scenario -- the involvement of a cartel.

One of the four killed, Jose Guadalupe Castaneda Benitez, 32, had been convicted three times for illegal entry into the U.S. and was “possibly associated” with a criminal organization, according to a Homeland Security Investigations document obtained by the Breitbart Texas news site. He was the boyfriend of Erica Alvarado Salinas, 26, of Progreso, who was also killed...

Erica and Alex had been arrested on marijuana smuggling charges on Oct. 7, 2013, at the Falfurrias checkpoint operated by U.S. Border Patrol, but they were not prosecuted, which is not unusual since the amount was under 50 pounds.

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A Progreso mother believes there will be answers to her children’s death. Raquel Alvarado's three children were found dead in a town near Matamoros last October.

Alvarado said there is progress in her children's case, but not much is being done. She said the father of the three children is the only one communicating with Mexican authorities.

She said one person has been arrested.

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