Alfredo Peña/Associated Press
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It was supposed to be a fun road trip to Mexico for a group of childhood friends. But once they got there, the trip took a terrible turn, and two members of the group would never make it home. Shortly after Latavia McGee and her friends crossed the border and drove into Matamoros, their van was crashed into and they came under gunfire by Gulf cartel members. McGee and Eric Williams, who were loaded into a pickup truck by their captors, would be held for three days next to the bodies of their two slain friends.
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The anonymous tip that led Mexican authorities to a remote shack where four abducted Americans were held described armed men, people wearing blindfolds and plenty of activity around a ranch. Mexican investigative documents viewed Friday by The Associated Press describe how authorities headed for the rural area east of Matamoros on Tuesday morning, leaving the highway and driving remote dirt roads looking for the described location.
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A letter claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel blamed for abducting four Americans and killing two of them condemns the violence and says the gang turned its own members who were responsible over to authorities. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press through a Tamaulipas state law enforcement official, the Scorpions faction of the Gulf cartel apologized to the residents of Matamoros where the Americans were kidnapped, the Mexican woman who died in the cartel shootout and the four Americans and their families.
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Officials say two survivors of a deadly abduction in Mexico are back on U.S. soil. They were brought to a hospital in Brownsville, Texas, on Tuesday. Two other Americans were killed after the group got caught in a drug cartel shootout last week. Officials say the group was on a road trip to Mexico for one of them to get cosmetic surgery. The Americans were hauled away in a truck but were found Tuesday in a remote area near the Gulf coast in a wood shack.