Nine US citizens — including three moms and six children — were massacred on a road in northern Mexico, possibly because a drug cartel mistook their SUV caravan for rivals, authorities said on Tuesday.
The doomed group — part of a Mormon community that settled in Mexico decades ago to pursue polygamy — included a 29-year-old mom fatally shot in the chest when she jumped out of her Chevy Suburban in rural Sonora and frantically waved her arms to try to get the drug thugs to stop, Mexican prosecutors said.
Before dying, the mother, Christina Marie Langford Johnson, put her 7-month-old daughter Faith’s car seat on the vehicle’s floor, likely saving the baby’s life, relatives said.
Another mother and her four kids were burned alive in their Chevy Tahoe, authorities and kin said.
“It appeared that one [of the kids in the Tahoe] tried to escape, as the front passenger door was open and the remains were partially in and out of the vehicle,” relative Kendra Lee Miller wrote on Facebook.
“They were ambushed by the Mexican cartels; shot, burned and murdered in cold blood. These were innocent civilians, American citizens simply trying to live peaceful lives.”
Seven other children in the vehicles, in addition to Johnson’s baby, survived the carnage. The seven, all siblings, were saved when one of them, a boy, hid them under brush outside their SUV before walking back to their community to get help.
At least five of the surviving kids were injured, including one girl who was shot in the face.
The slaughter occurred Monday morning as the three families started out from their home in the community of La Mora in Sonora state about 70 miles south of the Arizona border, reports said.
All of the victims are believed to have been members of the extended LeBaron family, which settled in Sonora decades ago, after the Mormon church in Utah banned polygamy.
Two of the vehicles — one driven by Johnson and the other by mom Dawna Langford, 43 — were headed to see family, possibly for a wedding in Chihuahua, reports said.
The third SUV was driven by mom Rhonita Maria Miller, 30. She was on her way to pick up her husband at a Phoenix airport to celebrate their anniversary, kin said. She had four of their seven kids in the car with her: Howard, 12, Krystal, 10, and 8-month-old twins Titus and Tiana.
But Miller’s vehicle, the Tahoe, got a flat tire on the dirt road and before she could get help, the vehicle was under siege, riddled by bullets. One of the bullets apparently ignited the SUV’s gas tank, causing it to explode.
She and the kids “were burnt to a crisp,” a relative said.
Meanwhile, several miles ahead, gunmen opened fire on the other two vehicles.
Langford was shot dead in her own Suburban along with her 11-year-old son, Trevor, and 2-year-old son, Rogan. She had her seven other kids in the car with her, including the son who helped hide his siblings.
Authorities said they recovered more than 200 shell casings, mostly from assault rifles, from the scene, which stretched over several miles. A relative who came upon the bloodshed shortly after said there were “50 to 60″ men “armed to the teeth” still milling along about a mile of road.
Relatives said the victims were casualties of the escalating war between drug cartels, including the Sinaloa faction once headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and those of Chihuahua and Juarez. Guzman was sentenced to life behind bars earlier this year after a sensational Brooklyn federal court trial.
Authorities said it is unclear whether the victims — who were dual US-Mexican citizens — were targeted because of the LeBaron family’s past skirmishes with the ever-encroaching cartels or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mexico’s security minister, Alfonso Durazo, said at a press conference that the women’s SUVs “could have been confused by the criminal groups that are fighting in the region.”
SUVs are the vehicle of choice for the cartels.
Still, the LeBaron family is no stranger to disputes with the cartel. In 2009, drug traffickers kidnapped a 16-year-old male relative and demanded ransom. The family refused to pay, and the man was eventually freed.
But then a cartel shot dead the man’s brother, 31-year-old Benjamin LeBaron, claiming it was in retaliation for his anti-drug activism.
Law-enforcement sources told The Post that authorities haven’t discounted that the victims may have been targeted.
Part of their community has been complicit with the cartels, supplying drugs to the notorious Hells Angels motorcycle group in the US, a source said.
The FBI is involved in the investigation into Monday’s massacre.
Relatives of the victims said they had not received any warnings of a potential threat.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Lia Eustachewich with Wires
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November 06, 2019 at 10:24AM
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