On Friday, March 5th, four U.S. citizens attempted to cross the border into Mexico in a white minivan with North Carolina plates, only to be confronted by unidentified gunmen and kidnapped. On Tuesday, the tragic result of their abduction was revealed by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador: two of the four Americans had been found dead, while the other two were found alive, one of them injured.

The group of four, identified as Zindell Brown, Eric James Williams, and cousins Latavia "Tay" McGee and Shaeed Woodard, had traveled from South Carolina to Mexico for McGee’s medical appointment. McGee’s mother, Barbara Burgess, had last heard from her daughter when she was 15 minutes away from the doctor’s office.

The kidnapping was a result of getting caught in the middle of a confrontation between