| | |  Americas & Beyond | February 2009 
FBI Will Join Search for Missing in Mexico
 Todd Bensman - Chronicle News Service
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Mexican prosecutors in Tamaulipas have agreed to allow FBI technicians to collect DNA from the remains of more than 100 unidentified bodies, a task that could end uncertainty for families whose loved ones remain missing in Mexico.
Once all the samples are collected — along with DNA from relatives in the U.S. — the FBI will examine them in Washington, D.C., for matches in its DNA database.
“We’ve got to find a way to resolve this,” said John A. Johnson, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s McAllen office. “I mean, these are American citizens. If your loved one’s been missing for four years, for God’s sake, that’s a long time, a very long time.”
On Jan. 2, 2003, Laredo resident Sergio Ortiz told his wife he was off to meet a prospective client across the river in Nuevo Laredo and would be back in an hour. The 49-year-old former deputy sheriff was working as a private investigator on traffic accidents and divorce cases.
“I’m still waiting,” said his wife, Daniella. So are dozens of other families in South Texas.
Sergio Ortiz was one of the first on a list that has grown longer by the year, now filled with the names of American citizens missing and believed kidnapped in Mexico.
His wife, along with the families of some 30 missing Texans in Laredo, banded together to form a group called “Laredo’s Missing” to pressure public officials on both sides of the border to find their relatives.
The FBI reports 75 open cases involving kidnappings of Americans in Mexico from Texas to California. The McAllen FBI office, which is responsible for the area from Brownsville to Del Rio, reports 35 Americans have gone missing since 2003.
The unidentified bodies have been buried in unmarked graves in Mexico, although hair and tissue samples, fingerprints and detailed photographs of each victim were taken before burial and stored in prosecutors’ offices in Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo.
Coming up empty
So far, South Texas appears to be the only area where any such DNA testing is occurring, FBI officials say.
Johnson said he came up with the idea after running every possible lead and coming up empty. “If we can’t get them back safely, the next best thing is to bring the body home,” he said.
Tamaulipas State Attorney General Jaime Rodriguez Inurrigarro said helping the FBI is the right thing to do.
“We’re doing our best to collaborate with the U.S. authorities — first, to find the missing and, secondly, to investigate who is responsible and punish those who are,” Rodriguez said.
Officials say finding a DNA match is probably a long shot.
The stepdaughter of William Slemaker, founder of Laredo’s Missing, was kidnapped with another young Laredo woman four years ago. His family provided a blood sample to the FBI.
“I’m still hoping they find our loved ones alive,” he said.
Daniella Ortiz provided the FBI with hair samples taken from her missing husband’s brush.
tbensman(at)express-news.net |
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