Thread: Chiracahua park employee recalls near-deadly attack (update)

May 14, 2014 9:48 PM by Lupita Murillo
kvoa.com

TUCSON - A park employee left for dead at the Chiracahua National Monument nine months ago, speaks out about her attack.

Karen Gonzales, 60, was viciously beaten in broad daylight in one of the park restrooms.

She suffered a brain injury and is now walking with a limp. She tells News 4 Crime Trackers, "I will never forget his face coming at me."

Gonzales was cleaning the women's restroom at the Faraway Ranch Campground when she heard a noise, looked up, and saw her attacker come at her with a rock.

The DNA evidence left behind tied 33-year-old Gilbert Gaxiola as her attacker. The Cochise Country Sheriff's department confirms Gaxiola is an undocumented immigrant.

According to Cochise Co. Sheriff's investigators, Gaxiola hit her so hard, it broke the rock.

The Sergeant told her, he not only hit her with a rock but he slammed her up against the metal door.

Evidence of the dent remains on the door. Gonzales says her hands are still recovering from the injuries. "Maybe some of it was fending off the blows, I don't know. But I know I hit him." She says she also chased after Gaxiola.

During the attack, she says she heard her husband Bob's voice. Bob had just died two weeks before. They'd been married 34 years.

She remembers him saying "Oh dude, that rock is not big enough. You don't know how tough this woman is. Oh yeah, you'll knock her out and that's just temporary then she's going to wake up she's going to realize who did this too her and then she's going beat the ?$#@ out of you."

Detectives say Gaxiola dragged her back into the restroom, and then stole her truck. He was seen in surveillance video going through the drive-thru of two fast food restaurants, and a going to WalMart. "He stole my truck to get back to Douglas and he was caught the very next day with a drug load."

Detectives say he abandoned the truck in Douglas. Border Patrol agents arrested him for drug smuggling the next day.

Besides the scenic rock formations of the Chiricahua National Monument the hiking trails are also used by drug smugglers. In the peaks, drug cartels place lookouts to warn of Border Patrol activity. "I had a gut feeling when I was up at the bone yard that someone was watching me, and he was."

At the same time, Gonzales believes she had people watching out for her as well. "I believe that when this guy did this to me my late son was here my late husband was here and Silas Cochise."

Silas was the great grandson of Cochise the chief of the Chiricahua Apaches. He was also a friend of hers. "It's pretty amazing I survived. It makes me think that there is something else I have to do with my life. I'm still around for a reason. "

One of those reasons, she was there to hold her mother's hand when she passed just a few weeks ago. But it hasn't been easy, she's had her struggles. She said her son told her one morning, "Mom, I just wish one day you'd wake up and be glad you are alive. I started crying and I said me too, me too. But now I am, so I made it, I made it."

Gilbert Gaxiola is charged with attempted first and second degree murder, armed robbery, three counts of aggravated assault kidnapping, and auto theft. He goes to trial this summer.

Gonzales continues to recuperate and credits the love from her friends and family for helping her through this ordeal.

http://www.kvoa.com/news/chiracahua-...-attack-94406/

Where are they now? Those that say that they are here as an "act of love" to make a living for their family?? Where the hell are you, Jeb Bush? I will never let any republican forget about you, Jeb Bush!! I do believe that someone will propose Jeb's "freebie."

by Warner Todd Huston 17 May 2014, 11:27 AM PDT
breitbart

A federal park employee who was attacked and viciously beaten by an illegal immigrant and drug smuggler last year is finally speaking out about her ordeal.

Karen Gonzales, 60, was attacked in broad daylight as she cleaned a park bathroom. The woman suffered brain damage and now walks with a limp as a result of the beating.

Gonzales works at the Chiracahua National Monument in a remote part of Arizona East of Tuscon, close to the Mexican border, an area beset with crossings of illegal aliens and drug traffickers from Mexican cartels.

Nine months ago the employee was cleaning the women's public bathroom at the Faraway Ranch Campground when she was attacked by a man wielding a rock. The attacker was later identified as 33-year old Gilbert Gaxiola.

Gaxiola allegedly hit the woman repeatedly with the rock, so hard, in fact, that the rock shattered.

Gonzales says that her hands are still badly injured from fending off the attack. "Maybe some of it was fending off the blows, I don't know. But I know I hit him," she said.

Eventually, the woman chased the man out of the bathroom, but he eventually dragged her back there. He left her badly wounded, then stole her truck and drove off.

"He stole my truck to get back to Douglas and he was caught the very next day with a drug load," Gonzales said.

Gonzales feels that some of her departed ancestors were looking over her, keeping her alive after the attack. She also credits her family and friends for helping her recover.

KVOA in Tuscon reported, "Gilbert Gaxiola is charged with attempted first and second degree murder, armed robbery, three counts of aggravated assault kidnapping, and auto theft. He goes to trial this summer."

Cochise County Sheriff's spokeswoman Carol Capas noted last year that the area is beset with criminal activity.

"We do have significant foot traffic and vehicle traffic that's attributed to illegal activity," Capas said.

Not far from the park, a local rancher named Rob Krentz was gunned down while checking water lines on his property. The 2010 murder was blamed on an illegal immigrant but police never solved the crime.

Krentz, whose family had been ranching in Cochise County since 1907, reported that illegal aliens had been causing damage and burglarizing his property for some time before he was murdered.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...n-by-Assailant

Mexican Drug Smuggler Who Beat National Park Worker Sentenced

By Michel Marizco
April 18, 2017


A Mexican drug smuggler who crossed the border illegally, then beat a National Park Service employee nearly to death in Arizona was sentenced to 76 years in prison on Monday.


In 2013, Gil Gaxiola assaulted a senior citizen working for the National Park Service in Chiricahua National Monument. He beat her with a rock and left her for dead in a bathroom. Then he stole her Park Service pickup truck.


Gaxiola was detained the next day on an immigration-related charge by the U.S. Border Patrol in Douglas, Arizona, according to the National Park Service. On Monday, he received the long sentence after he was convicted of first degree attempted murder, armed robbery, assault, kidnapping and theft.


During the trial, prosecutors argued Gaxiola was a drug smuggler who stole the vehicle to return to Mexico. His victim told the jury she was a recent widow and suffered a brain injury from the attack.

https://fronterasdesk.org/content/10641/mexican-drug-smuggler-who-beat-national-park-worker-sentenced

Another "dreamer"...dreamed of having his own truck to drive anywhere he pleases.

Pelosi, Brown, Gutierrez, Ryan, DeBlasio, Rahm all think this is ok...just want a "better life" even if they have to kill you to get it.