Thread: AZ: Body of Illegal Border Crosser Found

Body of illegal border crosser found west of Lukeville
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.04.2009

U.S. Border Patrol agents discovered the body of a 26-year-old Mexican man Saturday afternoon west of Lukeville on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

The search for the man began on Wednesday of last week when a friend of the deceased called from Mexico to alert the Border Patrol’s Ajo station about a dead body in the desert west of Lukeville, said Rob Daniels, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman.

The caller said he had been apprehended by the Border Patrol days earlier after traveling through the desert with the deceased man but for unknown reasons, didn’t tell agents at that time, Daniels said. He said they had crossed 10 miles west of Lukeville.

Helicopters from the Yuma and Tucson Sectors joined in on the search but they weren’t able to find him until Saturday at about 2 p.m., Daniels said. They found the body about three miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border and more than 10 miles west of Lukeville near Cipriano Pass, he said.
Pima County Sheriff’s deputies recovered the body and transported it to the Pima County Medical Examiner’s office. The Mexican Consulate was also contacted.

Through the first seven months of fiscal year 2009, there have been 84 bodies of suspected illegal border crossers recovered across Arizona’s U.S.-Mexico border, up from 77 at the same time last year, the Arizona Daily Star’s border death database shows. The database is based on information from county medical examiners.

May is the month when the number of bodies found usually begins to increase, the database shows. From 2004-2008, an average of 23 bodies have been found each May along Arizona’s U.S.-Mexico border. That makes May the fourth deadliest month behind June, July and August, information from county medical examiner’s shows.

Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/291428.php

God bless the Tucson "Red Star".