Body of entrant, 21, is sought
Searchers work west of Nogales; 3 others also die
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.18.2008

Officials are looking in the rugged hills west of Nogales, Ariz., for the body of a 21-year-old woman. Her mother says she died in her arms Tuesday night after the two crossed illegally into the United States.
The death, if confirmed, would be the fourth illegal entrant found dead in Arizona in the past four days.

The mother of Mayra Pacheco-Arevalos, of Michoacan, Mexico, told authorities that she and her daughter crossed the border west of Nogales on Tuesday morning, said Lt. Raoul Rodriguez of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department. When her daughter became sick, the guide left them behind.

The mother estimates she died Tuesday night at about 9 p.m, Rodriguez said.

At first light Wednesday, the mother walked about an hour and half until she reached a house in the Rio Rico area. There she called a contact in Mesa, who called the Mexican Consulate, Rodriguez said. Consulate officials picked her up at the house and dropped her off at the Sheriff's Department, he said.

Santa Cruz deputies and Border Patrol agents began searching Wednesday afternoon before stopping at dark. They resumed their search Thursday morning but had not found the body as of Thursday evening.
The mother is unfamiliar with the area and has been unable to lead officials to the spot where her daughter died, Rodriguez said. "We will continue our search until we find her," he said.

Two other illegal border crossers died this week on the Tohono O'odham Reservation west of Tucson.

In the first incident, a man approached two U.S. Border Patrol agents near the village of Cowlic, about 10 miles southwest of Sells on the reservation, about 5 p.m. Wednesday, said Mike Scioli, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. He told the agents that his friend had been left behind in the desert two days earlier and had likely died.

The Mexican illegal border crosser escorted the agents back along his path where they found the 41-year-old man from Jalisco, Mexico, dead, Scioli said.

The man told agents the two had crossed the border the previous Saturday and walked for two days before his companion began feeling ill. He left his sick friend in search of water but came up empty, Scioli said. He followed the lights to Cowlic.

He estimated his friend probably died on Monday evening. He had known him for 35 years, he told agents.

The second death occurred Monday night about 25 miles southwest of Casa Grande on the northern part of the Tohono O'odham Reservation, Scioli said.

About 8 p.m., agents received a phone call from a man who said he and two others were in distress.

Agents working nearby arrived and found one of the men in extremely critical condition, he said.

They began giving him first aid and called for a helicopter. But while taking him to the location where the helicopter would land, he began convulsing and stopped breathing.

Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

His age is unknown, but agents says he was from Mexico. The other two men in the group were treated at the scene.

The fourth body was found midday Monday by a rancher near the town of Ruby, about 20 miles northwest of Nogales in Santa Cruz County. The man had been dead for several days, Border Patrol said.

From Oct. 1 through the end of March, the bodies of 55 illegal immigrants have been found in Arizona, according to records from the Pima, Cochise and Yuma County medical examiners offices.

That's fewer than the 66 found in the same period the year before.

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