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Mom reunited with kids
Tears flow as Phoenix-area woman hugs son, daughter, taken to Mexico after triple slayings.
July 20, 2005

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico - Oneida Isabel Acosta Castro could barely sit still.

As she waited yesterday morning in Phoenix to board a plane for Mexico, she knew this was going to be the saddest day of her life. And the happiest.

Sad because her parents and brother, who authorities believe were slain by her ex-boyfriend, were being buried in Mesa. Happy because she was being reunited with the children her ex-boyfriend, Rodrigo Cervantes Zavala, was accused of kidnapping. Inside, emotions were tearing her apart.

"I feel so much pain and so much happiness," Acosta, 29, said. "But I know when I have my children back, the happiness will wipe away all the pain."

Four hours later and a thousand miles away, Acosta was in front of the Attorney General's Office in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, and the moment she had been waiting for arrived.

She would be able to hold 3-year-old Jenny and 18-month-old Bryan once again.

Police escorted her to where a social worker climbed out of a gray pickup truck. The worker was carrying a small boy, half asleep, slung over her shoulder.

It was Bryan. As Acosta took the boy into her arms, tears poured down her face.

Next the social worker carried a girl out of the pickup. It was Jenny.

Social workers had dressed her in a sky-blue gown, the kind a girl might wear to a fancy party. At first, the children didn't seem to recognize their mother.

"Bryan, Jenny, it's me, Mommy," Acosta said over and over.

Then the children started to cry hard.

They kept crying for a long time.

After spending the night in Puerto Vallarta, Acosta and her children planned to fly to Phoenix today.

Acosta, an illegal immigrant, is returning to the United States under a humanitarian permit, Mexican Counsel Carlos Flores Vizcarra and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said yesterday.

She is a witness, Arpaio said.

"If critics want to complain I'm smuggling aliens across the border to save two kids, so be it," he said.

Vizcarra pointed out that Acosta could receive a waiver to stay in the United States and apply for permanent residency because the children, who were born in the United States, are citizens.



No matter where they live, Acosta and her children will have to deal with the events of July 11.

Acosta said she does not know if her children witnessed the slayings.

She knows they will need "a lot of psychological help."

The night of July 11, authorities said, Cervantes Zavala went to Acosta's home near Queen Creek.

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