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NEW: Three undocumented immigrants killed in truck rollover accident

Web Posted: 01/11/2006 10:11 AM CST
Mariano Castillo
Express-News Border Bureau

LAREDO - Three undocumented immigrants were killed and four critically injured when the pickup truck they were riding in rolled over Tuesday night on a desolate stretch of FM 1867 in south eastern Zavala County.

Six more immigrants in the truck suffered minor injuries and were transported to local hospitals.

The survivors told officers there were 19 undocumented immigrants in the truck, Zavala County Sheriff Eusevio Salinas Jr said.

It happened at about 8:15 p.m., Salinas said.

This morning, Border Patrol agents searched the area with K-9s for the driver and possibly three passengers who fled the accident.

Pending the notification of the Mexican Consulate the names of the victims were not released.

Salinas said the victims were two men, ages 45 and 25, and one woman, 28.

All of the other victims were men, Salinas said.

The immigrants were packed into the cab and bed of a Ford pickup super cab.

The incident is being investigated as a single-car rollover, Salinas said.

The truck rolled over at least twice, and came to rest on the side of the road, with bodies scattered in a 200-foot radius.

"It was horrible, it looked a war scene, to be honest," Salinas said. "There were bodies scattered on both sides of the road."

The cab had peeled off the truck, Salinas said.

The cause of the wreck is under investigation. DPS officers were reconstructing the rollover today.

The stretch of road where the rollover happened is so rural that it took officers a half hour to arrive, Salinas said.

At the scene last night, three of the critically injured men were airlifted to University Hospital in San Antonio. The fourth seriously injured man was airlifted to Wilford Hall.

The others were being treated at Dimmit County Memorial and Uvalde Medical Center.

mcastillo@express-news.net