Thread: Immigrant describes horror of failed smuggling attempt

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Immigrant describes horror of failed smuggling attempt

By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press

HOUSTON — Near death and his vision blurred, Jose Juan Roldan Castro could still survey the horrific aftermath of the nation’s deadliest human smuggling attempt once the doors of the tractor-trailer stuffed with more than 70 illegal immigrants were opened.

“I could see all those people lying on the floor of the trailer,” he said. “People were on top of each other. I tried to get away from that. It’s terrible to be seeing that.”

Roldan recounted his experience of nearly four hours inside the airtight tractor-trailer during testimony Thursday in the retrial of Tyrone Williams, who drove the vehicle.

Williams could face the death penalty for his role in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants during the May 2003 smuggling attempt from South Texas to Houston.

Roldan said he so feared for his life after climbing inside the trailer at a secluded field near Harlingen that he immediately removed a metal sheet covering one of vehicle’s back doors and used his fists to punch a hole through one of the rear signal lights and let air in. At first, other immigrants tried to stop him.

“I shouted, ’Don’t you understand. We are in danger here of dying because no air is coming in,”’ he testified in Spanish through an interpreter.

Roldan, 30, from Puebla, Mexico, was the first survivor of the smuggling attempt to testify in Williams’ retrial, which began Monday.

Roldan said he was told by the smugglers that he and the other immigrants would be let out and transported in other vehicles to Houston once they passed a Border Patrol checkpoint in Sarita. But the trailer kept going.

During the trip, the trailer’s temperatures skyrocketed, in part because the vehicle’s air conditioning system was not turned on. The immigrants were forced to peel off their clothes and punch additional holes through the back doors for air as their body temperatures rose from their normal 98.6 degrees to as high as 113 degrees. The first immigrant who died was a 5-year-old boy.

Roldan said he couldn’t understand how Williams didn’t hear or feel as he and the other immigrants desperately banged on the trailer’s walls and shouted they were dying and needed to be released.

“He did not have one ounce of compassion, and he continued without stopping,” Roldan said. “Only a person who was blind and deaf could have done what he did.”

By the time the trailer’s doors were opened and Williams abandoned the container at a truck stop about 100 miles southwest of Houston, 17 immigrants were dead. Two died later. They died from dehydration, overheating and suffocation.

Craig Washington, Williams’ defense attorney, while questioning Roldan, tried to place blame on other members of the smuggling ring. He said they were more aware than his client that the trailer was filled with too many people.

“Since he is the driver of the trailer, he is responsible,” Roldan said.

Prosecutors say Williams was solely responsible for the immigrants’ deaths because he ignored their cries for help and failed to turn on his vehicle’s air conditioning unit.

A jury convicted Williams last year on 38 transporting counts, but he avoided a death sentence because the jury couldn’t agree on his role in the crime. The jury deadlocked on 20 other counts. However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the decision, saying the verdict didn’t count because the jury failed to specify his role in the crime.

Williams, 35, a Jamaican citizen who lived in Schenectady, N.Y., is the only one of 14 people charged in the case who is facing the death penalty. He was indicted on 58 transporting, harboring and conspiracy counts, 20 of which are eligible for the death penalty.

So far, seven people have been sentenced to prison in the case. Sentencing for three others is pending. Charges against two were dismissed, and one man remains a fugitive.

That is a horrible way to die and it never would have happened if they didn't try to BREAK INTO AMERICA ILLEGALLY!

I thought the lack of accountability of American citizens was bad, the illegal Mexicans take it to a whole new level.

I wonder if the news is going to show anything of the 25 Americans dying EVERYDAY at the hands of illegals?

Lots of people pay smugglers to come here. It doesn't matter if they pay smugglers or not, many do die in their attempt. There have been articles in the newspapers of all the Jane and Joe Does at the medical exminers offices in the south west states. Some of them include children. This is the price they pay for their attempts.

http://wwNov. 1, 2006, 11:24PM
Riders paid extra to sit up front
Woman testifies she was instead thrown into the death trailer


By HARVEY RICE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

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Maria Elena Castro Reyes' husband paid $1,500 to ensure that she would be able to ride comfortably in the sleeper compartment in the cab of Tyrone Williams' truck.

Instead, several men picked her up by her hair and legs to hurl her into the trailer with an estimated 100 other illegal immigrants for a journey that would put them all in fear of their lives and leave 19 dead, she testified Wednesday in Williams's retrial.

In less than an hour she was holding a dying 5-year-old boy in her arms, she testified during the retrial in which the prosecution is seeking the death penalty for Williams.

Castro Reyes, 30, of Honduras, was one of several passengers who paid a premium price to ride in what they thought would be the air-conditioned comfort of the truck cab.

When Williams backed his tractor-trailer rig into a Harlingen field about 10 a.m. May 13, 2003, the doors were opened and immigrants swarmed inside the trailer, according to testimony by survivors.

But Castro Reyes and three other women walked up to the passenger door expecting to be allowed inside, she testified under questioning by assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez and defense attorney Craig Washington.

She said she knocked on the door, to no avail, then headed toward the rear of the trailer after feeling the truck jerk as if it were being put in gear in preparation to move.

Indignant at being asked to ride in the trailer, she refused to board, Castro Reyes said.

"They told me I could not stay here, that I had to get on," she said. "They got me by my feet and by my hair and they threw me inside the door."


Unbearable heat
The heat quickly became unbearable inside the trailer, she recalled. Castro Reyes, whose

3-year-old son was being transported in a separate vehicle, said she went to the assistance of a 5-year-old boy.

She held the boy in her arms and fanned him with a towel as he cried in discomfort, she said.

Castro Reyes was holding the boy when the truck came to the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint at Sarita, and they were told to keep quiet to avoid discovery, Castro Reyes said.

"I was telling the boy, 'Don't cry, we'll be there soon,' " she sobbed. Later she said she heard the boy say, "Daddy, I'm dying."

The boy died soon after, she said, and the father screamed for someone to help him.

The death of the boy caused a burst of screaming and pounding on the trailer walls, she recalled.

Castro Reyes said she was trapped by bodies that fell on her, but others pulled her from beneath the dead.

Williams, 35, a Jamaican immigrant from Schenectady, N.Y., is being retried on 58 smuggling counts, 20 carrying a possible death sentence. The first trial in March last year ended in a hung jury.

The prosecution says Williams ignored the plight of the immigrants in his sealed refrigeration trailer. Witnesses have said the refrigeration was never turned on and they began fighting to stay alive as temperatures rose and air grew scarce.

Nineteen passengers died of dehydration, suffocation and hyperthermia.

Williams' abandoned trailer was found May 14, 2003, at a Victoria truck stop with bodies piled inside.

Jermaine Mosley, a mechanic for Houston Freightliner, examined a photo of the the abandoned trailer and said it appeared that Williams was in such a hurry that he neglected to lower the trailer legs, causing it to fall when the truck was unhitched.

Clara Phillips, an emergency room nurse at Twelve Oaks Medical Center in Houston, said Williams checked into the emergency room and she began taking patient information from him at 6:15 a.m.

She said he claimed to be suffering from anxiety after discovering illegal immigrants in his trailer.

"Truck supposed to be empty, heard a sound, opened truck and found over 50-plus illegal immigrants in truck," Phillips wrote on the form.

The defense argues that Williams did not realize that the immigrants in the trailer were fighting for their lives until he stopped in Victoria to buy water for his passengers and heard a voice cry for help in English.

harvey.rice@chron.com
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