Special Report: The Trail

Reported by: Will Ripley
Last Update: 10:49 pm

(2009) BROOKS CO. - Thousands of footsteps have carved a trail through the South Texas brush.

It's a dangerous journey north taken by thousands of illegal immigrants each year.

Some of them will make it past the Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias.

Others will get lost on the trail and end up dead.

One El Salvadoran woman said she traveled 15 days until her smuggler, called a coyote, left her behind.

"Because I was walking and I couldn't stand it anymore so I stayed," she said. "They chased us and I couldn't keep up so I stopped."

The woman paid her coyote $6,000 to smuggle her.

He left her with no food, water, or hope.

She thought she would die on the trail when a man found her and led her to safety.

"When I saw him I felt like he was an angel," she said.

The Brooks County Sheriff's Department recovered 74 bodies in 2009.

Deputies say many more bodies will never be found due to rapid decomposition.

The county has a book filed with the names and photos of missing persons. All of them are presumed dead.

The few bodies hat can be identified are returned to their families.

Others end up in a small corner of the Brooks co. cemetery with grave markers that read simply "unknown."

Investigator Daniel Davila said in his 16 years he's never seen a person whose been reported missing come out of the brush alive.

"The tragic part of this is these people, the majority, are coming for a better life," he said. "They're coming to work. They're coming to better themselves and their family."

http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Sp ... F6fWw.cspx