Thread: Suspects Named In Border Jet Ski Murder UPDATED

Suspects Named In Border Jet Ski Murder

Updated: Sunday, 10 Oct 2010, 9:20 AM MDT
Published : Sunday, 10 Oct 2010, 9:20 AM MDT

(NewsCore) - Mexican police identified two men as suspects in the murder of American David Hartley, who was allegedly shot in the head while jet skiing on Falcon Lake, which borders the U.S. and Mexico, KRGV.com reported Sunday.

Police commander Juan Carlos Ballasteros said Juan Pedro Saldivar Farias and his brother Jose Manuel are suspects in a string of murders, kidnappings, armed robberies and fires in the northern Tamaulipas state where the shooting took place.

David Hartley's wife, Tiffany Hartley, said men in three boats opened fire on the couple while they were jet skiing -- shooting her husband in the head. She told authorities she had to leave her husband's body behind. Mexican police, who have yet to discover the body, have questioned Tiffany Hartley's account of the incident.

But other authorities suggest the couple may have been attacked by pirates working for a drug cartel.

The couple reportedly crossed to the Mexican side of the lake, which is known to authorities as a favorite location for trafficking drugs across the border, on a sightseeing trip when the gunmen approached.

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) said the lake was notorious for Mexican drug pirates and, in a statement, warned people not to leave the safety of U.S. waters.

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpps/news/s ... 0_10042618

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it is me, or does anyone else find it interesting that two days after saying they were starting an investigation, two suspects were named.

Are these two guys really the guilty ones or the ones the Mexican government is chosing to take a fall in order to get the matter out of the news?

Texas Sheriff Says NO Suspects Have been named

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-214848.html

Originally Posted by jamesw62

it is me, or does anyone else find it interesting that two days after saying they were starting an investigation, two suspects were named.

I see it as good police work.

ABC News coverage VIDEO @

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/mexican ... y-11843971

Report: Mexican Officials ID 2 Suspects in Lake Attack

Updated: 1 hour 59 minutes ago
AOL News

(Oct. 10) -- Mexican officials reportedly have identified two suspects in the alleged shooting of an American man on a Texas-Mexico border lake.

David Hartley, 30, has been missing since Sept. 30, when he and his wife, Tiffany, were allegedly attacked by pirates as they rode Jet Skis on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake, a known stronghold for the Zeta drug cartel. Tiffany Hartley told officials her husband was shot in the back of the head and fell from his Jet Ski. The 29-year-old said she tried unsuccessfully to rescue him, but then fled to safety on the U.S. side of the lake. Texas authorities believe David Hartley was killed in the attack.

Tamaulipas State Police Commander Juan Carlos Ballesteros told the El Universal newspaper that authorities are searching for Juan Pedro Saldivar-Farias and Jose Manuel Saldivar-Farias in the case, according to CBS News.

When asked about the suspects' identification on NBC's "Today" show, Hartley said, "We have gotten word that they have been identified. As far as we know, nobody is in custody or anything. Hopefully, it will be a good lead and they can lead us to where David is. Right now, we just don't know."

Officials also said they were continuing the search for David Hartley's body on Sunday and were using military aircraft in the effort, reported KGBT.

Mexican officials had previously questioned Tiffany Hartley's version of events. "We are not certain that the incident happened the way that they are telling us," Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrizales, the district attorney whose area covers Falcon Lake, told The Monitor.

Hartley has insisted she's telling the truth and said she would take a lie detector test to prove it. On Friday, the same day Mexico announced it would launch a formal investigation into the shooting, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said, "There's no reason for us to doubt what she's saying. Our investigation is really for us to get a body."

Gonzalez says that a blood smear on Tiffany Hartley's life vest and a video showing the couple en route to the lake corroborate her story.

On the Today show on Sunday, Hartley again denied having anything to do with her husband's death or disappearance and said she just wanted to get David back.

"That's all we want," she said. "Obviously, we can't prosecute over here in the United States, which is fine. I think in due time, they will get they deserve. But all we want is David."

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/m ... y/19668156

Search for Body Continues in Mexican Pirate Attack

Family Says They Doubt There Will Be an Arrest, Just Hope to Find Body
By DEAN SCHABNER, RYAN OWENS, GINA SUNSERI and LEE FERRAN
Oct. 10, 2010

Family of the Texas man allegedly killed in a Mexican pirate attack said today they don't think anyone will ever be arrested, even though officials south of the border have named two suspects.

"I doubt that they ever make an arrest," said Bob Young, father-in law of David Hartley, whose wife Tiffany says he was gunned down by marauding pirates 10 days ago when the two were Jet Skiing on Falcon Lake, along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I don't know, and as far as finding the body all we can do is hope," Young said.

Just days after questioning Tiffany Hartley's account of the incident, Mexican investigators said Saturday night that they had identified two Zeta drug cartel members as suspects in David Hartley's killing.

But officials unexpectedly called off a news conference Saturday night at the last minute, and instead quietly released the information about the suspects.

"It is surely because of the danger posed to everyone by the cartels taking revenge on anyone following up the case," one Mexican journalist who has covered the country's drug wars told ABC News in an email.

Mexican investigators have been unable to find David Hartley's body or the Jet Ski he was riding, and have had their search interrupted more than once by attacks by suspected drug cartel gunmen.

Tiffany Hartley today said she at least hopes that with the naming of the suspects, Mexican police might be able to find her husband's body.

"I hope that its going to, you know, bring David home," she said. "Hopefully they can tell us where he is and locate, you know, where he's at so we can kind of end this. As long as we find him, you know, then we can at least kind of bring some closure to this."

The two suspects were identified Saturday night as Pedro Saldiva Farrias, 27, and his brother, Jose Manuel Saldiva Farrias, whose age was not given.
Juan Carlos Ballesteros, an investigator with the state prosecutor's office of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, said both were said to be suspected members of the Zeta drug cartel from Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, near the abandoned town where David and Tiffany Hartley were sightseeing before they were ambushed.

Early on in the case, Mexican police had questioned Tiffany Hartley's account of the incident on Sept. 30, saying they could find neither her husband's body, nor his Jet Ski, after she said she had to abandon him on Falcon Lake as the marauding pirates approached. An eyewitness come forward late last week, claiming that he saw Tiffany Hartley fleeing in panic to the American side of the lake.

"I saw the Jet Ski come around an island," the witness told "Good Morning America" on Thursay. "There was something wrong actually. The way I saw her come around it looked like something terribly wrong happened. I mean, she was jittery, frantic. ... She was crying, sobbing."

As a safety precaution, the witness spoke in shadow and with voice alteration to avoid identification because he said he feared for his life.

What the witness did not see -- what apparently no one but the alleged victims and attackers saw -- was what exactly happened on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake, which straddles the border between Texas and Mexico.

Tiffany Hartley said she and her husband took Jet Skis to the Mexican side of the lake to take pictures of a small church when suddenly a band of Mexican pirates opened fire on them with assault rifles.

In a heartwrenching 911 call, Hartley tells the dispatcher that her husband has been shot in the head and that she is too weak to pull his body up onto her Jet Ski. She was forced to abandon him there.

Tiffany Hartley returned for the first time Wednesday to the location where she said her husband was killed last week.

"It was hard, just remembering everything about us going in to go take pictures and enjoying the sunny day and enjoying the nice weather," Tiffany Hartley, wife of missing David Hartley, told "Good Morning America" today, just hours after returning from the emotional trip.

Surrounded by a flotilla of police and politicians, Tiffany Hartley looked somber as she gazed at the water -- the last place she saw her husband alive.

In the days since the alleged attack, Hartley has defended herself from those who question the credibility of her story.

"It's hard to believe that they don't believe me, but it is a story that most people don't understand that pirates would be on a lake, that the cartel[s] are taking over Mexico. It's a story that people don't understand unless they're on that border."

U.S. officials said they're prohibited from entering Mexican waters to search for his body. In addition to President Obama, David Hartley's mother, Pam Hartley, has issued a public plea to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking for aid in bringing her son's body home.

"He needs to come home and we're begging the Mexican government, the governor of Texas, President Obama," the man's mother, Pam Hartley, told "Good Morning America" Tuesday.

"To Hillary -- mother to mother -- help me bring my son home, please," she said, crying. "She's a mother, she would know."

Couple Disregarded Warnings About Danger
David Hartley was a history buff. Tiffany Hartley, 29, said she and her husband dismissed warnings about crossing into the Mexican side of the lake so they could take pictures of a historic church. She said it had been some months since they had heard reports of pirates being on the lake.
According to Hartley, while they were making their way back to the U.S. border, the couple was approached by three boats of fully armed pirates, she said.

Mexico has launched a helicopter search of Falcon Lake for David Hartley's body.(ABC News)

"David and I were racing back to the U.S., and they started shooting," she told "Good Morning America." "I looked back, and I saw that David had been shot, and I turned around to go get him."

Under Attacks, Woman Had to Leave Injured Husband Behind
Hartley said she tried as hard as she could to pull her husband onto her own Jet Ski to take him to safety, "but he's a lot bigger than me.

"You can't imagine how awful it was not being able to help him," she said.
Knowing her own life was in jeopardy, Hartley said she was forced to abandon her husband. She took her Jet Ski at top speed back to the U.S. shore and placed a panicked 911 call.

U.S. authorities have searched Falcon Lake on the American side, to no avail.

The state of Texas had warned boaters and fisherman as long ago as April to stay away from the Mexican side of the lake. Since then, the drug wars along the border have gotten more violent and there have been reports of more pirate encounters.

Lake Has Become Pirate's Haven
Falcon Lake, part of the Rio Grande situated directly on the Texas-Mexico border, has recently become a haven for the pirates, and there have been at least five reported run-ins with pirates on the lake this year, although this is the first reported death.

"The one thing I dreaded on Falcon Lake has happened," Texas' Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said days after the attack on the Hartleys. "The lake is not secure, the border is not secure because the incident that I dreaded the most has, in fact, happened. We cannot go to Mexico, we cannot recover that body, we cannot conduct an investigation, we have to tell the family we can't do anything about it."

ABC News' Kevin Dolak and Sarah Netter, as well as The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/authorites-fea ... d=11843864