Texas sheriff exonerates wife in jet-ski murder Blames Mexic

Texas sheriff exonerates wife in jet-ski murder

Blames Mexican drug cartels for incident on border lake

Posted: October 06, 2010
1:00 am Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

http://www.wnd.com/images/101005hartleys.jpg
David and Tiffany Hartley

The Texas sheriff investigating the jet-ski murder of a U.S. citizen on a border lake blames the incident on the Mexican drug cartels, insisting his probe exonerates the wife from any foul play in the incident.

"Mexico is not cooperating with the investigation to find the body of David Michael Hartley," Texas Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo "Sigi" Gonzalez Jr. told WND in an exclusive interview.

According to a Texas Department of Public Safety advisory dated Oct. 1, Hartley, a 30-year old American citizen, was believed killed by Mexican pirates last Thursday on Falcon Lake south of Laredo, Texas, on the Mexican border, as he and his wife, Tiffany, were on jet skis.

"The incident happened on the Mexican side of the lake and we are at the mercy of the Mexican government to get involved," Gonzalez said. "So far, Mexico has refused to do conduct any meaningful rescue or recovery efforts."

Two boatloads of armed men began shooting at the couple, striking David Hartley in the head, according to his wife.

The men continued shooting at Tiffany, 29, when she entered U.S. waters. She managed to escape and return to shore on the U.S. side.

Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrizales, the district attorney for the Miguel Aleman Province adjoining Falcon Lake on the Mexican side, has questioned whether Tiffany Hartley was involved in foul play.

Gonzalez completely rules out foul play on the part of Mrs. Hartley.

"A local witness saw Tiffany Hartley escaping on her jet-ski to the Texas side of the lake," he said. "She came in at high speed and was being pursued by armed men in a Mexican fishing boat that that the witness clearly observed."

Gonzalez said the witness was a long-standing member of the Zapata community who was well known to him and regarded as highly credible.

He said the statement of the witness was recorded in the police file but his name was being withheld from the public to protect his privacy.

"The testimony of this witness dispels any idea Mrs. Hartley was involved in any wrongdoing regarding the murder of her husband," he said firmly. "She called in a 911 phone call to our office at around 2:20 p.m. on the day of the incident, immediately after she got to shore, and her statements to my office confirm what the local witness observed."

Gonzales confirmed to WND that he had interviewed Mrs. Hartley himself.

He attributed the failure to recover David Hartley's jet ski and his body to the unwillingness of Mexico to cooperate

"The drug cartels operate from an island on the Mexican side of the lake," Gonzalez explained.

"Mexican law enforcement authorities do not control the lake – the pirates do," he said. "Tons of illegal drugs are warehoused on that island by the drug cartels for smuggling into the United States, and the pirates are well armed."

He said the pirates are used to guide Mexican drug cartel operatives smuggling drugs to the U.S. side of the lake.

Gonzalez told WND his investigation indicated the Hartleys had jet-skied over to the Mexican side of the lake to photograph an old church that is visible on the lake bank near the Old Guerrero area in Mexico.

"Mr. Hartley was a history buff," he explained, "and they wanted to photograph the church at Old Guerrero.

Hartley worked in the oil industry, and they had just moved to McAllen, Texas, about five months ago."

Gonzalez told WND his investigation revealed that this week Hartley and his wife were planning to move back to Colorado where he planned to take a job with Calfrac, an energy company based in Alberta, Canada.

Gonzalez said the jet-ski incident was the fifth violent incident involving Falcon Lake pirates in recent months.

According to a Falcon Lake advisory published by the Texas Department of Public Safety on Oct. 1, the previous incidents reported were:

April 30: Four heavily armed men boarded two boats near the Old Guerrero area demanding money. The bandits were given $200 in cash and tried to follow the U.S. boats as they sped back to U.S. waters. The bandits stopped once they reached the U.S. boundary.

May 6: Two armed men approach a boat near Marker 14 on the north side of Salado Island on top of the ruins at Old Guerrero. The men demanded money, which the fishermen gave them.

May 16: Five armed men boarded a boat on the U.S. side of the lake near marker 7. Investigators have no further information on the incident.

Aug. 31: Falcon Lake pirates, using a small boat marked "Game Wardin" using duct-taped letters to possibly mimic Texas Parks and Wildlife vessels operating in Texas waters, attempted to stop a Texas fisherman. The fisherman's knowledge of previous Texas DPS warnings about Falcon Lake and the misspelling of the word "Warden" alerted the him that something was wrong, and he outran the Mexican vessel to safety.
"Fisherman are still advised to stay as far away as possible from any of the Argos-type fishing boats typically used as fishing vessels by Mexican fisherman," the Texas DPS warning alerted. "The robbers are believed to be members of a drug trafficking organization or members of an enforcer group linked to a drug trafficking organization who are heavily armed and using AK-47s or AR-15 rifles to threaten their victims."

Gonzalez said Mexican fishing licenses are sold in Zapata County to U.S. citizens that want to game fish on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake.

Still, he warned of the danger in doing so.

"Mexico has taken no steps to control the pirates," he said. "Mexican law enforcement authorities have routinely ignored our requests for assistance."

Texas Park and Wildlife Division Game Wardens and Texas DPS officers, including the Texas Rangers, have been at Falcon Lake since Thursday, assisting the Zapata County Sheriff's Office with the investigation of the jet-ski murder.

TPWD has deployed two 21-foot boats on the lake to search for David Hartley's body and his jet ski.

The Texas DPS has deployed its SWAT team, one of its helicopters and its riverboat to assist.

Still, Gonzalez is not confidant U.S. law enforcement will make any progress investigating the case.

"The incident occurred on the Mexican side of the lake, and truly we are at the mercy of the Mexican government," he said.

Following David Hartley's murder, Texas law enforcement agencies are telling boaters on Falcon Lake to stay on the U.S. side.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=211853

Quote:

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Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrizales, the district attorney for the Miguel Aleman Province adjoining Falcon Lake on the Mexican side, has questioned whether Tiffany Hartley was involved in foul play.

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I wonder how much he is paid by the cartels to allow them to operate freely?

Quote:

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"The drug cartels operate from an island on the Mexican side of the lake," Gonzalez explained.

"Mexican law enforcement authorities do not control the lake – the pirates do," he said. "Tons of illegal drugs are warehoused on that island by the drug cartels for smuggling into the United States, and the pirates are well armed."

He said the pirates are used to guide Mexican drug cartel operatives smuggling drugs to the U.S. side of the lake.

---

Crooked Mexican government and politicians.

So where are your Predators Mr. O?

Now the comments are turning to : She and her suband were dealing drugs for the cartels. Why is there always an excuse for Mexico?

Mystery deepens over alleged border attack
Widow slams investigation as skepticism grows
By LYNN BREZOSKY
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
Oct. 6, 2010, 8:07AM

Update: Friends of an American man allegedly killed by pirates in a lake on the Texas-Mexico border are planning a rally in Denver. The family of David Hartley say Mexican authorities aren’t doing enough to find his body. Supporters plan to gather outside the Mexican consulate at 1 p.m. Friday (Mountain time) to call on them to do more.


• • •
McALLEN — The wife and family of the man reportedly killed by drug thugs on a border lake criticized U.S. and Mexican officials on Tuesday, saying they are not doing enough to find David Hartley's body or to stem the gang violence straining the seams of the southern border.

The family's pleas come amid mounting skepticism about last week's shooting. Comments on media sites, news reports out of Mexico and at least one border business leader have expressed doubts about the story, some wondering why a couple would go there given recent warnings of Mexican pirates, others suggesting a "drug deal gone bad."

"It's awful to even have people think that," Tiffany Hartley said. "I can see how they would, just because we have no body, we have no Jet Ski; we don't have anything. ... I loved my husband more than anything in the world."

She expressed frustration with U.S. and Mexican authorities for the lack of progress in finding her husband.

She says they were sightseeing on Falcon Lake on Thursday when three boatloads of armed men fired on them. Tiffany escaped, but she says her husband was shot in the head and is believed dead.

U.S. officials have said their search for his body is hampered because they can search only the U.S. side for fear of violating international treaty and that they have reached out to their Mexican counterparts for help.

No formal investigation
As of Tuesday morning, Tamaulipas state police had not officially begun investigating the disappearance because they had not received a formal complaint from either the family or U.S. authorities, said Ruben Dario Rios, spokesman for the state attorney general's office.

"But they have unofficially been looking and have found nothing so far," Rios said of the state detectives.

Tiffany and her mother spent about three hours Tuesday afternoon in a private meeting with consular officials in McAllen.

U.S. officials and politicians maintain they have been in touch with Mexican authorities. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, both said they have reached out to agencies in the local, state and federal levels. Matt Chandler, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman, said the U.S. government has also offered to help.

'He was a good man'
Tiffany said Tuesday she's heard nothing from the federal agencies she thought would be taking charge of the search. Instead, she thinks they are tiptoeing around Mexican authorities, and like them are hoping the story about incursions on Falcon Lake goes away.

"I think they're all too worried with elections and everything else, and anything and everything other than our border," she said in a shaking voice from the McAllen studios of KURV radio.

David's mother, Pam, had tears in her eyes as she pleaded for leaders to figure out something to "let us get David."

"He was a good man," she said. "He needs to be laid to rest."

David, 30, and Tiffany, 29, said they took their personal watercraft onto the Mexican side Thursday to photograph ruins of Old Guerrero, a Mexican settlement that was drowned decades ago to make the lake.

Tiffany said they had been aware of the warnings issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety in May about "pirates" shaking down U.S. boaters. But since they hadn't heard of any more recent incidents, they went sightseeing at Falcon Lake in August. Last Thursday was their second outing to the area.

Doubts raised
Investigators in Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas, across from Roma, Texas, told the McAllen Monitor they had doubts about the story.

Chad Foster, former Eagle Pass mayor and prominent member of the Texas Border Coalition, also raised questions.

"What was the shooters' gain? Why let the wife go? Any domestic discord?" he asked.

Tiffany said she could understand why people in other parts of the country may have problems believing her story.

"They just don't grasp what's going on down here. They have no clue," she said.

The 60-mile-long reservoir runs along two sparsely populated Texas border counties with a smuggling tradition that dates back to prohibition-era bootlegging. The Mexican side of the lake is said to be under control of the Zetas, an insurgent arm of the fractious Gulf Cartel.



Staff writer Gary Martin in Washington, D.C., and Houston Chronicle staff writer Dudley Althaus in Mexico City contributed to this report.

lbrezosky@express-news.net
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 33450.html

added to home page

http://www.alipac.us/article-5716--0-0.html

Mystery Deepens Border attack on Lake; Denver Rally Planned
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-214549.html

APNewsBreak: Perry seeks Calderon help in probe

The Associated Press
Updated: 9:40 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010
Published: 1:58 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday he has asked Mexico's president to call him in the next 48 hours to say that the body of an American reportedly shot to death on a border lake has been recovered.

"If not, we're not looking hard enough," Perry told The Associated Press.

Tiffany Hartley of Milliken, Colo., says her husband, David, was shot by Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake last week as they were returning to the United States on Jet Skis. Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande that has been plagued by pirates who rob boaters and fisherman who wander into Mexican waters. Hartley's death would be the first killing on the lake.

The Hartley family has complained that Mexican authorities are not doing enough to find David Hartley's body. Tiffany Hartley has said that her husband was shot in the head by three men chasing them in speedboats and that he fell off his Jet Ski and into the lake. His body has not been recovered.

Perry said Mexico needs to use every resource available to find the body and have it returned to U.S. soil.

"I hope that if (Mexican President Felipe Calderon) calls me within the next 48 hours, that the body has been retrieved," Perry said.

Officials in Mexico's Tamaulipas state, where the shooting occurred, have cast doubt on Hartley's story, telling the McAllen Monitor that no one near the lake reported hearing gunshots or the sounds of a Jet Ski engine.

The district attorney there, Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrixales, also told the paper that authorities "are not certain that incident happened the way that they are telling us."

Mexican authorities have not responded to requests for comment from the AP.

Perry said the couple was sightseeing in Mexico.

"I find it really reprehensible for anyone, U.S. or Mexican, to speak otherwise," he said.

Perry used the incident to renew his demand that the federal government do more to secure the U.S.-Mexico border as northern Mexico sinks deeper into drug-gang violence. The violence has spread in the last few months from Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of Mexico's drug war across from El Paso, Texas, to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande Valley, including Tamaulipas state where Hartley reportedly disappeared. Two drug gangs, the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, are battling for supremacy there and fighting the Mexican military.

"Frankly, these two presidents (Calderon and President Barack Obama) need to get together with their secretaries of state and say, 'What are we going to do about this?'"

Perry also said he spoke Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's chief of staff and once again made his request for an additional 1,000 National Guard troops on the Texas-Mexico border, a request that has been repeatedly denied.

U.S. authorities are unable to investigate Hartley's disappearance because it happened in Mexico.

"How many more American citizens have to die?" Perry said.

___

October 06, 2010 10:40 AM EDT

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/apn ... 55026.html

I wouldn't be surprised if Gloria Allred didn't show up to defend the Mexicans.

I would tend to think that our government would have this entire incident recorded SOMEWHERE given all the "eyes in the sky", the so called millions that have been spent on enforcement on the Border, the war against the cartels AND, I would also tend to believe that our millions if not billions that have been given to Mexico under the Merida Initiative, that the Mexicans probably also have technology in place to watch cartel activity along the border. There is definitely something very rotten in Denmark when it comes to this situation. And I'm not one to believe that the rottenness comes from the victim's wife. Although, it could be that perhaps she's not telling the entire truth about why she and her husband were out there in the first place, it doesn't matter. Whatever happened, it does not give Mexican thugs the right to mow down an American. As we can all certainly imagine....if the facts were reversed and some Mexican was killed by Americans in a similar scenario, you could be guaranteed that Mexico would be ALL OVER it and demanding justice for the victims whether they be criminals or not.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas ... alcon-Lake

Why Mexican 'pirates' are targeting US tourists on Falcon Lake
By Nacha Cattan, Correspondent / October 7, 2010
Mexico City

The attack that allegedly killed the missing American tourist David Hartley on Sept. 30 while he was jet-skiing with his wife was not the first such incident on the 60-mile-long body of water straddling the United States and Mexico.

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, gunmen armed with AK-47s and AR-15 rifles have attacked US tourists on Lake Falcon in a string of robberies in recent months. Using Argos-type fishing boats, some attackers are dressed as Mexican police, while others have used crude duct-taped signs to disguise their boats as Texas Parks and Wildlife vessels, according to victims' reports.

Since April 30, five incidents of armed robberies or attempted theft have been reported on Falcon Lake: one in April, two in May, and one in August. The fifth ambush allegedly ended in gunfire last week with the possible death of Mr. Hartley.

“This is a new situation where [drug-trafficking] groups feel they own public spaces,â€

:roll: :twisted: OBAMA HASN'T HAD NOT ONE WORD TO SAY ABOUT THIS INCIDENT THAT I KNOW OF. UNLIKE CALDERON WHEN THE BORDER PATROL SHOT AND KILLED THE 15yr OLD WHEN HE WAS THROWING ROCKS AT THE BP. WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR OBAMA TO SPEAK UP FOR HIS OWN CITIZENS :?: IMO, HE IS A SORRY EXCUSE FOR A PRESIDENT :!:

David Hartley and his little wife showed mexico and the drug cartels just what we Americans are made of, I believe he got between his wife and the gunmen, I believe the gunmen were going to kidnap them, And I believe he gave his own life for his wife, and I believe we're lucky to have her still with us. Jet Ski Girl we pray for you, cause you are what America is truly made of. Your husband was a brave man, what sucks is we don't have alot of those to spare. And we here will miss him too.