New evidence in Mexico border lake murder

April 13, 2011

LA SALLE - Six months after the death of her husband on a border lake, Tiffany Hartley got the news she'd been hoping for Tuesday.

"It's a moment we've been praying for," she said. "We've been praying for people to come forward."

Zapata County, Texas Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, Jr. announced two new witnesses have come forward in the Sept. 30 murder of Colorado native David Hartley on Falcon Lake. Falcon Lake is on the Mexico border.

Tiffany Hartley told authorities she and her husband were jet skiing on the Mexican side of the lake when they came under attack by suspected cartel members.

Tiffany Hartley, who now lives in La Salle, says her husband was shot in the head and killed and she fled the scene on her jet ski as the gunman opened fire.

David Hartley's body has never been found.

Gonzalez told South Texas television station KRGV an elderly couple with a home near Falcon Lake heard the gunshots that killed David Hartley.

"We've had calls from people that were in the area, U.S. fishermen fishing on the Mexican side of the lake. They heard what the witness calls a war zone, three different episodes of gunfire, a barrage of bullets," Gonzalez said.

The sheriff says the new witness accounts validate Tiffany Hartley's version of the events that led to her husband's death.

"I've had to come up against a lot of criticism, a lot of judgment, kind of fighting through all this with what happened to David," Tiffany Hartley said. "It's hard being judged and it's hard having your character judged."

Gonzalez also released a photograph taken by a Customs and Border Protection helicopter, showing six men in a boat just after the attack. Two of the men match Tiffany Hartley's description of the killers.

"I'm not really saying that the people in the photograph were involved in it," he said. "But they all were in the clothing she described."

Gonzalez says Mexican investigators already have this evidence. Tiffany Hartley hopes the Mexican authorities will find her husband's body. Six months after his death, she knows that may never happen.

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