Caught in the chaos
More than 200 U.S. citizens killed in Mexico since '04
By LISE OLSEN Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Feb. 7, 2009, 9:08PM


Mayra Beltran Houston Chronicle
Paula Valdez of Houston lost her son Reynaldo to gunmen in Mexico. He and his friend Ashley Lynn Dininger were shot in the head during a trip to Guerrero state in 2004.


Resources
Faces of tragedy See images of some of the Americans killed in the Mexico cross-fire.


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Learn more about the U.S. victims A 22-year-old man from Houston and his 16-year-old friend are hauled out of a minivan in Mexico, shot execution style by thugs in a black Lincoln Continental, and left dead in the dirt.

The body of a 65-year-old nurse from Brownsville is found floating in the Rio Grande after a visit to a Mexican beauty salon.

An American retiree, an ex-Marine, is stabbed to death as he camps on a Baja beach with his dog.

More than 200 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2004 — an average of nearly one killing a week, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation into the deaths.

Rarely are the killers captured.

The U.S. State Department tracks most American homicides abroad, but the department releases minimal statistics and doesn’t include victims’ names or details about the deaths. The Chronicle examined hundreds of records to document the personal tragedies behind them.

“I’m no longer the same person,â€