Two Americans who survived a violent kidnapping in Mexico last month recalled the experience in graphic detail, describing the deaths of their friends and the horror of being held captive.
LaTavia Washington McGee and Eric Williams were rescued from a guarded wooden shack on March 7, four days after being attacked and taken at gunpoint after crossing the border into Matamoros, officials said.
Their friends, Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown, both died after being shot in the initial ambush, they told CNN.
“They didn’t deserve that,” LaTavia Washington McGee said in the new interview. “None of us deserved it. But we’re alive — we have a lot of recovering to do.”
The drug cartel the kidnappers were affiliated with released an apology letter after the violence, and a U.S. official told CNN the Americans had probably been mistaken for Haitian smugglers. Authorities say six people have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping.
The four friends had traveled from the Carolinas. They drove a white minivan into Mexico, where Washington McGee planned to undergo a tummy tuck procedure, according to Brown’s sister. Washington McGee’s mother previously told CNN it was her daughter’s second trip to Mexico for a cosmetic procedure.
Following the attack, the four Americans were taken elsewhere to be interrogated, recalled Williams, who told CNN, “That’s where Shaeed said, ‘I love y’all, and I’m gone.’ And he died right there.”
Brown died after being put in a room at a house with Washington McGee, she said.
“He was fighting for his life and they didn’t do nothing,” Washington McGee recalled. “I talked to him the whole time … I just told him sorry because I asked him to come with me.”