LA MORA, Mexico -- Andre Miller saw the column of black smoke rising from at least a mile away. Moments later, he said, the boom erupted.He charged up the road to find a sport utility vehicle engulfed in flames -- the same one his sister-in-law, Rhonita Miller, had been driving with her four children
LA MORA, Mexico — Andre Miller saw the column of black smoke rising from at least a mile away. Moments later, he said, the boom erupted.
One of the women was on her way to start a new life in North Dakota with her husband. Another planned to meet her spouse to celebrate their anniversary. A third was getting ready to attend a wedding.In two separate ambushes separated by miles of rugged dirt road, they fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition, from hundreds of yards away, sweeping in from the knuckled hills.
Story continuesBut the killings here in Eastern Sonora obliterated that argument in the most brutal way. He nodded toward the main road into the community, where soldiers guarded the entrance. “Why should our family have these soldiers around us for protection when other people have nothing?” But in the hours after the ambush, family members said they found scattered bits of evidence tossed outside of the SUV, like Rhonita Miller’s checkbook, suggesting that the gunmen had rummaged through the vehicle first — perhaps in an effort to see who they had killed — before setting it ablaze.
The murder rate has reached its highest point since the nation began collecting homicide data, and families across Mexico have largely writhed anonymously under the weight of loss. Nearby, members of a local cartel they knew, Los Salazar, began to gather as well. After the murder of two family members in 2009, the Mormon community had learned to coexist with the local cartel members. It purchased fuel from them — an arrangement more forced than agreed upon — and the two sides maintained a largely peaceful, if uncomfortable, arrangement.
Social media began to light up as family members shared the tragic news on WhatsApp and posted videos to Twitter, pleading for help. Along the road through the mountains, cell reception is spotty at best. Within a few hours, the family was in a panic, worried about the other SUVs in Rhonita Miller’s convoy. They had set out from La Mora shortly after 9 a.m. and hadn’t been heard from since.
The road narrowed as it climbed steeply. To the left, a dense wall of mud rose into the hillside. To the right, a ravine plunged to the floor of a narrow valley before rising into a towering mountain. The gunmen fled soon after, racing off the mountainside, while the children hid in the brush. Led by the eldest son, Devin Langford, 13, they slipped out of the vehicle and dashed into the ravine for cover, hiding beneath the low-hanging trees that clung to its side.
When the group arrived, it discovered five of the children alive. But McKenzie Langford, 9, was not there — she had followed her brother to warn the families. Dawna Langford had lived here for 25 years and loved La Mora: The cypress trees that grew on the edge of brick walls, the yellow leaves of pomegranate trees teasing the skyline, the handsome, custom-built homes.
At her family’s home, four generations of women gathered to mourn. The smell of chicken soup and homemade tamales filled the air. Newcomers arrived to attend the funeral, dragging suitcases behind them.
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