Posted on 10/08/2010 10:55:12 AM PDT by AuntB
Zapata County's sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez has told CBS News he has blood evidence from the lifevest of Tiffany Hartley, the wife of David Hartley, that supports her account of a pirate attack on a lake that straddles the Texas-Mexico border.
CBS News correspondent Don Teague reported on "The Early Show" this evidence is in addition to witness testimony that supports Tiffany Hartley's story that her husband was shot in the head by pirates on Mexico side of Falcon Lake.
David Hartley is presumed dead, and officials on both the U.S. and Mexican sides of the lake are searching for his body.
Gonzalez told Teague he believes the Hartleys were attacked by enforcers of the Zeta drug cartel. The Hartleys, Gonzalez says, were innocent victims of a bloody drug war.
Gonzales fears the same cartel enforcers who killed David have permanently hidden his body.
He said, "The body has been disposed of. They have it somewhere they've gotten rid of the body so there's no evidence."
But that's not something Tiffany Hartley is ready to accept, and says she's only now beginning to grieve.
Tiffany Hartley said, "At certain times there's points where you do feel like this is it. I'm never gonna see him again. He's gone. And then at other points he's gonna be walking through that door."
Doubt has been cast on Tiffany Hartley's story by Mexico officials, but she told CNN recently she would take a lie detector test if people continue to doubt her account of the attack.
On "The Early Show" Congressman Ted Poe, (R-Texas), who has been involved extensively in this case as well as ongoing border issues, said he has requested from the State Department that Americans search the Mexican side.
He said, "The Mexican government said yes, then backed off and said, 'No, we don't want the Americans over here.' We need to use the American resources that we have, because that area of the lake is controlled by the Zetas, there is an island on that lake where the Zetas really operate, the drug cartels. If we mean business about trying to recover David Hartley's body we need American involvement and the Mexican government needs to be relentless to find it. They are intimidated now, they really won't go near the area where the Zetas operate."
"Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith said, "We need to stop and pause a second because even the Mexican authorities themselves are clearly not in control. It's the drug cartel that is in control because…the Mexican authorities backed away when they were threatened."
Poe agreed, saying, "That area of Falcon Lake on the Mexican side, all the way to the American edge of the water is controlled by the Zeta cartels. They bring those drugs into the United States, usually at night by high-speed boats, and they operate -- that is their operation -- and the Mexican government hasn't been able to stop them, won't stop them, refuses to or cannot, whatever the situation is, and they control that area. The government, neither government, controls that area, the drug cartels. And we're being held really hostage by the drug cartels on that area of the lake."
Smith added that while there has been some doubt cast on Tiffany Hartley's story, this is not the only reported incident of violence on this lake.
Poe replied, "American fishermen, fishing both on the American side of the lake and on the Mexican side of the lake -- you can get a permit to do that -- have been robbed by pirates on the lake, some of them have been taken to the Mexican side, stripped of all of their clothing and their valuables and their boat and left stranded there. This is the fifth time since May there's been some type of violence -- but the first homicide."
Poe said he'd like to see the United States to have more involvement in the search.
"The United States needs to use our resources, the Coast Guard. That needs to be operating on the lake at all times, not just this time," he said. "We have been very lax, in my opinion, as a nation, of protecting the entire southern border of the United States, including Falcon Lake. We don't protect it. We wait for something to happen, and then we just sit back, as a nation, and wait for someone else to react. We need to cooperate, need better cooperation with the Mexican government, but need to have really the military presence on the southern border, and that includes putting the National Guard throughout the border, including the Air National Guard, if we are serious about protecting Americans and American property, and keeping the drug cartels out of the United States."
Found these references:
Falcon Lake, is about 70 miles west of the Hartley’s home in McAllen.
David Hartley worked for an oil company in Reynosa, Mexico.
The morning after the incident,a bunch of us were in the staff room of the ER (which is where I worked and where she was brought the evening before) and,as you can imagine,it was *the* topic...particularly given that one of the nurses from the previous evening's shift was there and was giving us the *detailed* story.Then,just before the start of the shift,the Head Nurse walks in and says "the husband did it".Everyone said she was crazy...respectfully,of course ;-).
Well,long story short,within a few months the husband's story starting to fall apart largely because his brother,who helped him dispose of the gun,developed a conscience and called the cops.Among other things,it was learned that he had major financial problems *and* had a girlfriend.Soon after all this was revealed,he jumped off of one of the city's major bridges into the harbor...dead.
As I said,until I see that *both* their lives (and their marriage) were normal...clean...uneventful...stable...I'm unconvinced.
I am well aware of that case in Boston.
As I said,until I see that *both* their lives (and their marriage) were normal...clean...uneventful...stable...I’m unconvinced.
This story may well go down as it has been told by the wife. However as you point out there are times when things just arent the way they are told. This is being sold as a shooting but what if no shooting occurred and this is a ploy to change one’s identity? I see nothing that has been reported that would disclaim an identity disappearance. I’m not saying that is what happened but a possibility.
Your instincts are right. Tiffany Hartley is lying. Either she killed him, faked his death, or is lying about why they were trolling Mexican waters to begin with and he got killed. But her story doesn’t add up and in her various interviews she trips herself up over and over. And first off, these Mexican pirates have historically approached people to rob them at gunpoint, but in her case they suddenly start shooting to kill from far away? and get a good kill shot on him but miss her repeatedly? Then she says they get close to her and let her go but later she is pursued by them again? She’s a liar and the more she blabs to the media the more the holes are discovered.
Tell that to the witness that saw her being chased back to the border with gunfire, and the fisherman who had a similar experience when he had drifted over to the Mexican side of the lake while in a fishing tournament and they started firing on him, and he gunned his fishing boat (like Jet Skis they are quite powerful and fast) and pulled away from them.
When she said the pirates came up and to her after they shot her husband and she was trying to get him on her jet ski and then just left her there I thought that was odd. Why would they just leave here there after they’ve just shot her husband?
Her statements in the media have also contradictory. She said her husband was shot in the back of the head and then other times in the front of the head.
A good question.Under those circumstances it's *very* illogical for them to have done anything but kill *her* as well.Although it seems possible to me that she's telling the truth in this case,at this point I wouldn't bet a nickel that she is.
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