Free Republic

A Zetas leader arrested in the streets of Nuevo Laredo is being accused of masterminding the Falcon Lake murder of American tourist David Hartley and the massacres in San Fernando. Mexican marines arrested Salvador Alfonso Martínez-Escobedo in Nuevo Laredo around 7 p.m. Saturday. Martinez-Escobedo, who goes by the nickname "La Ardilla" or "The Squierrel", is reported to be a regional commander for the Zetas drug cartel. Mexican Navy officials report he escaped from gun battle with marines that left one person dead in the San Agustin subdivision early Saturday morning. Marines found Martinez-Escobedo hours later in an SUV in the...

Authorities are investigating human remains found at the same U.S. border lake where a Colorado man was reported to have been killed by Mexican drug cartel members last year. A professional fisherman found the skeletal remains on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border, according to multiple reports. The skeleton was found about 15 miles from where 30-year-old David Hartley was last seen alive on Sept. 30, 2010. His wife, Tiffany Hartley, said the couple had set out on Wave Runners to take photos of a half-submerged church on the Mexican side of the lake when they...

She says government has her in dark as border violence argued. BROWNSVILLE — The widow of a Colorado tourist presumably killed by Zeta drug cartel operatives on a U.S.-Mexico border lake said Monday she hoped a trio of lawsuits would force answers after a year of unheard pleas for justice. “It's a disgrace they won't release anything to me,” Tiffany Hartley said of the lawsuits she filed via Judicial Watch Inc. last week against the State Department, Justice Department and FBI. “All we're asking is for communication — what was communicated, what information they have, where they're at with the...

ZAPATA COUNTY - Deputies are investigating a shooting at Falcon Lake. Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez tells CHANNEL 5 NEWS that the incident happened two weeks ago on the Mexican side of the lake. The sheriff says a group of men were fishing in their boat when they came under fire. The sheriff says the men doing the shooting appear to be Mexican soldiers. No one on the boat was hurt, but the boat was hit. We're told a windshield was shot out.

ZAPATA - Witnesses report a major gunbattle across Falcon Lake from Zapata. Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzales tells CHANNEL 5 NEWS his office began getting phone calls from people on the lake around 5:30 Thursday evening. One boater reports seeing a Mexican military helicopter firing missiles into Old Guerero. Sheriff Gonzales tells CHANNEL 5 NEWS the Mexican military has been concentrating on the area because it's a stronghold for the Zetas, but they have not confirmed the incident on Thursday. "This information about the missiles came from a citizen who reported it to me, that between 20 to 24 missiles...

Complete title: Accountability & Justice Sought by Tiffany Hartley, Widow of American Believed Slain by Mexican Cartel Pirates on Falcon LakeToday Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) held a press conference to bring attention to the investigation of the murder of David Hartley. Hartley was murdered on Lake Falcon which spans the border between Texas and Mexico. It is believed that Hartley was gunned down by members of the Mexican Zeta drug cartel who have control of the lake. Nearly eight months after the murder, Mr. Hartley’s body has yet to be recovered and the federal government has ended their participation in...

The Mexican navy says marines patrolling a lake along the border with Texas discovered a drug gang camp on an island, provoking a gunbattle that left 13 people dead. The navy says one marine and 12 gunmen from the Zetas drug cartel were killed in the gunbattle on the island on Falcon Lake, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) northwest of McAllen, Texas.

(CNN) -- Two additional suspects have surfaced in the fatal shooting of an American man on a lake that straddles the United States and Mexico last September, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told CNN. David Hartley was allegedly shot on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake. He and his wife, Tiffany, were on personal watercraft on the lake when gunmen opened fire on them, authorities say. The killing remains unsolved. Gonzalez said officials would not release the new suspects' names.

STRATFOR published an analysis last Wednesday noting that a reliable source in Mexico informed us that the Sept. 30 shooting death of U.S. citizen David Hartley on Falcon Lake — which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border — was a mistake committed by a low-level member of the Los Zetas drug trafficking organization. The source also informed us that those responsible for Hartley’s death are believed to have disposed of his body and that the Zeta hierarchy was conducting a damage-control operation to punish those responsible for the death and to distance the cartel from the murder. The source further reported that...

The wife of a man allegedly killed by pirates on a lake that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border will return to FBI offices today to resume a marathon session of questions from Mexican authorities. Tiffany Hartley, wife of David Hartley, who is missing after the jet ski incident Sept. 30 on Falcon Lake, endured eight hours of questioning by Mexican investigators Friday. She has said she refused a request to come to Mexico for further questioning, out of fear of a possible arrest. "I just don't think that's a wise decision," Hartley told "Good Morning America." "I think they do believe...

(CNN) -- The wife of an American reportedly shot dead by gunmen believed linked to a Mexican drug gang gave an eight-hour interview and provided a detailed statement to federal and state authorities in Mexico, she said Monday. Tiffany Hartley told CNN's "American Morning" she gave a detailed account of what happened on September 30, from the time she and her husband David left their McAllen, Texas, home until she left a sheriff's office that night. Hartley recounted the incident Monday, saying she and her husband headed to Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border, that day to "enjoy...

After the murder and decapitation of one of their own, Mexican investigators are calling off the search for David Hartley's body, temporarily at least. So, is it case closed? Is STRATFOR's theory -- that Hartley was gunned down by Zeta thugs who believed he was a scout for the rival Gulf Cartel -- correct? Perhaps. But we are still in befuddlement at some the statements Tiffany Young-Hartley has given the media over the past two weeks, as well as some other elements of the case. First, there's that whole magic bullet thing, where she claims to have seen her husband...

link only (I don't know the rules for CBS)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday rejected claims that the State Department has not offered assistance to the widow of a man allegedly shot down by drug lords while on a jet ski trip on the U.S.-Mexico border. *** She called the killing a "terrible tragedy" and said, "We are sickened by it." *** U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, whose district contains the lake, told FoxNews.com that Tiffany Hartley has not received help from the U.S. Consulate in Mexico to file a complaint against members of the Zeta drug cartel suspected of shooting her husband several weeks ago. "There...

BROWNSVILLE — A global intelligence company Wednesday said the death of U.S. citizen David Michael Hartley on Falcon Lake was a case of mistaken identity in a turf war between rival drug cartels. Hartley, who was shot during a Sept. 30 sightseeing trip to the Mexican side of the binational reservoir, was shot by Zeta cartel enforcers because he was mistaken for a spy of the rival Gulf Cartel, according to the report by STRATFOR, and Austin-based think tank specializing in intelligence and international issues. The report goes on to say Hartley's body likely was destroyed as Los Zetas went...

(CNN) -- The lead Mexican investigator in the Falcon Lake case, Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, has been killed, his severed head delivered Tuesday in a suitcase to the Mexican military, officials told CNN. "His head was delivered to the army garrison this morning in a suitcase after he failed to report back home last night," Zapata County, Texas, Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. said. A spokesman for the attorney general of Tamaulipas state in Mexico, Ruben Dario-Rios, confirmed the killing Tuesday afternoon in a telephone interview.

The severed head of a Mexican investigator involved in the Falcon Reservoir case was delivered to the Mexican army today, according to state Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg. Peña reported via Twitter that he had confirmed the information with Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, whose office is heading the U.S. investigation into the Sept. 30 disappearance of David Michael Hartley. The 30-year-old McAllen man is widely believed dead after what his wife, Tiffany Young-Hartley, has described as an attack by cartel "pirates" on the Mexican side of the binational waterway.

ZAPATA - A dozen Border Patrol boats, including some from the Valley are now in Zapata. They will be used to patrol and protect Falcon Lake. The increase comes after the disappearance and presumed murder of David Hartley. Both the Mexican and American governments are still searching for his body. People who live along Falcon Lake say the increased security helps. Still, they'd like to see even more. "I think they can do a lot better and bring more troops so that we can have the homeland security. We need more law enforcement around the border," says Leo Cuellar. No...

<p>AUSTIN, Texas -- U.S. and Mexican authorities say a Mexican state police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on a border lake plagued by pirates has been killed.</p> <p>Ruben Rios, spokesman for the Tamaulipas state prosecutor's office, says Commander Rolando Flores, the head of state investigators in the border city of Ciudad Miguel Aleman, was killed.</p>

The severed head of the lead Mexican investigator in the Falcon Lake case was delivered Tuesday in a suitcase to the Mexican military, Texas Rep. Aaron Pena told CNN. However, a spokesman for the attorney general of Tamaulipas state in Mexico said he had not heard the report. David Michael Hartley went missing September 30.