All Blog Posts Tagged 'murder' (60)

The drug war in Mexico has claimed at least 70,000 lives, but the full death toll may never be known because thousands are searching for relatives who have disappeared.

Along the border some of those missing in Mexico are U.S. citizens.

“It’s individuals that communicated with their loved ones on a daily basis and all of a sudden they disappear,” said Oscar Hagelseib, assistant special agent in charge of Homeland Security’s investigations in El Paso.

The agency helped…

Two men are reportedly in custody and police are searching for a third man in connection with the slaying of a sailor from Chicago who was working on a tall ship in the Bahamas. The arrests in the fatal shooting of Kyle Bruner, 34, was reported by the Nassau Tribune.

Bruner, 34, a former special education teacher, was apparently trying to help a woman being mugged by two armed…

Michael Overfield, who was named Silverton’s First Citizen for 2000 and was known for his efforts to restore historical buildings in the small East Valley town, was shot and killed Feb. 27 on an island off the coast of Honduras. The 53-year-old developer moved to Central America about a decade ago, according to his son, Tim Overfield, who declined to discuss the details of his father’s death.

Overfield was killed…

A 46-year-old homeless man suspected in the killing of a Sarai Sierra, the Staten Island, NY, mother of two who was murdered in Istanbul, Turkey, in January was taken into custody on Sunday, the Turkish authorities said. 

The authorities in Hatay, near the Turkish-Syrian border, said the suspect — identified only by his initials, Z.T., and a nickname, Laz Ziya — had been detained in Reyhanli Township. 

In a video recorded shortly after his…

The Honduran government is asking for help from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in solving a five-month-old homicide case involving a Canadian citizen. Themy-Alexandre Vallée, 34, was shot outside a bar on the island of Roatan while on vacation in Honduras in October 2012. His friends and family have been questioning why the suspect, whose identity is known to police, hasn’t been arrested.…

A shocking 32% of all non-natural deaths of U.S. citizen’s outside this country occur in Mexico, according to the Mexico Vacation Awareness website. Many of these deaths happen inside of the resorts and are a direct result of poor or nonexistent safety standards.

List of recent tourist deaths

The mother of a man slain in Honduras in October is asking the Canadian government to put pressure on Honduran authorities to catch her son's killer. Chantal Vallée's son Themy-Alexandre Vallée, 34, was shot in the head outside a bar on the island of Roatan, a popular destination for divers and other tourists.

Honduran police have arrested a suspected accomplice in the slaying of the Montreal man, who was an officer with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. However, Vallée…

A heartbroken mom is staging a one-woman protest in an effort to get information about the murder of her son in Honduras. Donna Bryan wants Government or police to help ensure the killing of her son, Seaford Lee Russell, in La Ceiba on October 13 last year, is properly investigated. Ms Bryan said her son was shot multiple times. She claims she has been given no information about any investigation in Honduras or whether arrests have been made in the…

The U.S. State Department tells my family we have to go through the broken-to-nonexistent Honduran "justice" system in order to get a finding that my brother (who disappeared at sea off the Honduran island of Roatan) can be declared dead. This after my family personally funded an exhaustive search/rescue operation (with belated and begrudged U.S. government assistance) and an in-depth into my brother's background and those of his business partner. At great personal expense and pain, we did…

Days after the Mexican Navy announced it detained an alleged leader of the Zetas drug cartel who is suspected in the 2010 killing of American David Hartley on a lake near the U.S.-Mexico border, the victim’s wife said she's hopeful the suspect could provide answers to what happened to her husband.

"Maybe he knows where David’s remains are, or where he's located," Tiffany Hartley, the victim's widow, said.

Tiffany Hartley said she was with her husband riding Jet Skis on Falcon…

...you might want to spend some time with this FaceBook group consisting of expats living there.

This article in Salon asks the perplexing question: Why, if cruise-ship crime is a growing problem, did the FBI at the last minute push through language in cruise safety legislation that makes it MORE DIFFICULT for tourists to make informed choices about what line to cruise on or whether to cruise at all?

Writing in his blog Cruise Law News, maritime lawyer Jim Walker reports that, while cruise lines sell an idyllic image of care-free tropical vacations, in reality they know or should know that there are dangers on shore awating their passengers. In particular,…

The Mexican cartels' war against social media continued this week with murder of another blogger in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Texas. The note left next to the body -- identifying the victim as a moderator of Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, a local blog about goings-on in the city which has become a forum for reporting drug-related crimes and warning the public about dangerous areas -- stated: “This happened to me for not…

Sam Wesley, the Roatan, Honduras man accused of shooting Australian citizen Joe O'Donnell in the back during an argument over where he parked his bicycle, has been committed to stand trial. O'Donnell was shot in the back at point-blank range in front of several witnesses on August 19. Almost two months earlier, he got into a dispute with a local family when he parked…

The family of slain Canadian architect Roger Walls hope to hear the fate of his accused killer by the end of September.

Walls was gunned down in Roatan, Honduras, in February 2009. Paralyzed from a gunshot to the neck, his family paid to have the 71-year-old airlifted back to Saskatoon. He died from complications to his injuries in April 2009.

The victim's brother, Vic Walls of Red Deer, Alta., says Julie Thompson, a Honduran woman, is charged with murder in the case for…

Joe O'Donnell -- a resident of Sydney, Australia, who holds Australian and Irish citizenship -- was shot in the spine last month on Roatan, one of the Bay Islands of Honduras, and has called for support to pay medical bills reaching tens of thousands of dollars, according to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald.…

The remains of a young woman were found in the Colombia district of Guatemala City on May 5. A boy found the head of woman, estimated to be between 18 to 20 years of age in a plastic bag. Nearby, the woman’s severed limbs and torso had been found earlier in the week in Zone 18 of the capital of Guatemala. Found at a telephone booth, the victim’s head showed signs of torture and abuse. Authorities surmise that the woman’s death may be related to a spate of extortion by powerful criminal gangs…

It's difficult, to say the least, to find good data on foreigners who disappear or are murdered while traveling abroad, but sometimes you can find information about overall levels of violence. This article in The Economist magazine includes an illuminating graphic depicting homicide rates throughout Central America.…