Authorities said a body found along train tracks in San Antonio on Monday is connected to the six people discovered dead in a boxcar in a Texas-Mexico border city over the weekend.
No arrests have been made amid the investigation into the discovery Sunday of six bodies in a train car in Laredo, a South Texas city along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told reporters Monday afternoon from the side of a road in San Antonio that a seventh body had been found near where he was standing by Union Pacific police at about 1:30 p.m. CDT.
He said the victim was a male, whose age and identity have yet to be determined. The body had already begun decomposing, he said.
“What I can tell you is that while we cannot release his name at this point, what we do know is that he was in possession of a voter registration card of some sort from Mexico,” Salazar said.
Union Pacific police found the body in an area where they had received an alert over the weekend indicating the doors of a train boxcar had been opened.
After learning about the situation in Laredo, Union Pacific police walked the tracks near where the train’s sensor had been tripped, discovering the remains.
Salazar said they believe this victim had initially been among those found dead.
He explained that a group of suspected migrants entered the boxcar of a train in the southwestern Texas city of Del Rio, where a sensor had been tripped there.
The train traveled toward San Antonio where the second sensor trip was registered, meaning the doors of the boxcar were opened from the outside.
Investigators believe that smugglers — known as coyotes — opened the door to either discard the body and avoid culpability or the victim had been leaning against the doors when they were opened and he fell to his death.
Then ,when the train reached a station in San Antonio, it split, with half traveling to Houston, and the other half with the six individuals in the boxcar heading to Laredo, where the people were found dead on Sunday.
“The prevailing theory at this point is that other sensor hit that was here in San Antonio, at this point we don’t know if it was opened to let people out, that made it out successfully or if they just opened it to dump a body. At this point, we just don’t know,” he said.
“So, it’s quite possible that load of people may have been somewhat bigger than the seven bodies that we’re up to now or it’s possible that that may have been it.”
Salazar added that San Antonio police received a call from an individual in another state on Saturday evening reporting a relative was in an extremely hot boxcar and experiencing “physical trouble.”
That individual who called police had received a message or a call from someone authorities believe was among the six found deceased in Laredo.
Salazar said Customs and Border Protection agents were dispatched following the call, but to a location in the city several miles up the road from where the train may have been, and failed to find the distressed individual.
The body was found as Webb County Medical Examiner Corinne Stern announced hyperthermia was the cause of death of at least three of the six people found dead in Laredo, though she believes they all died of the same condition.
“On the three exams I’ve completed so far, the cause of death is hyperthermia or heat stroke,” Stern said. “I feel that probably all six of them succumbed to heat stroke, but I won’t rule on it until all the exams are complete.”
She identified the six victims as five males and one female, one of whom was 14 years old.
Five of the victims have been identified, with four of their nationalities confirmed. Three were Mexican nationals, including the 29-year-old woman, and one, a 24-year-old man, was from Honduras.
Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the Mexican Consulate General in Laredo was handling cases of deceased migrants, and had activated response protocols following the discovery of the bodies.
Consular officials will maintain contact with the families of the identified Mexican victims to provide assistance, the ministry said.
Laredo Mayor Victor Trevino described the incident in a statement as a tragedy that “strikes at the center of our humanity.”
“In our close-knit binational community, every loss is felt deeply,” he said.
“Our hearts are with the families and loved ones affected, and we thank our first responders for their efforts during this difficult time.”
