Three immigrants found dead in Duval County (San Antonio Express-News)

Three immigrants found dead in Duval County
Authorities point to smuggling job gone wrong.

By Jason Buch

Updated 11:29 p.m., Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Authorities in Duval County are investigating three homicides they say may have been the result of a hit-and-run accident.

A reserve sheriff's deputy wrecked his car at about 2 a.m. Tuesday after swerving to avoid the bodies of three suspected illegal immigrants lying on FM 1329, said Duval County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jose Martinez III. The victims were men from Mexico, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, Martinez said. Their ages range from 23 to 30, he said.

The case is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Martinez said. Deputies don't have any leads, he said, but they did find seven more immigrants who said they had traveled with the dead men.

The immigrants told authorities that the coyote, or human smuggler, leading their group through the brush took two men to collect water and food from other smugglers in a vehicle on the road, Martinez said.

“They heard noises, heard individuals getting hit and they heard moaning and groaning and they were actually scared” and didn't leave the brush, he said. The coyote was among those killed.

San Diego, the Duval county seat, is about 85 miles from the border at Laredo, but because highways running from Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley pass through the county and because there's a Border Patrol checkpoint in the county on U.S. 59 and in neighboring Jim Hogg County on Texas 16, it sees plenty of smuggling activity, Martinez said.

The department's 23 deputies usually stop about three smugglers a day. But these were the first homicides the department has investigated this year. They only saw one last year.

The deputy who found the bodies rolled his vehicle, but only suffered minor bumps and bruises, Martinez said.

The bodies were taken to the Nueces County medical examiner in Corpus Christi, who ruled that the men died of head trauma and extensive internal injuries, Martinez said.

“We're working it as a homicide,” he said. “It could be a hit and run just due to the extent of the injuries that they obtained.”