October 23, 2004
CNN
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) -- Four gunmen abducted three U.S. citizens on a rural highway in southern Mexico, shot and killed two of them and left the third -- a pregnant woman -- bound and gagged, authorities said Saturday.
Reynaldo Valdez, a 22-year-old from Houston, was traveling with Miami natives Ashley Linn Diniger, 16, and Vanessa Burgos, 22, to visit Valdez's mother in Cutzamala de Pinzon, according to investigator Antonio Nogeda.
The three had left Cutzamala de Pinzon late Thursday when a vehicle carrying four men forced their vehicle off the road near Tierra Caliente, Nogeda said.
The gunmen put the Americans into a sedan without license plates, drove them to a nearby community and robbed them. The abductors later tried to sexually assault the two women, then shot and killed Valdez and Diniger at close range, Nogeda said.
They spared the life of Burgos, apparently because she was pregnant, but tied up her hands and feet and dumped her on the side of a road from a moving car, according to Nogeda.
Burgos was able to free herself and contacted police. Her testimony led to arrests on Friday of Isidro Diaz Pineda, Reynaldo Hernandez Ramirez, Francisco Velazquez Paredes and David Gaona Mondragon, all of Tierra Caliente, the state investigator said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City confirmed the names and hometowns of the U.S. citizens on Saturday and said consular officials in the resort city of Acapulco were working with Burgos and the families of Valdez and Diniger.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/10/23/mexico.americans.killed.ap/index.html