Mexico kidnap victim Zindell Brown was reluctant to make the trip

May 2024 · 3 minute read

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One of the two Americans killed in the Mexico cartel kidnapping had expressed his reluctance about traveling south of the border – chillingly saying, “We shouldn’t go down,” according to his sister.

Zindell Brown had been aware of the perils of traveling from South Carolina with Latavia “Tay” McGee and Eric James Williams so McGee, a mother of six, could undergo a tummy tuck procedure, his sister Zalandria Brown said.

“Zindell kept saying, ‘We shouldn’t go down,’” she said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.

Zalandria, who lives in Florence, SC, said his death has been “like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from.”

“To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable,” she added.

Zindell Brown, who was killed in the kidnapping, warned against making the trip to Mexico, saying repeatedly, “We shouldn’t go down,” his sister Zalandria Brown said. Family Handout

Horrifying video posted to social media Friday showed men with assault rifles and body armor loading the four Americans into the bed of a white pickup in the crime-ridden city of Matamoros.

One was alive and sitting up, while others appeared to be either dead or wounded. At least one appeared to lift his head from the pavement before being dragged to the vehicle.

The four Americans were found Tuesday in a wooden shack, guarded by a man who was arrested, in a rural area east of Matamoros, said the state’s chief prosecutor, Irving Barrios.

Christina Hickson, mother of Zindell Brown, and his sister, Zalayna Grant.
The group was abducted in Matamoros, Mexico, last week. AP

The bodies of Brown and the other slain American, Shaeed Woodard, 33, were taken for forensic work at the Matamoros morgue, Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said.

Williams, who was shot in the leg, and McGee, who was not physically hurt, were rushed Tuesday to Brownsville, Texas, in a convoy of vehicles escorted by Mexican military Humvees and national guard trucks.

McGee’s aunt, Mary McFadden, told CNN that when the family hadn’t heard from the friends, they began checking online and came across a video showing her niece being kidnapped.

Four US citizens from South Carolina were abducted in Matamoros

“We recognized her and her blond hair,” McFadden said, adding that she also recognized McGee’s clothing from a live video the woman had posted on Facebook.

This was not the first time McGee had traveled to Mexico for a medical procedure, said her mother, Barbara Burgess.

A few years ago, she said, McGee had a surgery done in Mexico, which has become a top destination for potentially risky “medical tourism,” CNN reported.

With Post wires

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