4 Decapitated Bodies Hung From Bridge In Mexico

CUERNAVACA, Mexico — The decapitated bodies of four men were hung from a bridge Sunday in this central Mexican city besieged by fighting between two drug lords.

A gang led by kingpin Hector Beltran Leyva took responsibility for the killings in a message left with the bodies, the attorney general's office of Morelos state said in a statement.

The beheaded and mutilated bodies were hung by their feet early Sunday from the bridge in Cuernavaca, a popular weekend getaway for Mexico City residents.

Cuernavaca has become a battleground for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel since its leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva, was killed there in a December shootout with marines.

Mexican authorities say the cartel split between a faction led by Hector Beltran Leyva, brother of Arturo, and another led by Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a U.S.-born kingpin known as "the Barbie."

The message left with the bodies threatened: "This is what will happen to all those who support the traitor Edgar Valdez Villarreal."

Authorities said the four men had been kidnapped days earlier. The family of one of the men reported the abduction to police.

In western Mexico, police found the body of a U.S. citizen inside a car along the highway between the Pacific resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo.

A report from Guerrero state police said the man was shot to death and had identification indicating he was from Georgia.

The U.S. Embassy could not be reached to confirm the man's identity.

Police said they had no suspects and had not determined a motive.

Guerrero state has been wracked by drug-gang violence, including the strife within the Beltran Leyva cartel. There have also been a series of deadly carjackings this year along highways in the state.

Mexico has seen unprecedented gang violence since President Felipe Calderon stepped up the fight against drug trafficking when he took office in December 2006, deploying thousands of troops and federal police to cartel strongholds.

Since then, more than 28,000 people have been killed in violence tied to Mexico's drug war.

(This version CORRECTS tate where Cuernavaca is located to Morelos instead of state of Mexico, corrects the second family name of `Barbie' to Villarreal instead of Villareal.)

Comments

[jjflazhhp]

09:35 AM on 09/04/2010

"The City of Eternal Spring" its called.

[miketothad]

05:48 PM on 08/24/2010

When I hear people moaning about Mexican gang violence, I'm forced to ask them where the hell they think the guns come from.

[CarmanK]

04:21 PM on 08/24/2010

If you claim credit for the kill, are not all those who are a member of the family, then conspirators in the murders, so therefore the suspects are members of the gang and in particular the head of the gang. This is what we get when we tolerate crime at any level. It gets out of control, and the kingpins think of themselves as imperial and thus all powerful. Shame on the Mexican government for letting the murderous thugs take over and scare the population. No wonder the people leave Mexico. Are american indistries paying homage to the drug cartels to do business in mexico?? That is something I think we have to give thought to in our tax policies. American taxpayers are subsidizing drug cartels, because we give tax cuts to businesses to export jobs overseas?? This really has to stop!!

[lthuedk 1]

03:36 PM on 08/24/2010

Legalize marijuana.

[Steve1976]

10:34 AM on 08/24/2010

Mexico has become a serious threat to U.S. security.

[Manutdtifosi]

01:08 PM on 08/24/2010

Quite the opposite. Our drug war has corrupted their entire system, allowing cartels to gain enough profits and power that the people of Mexico are unable to resist, or they will be executed.

[josephking]

03:00 PM on 08/24/2010

You suffer from the worst case of myopia if you think the drug war jacked up mexico's political/social environment...check their history.

[Conk]

10:22 AM on 08/24/2010

Yes, as stated below, legalize drugs! Take the drug lords power away in an instant. Treat drug users as health patients, not criminals. Save untold billions of dollars too. No, it's not a perfect solution, but it's magnitudes better than the status quo.

[PC Contrarian]

10:00 AM on 08/24/2010

For many Huffies, this NY Times article about Venezuela under Chavez may come as a surprise. If you are in the Sean Penn/Danny Glover camp on Chavez, you really need to read how things have NOT gotten better under Chavez; they've gotten much worse. Violence and murder is much higher in Venezuela than Mexico. In fact the murder rate in Bogata is about 10 times higher than the capital of Columbia. The scary thing is how many Obama supporters want us to be more like Chavez's Venezuela.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/americas/23venez.html

Wake up America, class warfare/wealth envy policies are a disaster.

[PC Contrarian]

10:07 AM on 08/24/2010

Pardon my error, I meant the murder rate is 10 times higher in Caracas, Venezuela than Bogota, Columbia.

[waynesmyer]

09:35 AM on 08/25/2010

Hey Ese! Bogata is the capital of Columbia! Columbia has the highest murder rate , per capitia, of any country in SA! Mexico is now gaining.

[VapeGirl]

07:06 AM on 08/24/2010

Legalize drugs in the US and Mexico and elsewhere and all this goes away. These drug gangs will be nothing, because like the bootleggers of old, without their drugs to sell.

[jojo1983]

02:13 AM on 08/24/2010

I'm waiting for Calderon to come out and condemn the killing of a U.S. citizen in his country.

[Beca]

05:05 AM on 08/24/2010

As if our President comes out and condemns the killings of all the Mexican citizens that get murdered in this country? ha!

[MarkInIrvine]

01:53 AM on 08/24/2010

I'll take my tourist dollars and time to some other vacation destination.

[TechGuy036]

01:47 AM on 08/24/2010

Solution seems simple to me. Have the government forces kill off Hector Leyva and Edgar Villareal, then let the cartel know that if anyone else wants to become the leader they'll be killed also. Tell 'em either you break up the cartel or you die and have the guts to back it up with force. Then do the same to all the other cartels. Voila, no more cartels, no more trouble.

[Beca]

05:03 AM on 08/24/2010

Yeah that would be nice, however, the cartel is flush with money, eavedropping equipment, bugs, and weapons, keeping them a step ahead of the army!
The problem is that the CIA is helping to fund the Mexican cartel, so they have unlimited funds, American made weapons, including grenades, that are happily provided by our own CIA. The CIA takes a huge cut of the money 'earned' by the drug cartels' drug traffic activity to Americans--so they need this to continue.

[TechGuy036]

12:13 PM on 08/24/2010

Then legalize and regulate drugs and dismantle the CIA. Problem solved.

[Manutdtifosi]

01:11 PM on 08/24/2010

If you notice, this problem was created by the killing of a drug lord. Kill one, and two fight it out for control, killing many innocents along the way. Why not just take away the profit motive, thus their ability to buy police, judges, and hitmen to kill the judges and police that don't cooperate? The way we've been doing it obviously isn't working.

[WTFbush]

08:41 PM on 08/23/2010

I wouldn't hang around those guys.

Where do all the drug cartel guys hang out? down by the bridge

If the media will stop giving these murderers a stage, I'll stop making sick jokes

[jojo1983]

02:15 AM on 08/24/2010

Unlike the Islamic center 2 blocks from ground zero, I think stories like this do need to be covered.

[Manutdtifosi]

07:44 PM on 08/23/2010

Kill a cartel leader, and the result is two cartels, fighting it out for control, and killing many others. What an effective policy we have.......

[freelancerighter]

11:34 PM on 08/23/2010

And what is your solution?

[Manutdtifosi]

11:39 PM on 08/23/2010

Put them all out of business, today. Take away their multi-billion dollar profits, cripple their ability to corrupt entire nations. Remove the motivation for selling drugs. They don't do this for fun, do they? They do it because there are billions of dollars to be made, and they aren't savvy enough to make it in the business world. What happened to the Purple Gang, that terrorized Detroit in the late 20's and 30's? Gone, in one day. The day the 18th amendment was adopted.

[Manutdtifosi]

11:40 PM on 08/23/2010

The day the 18th amendment was repealed, I meant. The 21st amendment.

[Scent]

06:59 PM on 08/23/2010

Could someone please remind me why it is so important for our freedom that "our" CIA is the biggest drug dealter on the planet?

I mean - what exactly is it that makes participating in all those crimes right if our CIA does it?

Oh, right, I forgot: we do not talk about that, so it is ok.

[freelancerighter]

11:27 PM on 08/23/2010

Oh, go take your medication.

[Manutdtifosi]

11:43 PM on 08/23/2010

I know it's hard to believe that our government is ever wrong, but just a little research proves it.

http://www.ciadrugs.com/

Air America in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam
Manuel Noriega in Panama
Have you seen the pictures of our troops protecting Karzai's poppy crops in Afghanistan?

[Beca]

05:12 AM on 08/24/2010

No he is right, the CIA is and has been heavily involved in the drug trade, and they are heavily helping the Mexican drug cartel fight the Mexican army by giving them unlimited access to weapons and ohter spying materials, and as much as as they need. Just look at the idiots who are actually part of the cartels? they are illiterate idiots who couldn't think of the many sophisticated ambush tactics they've been engaged in against the Mexican army, and certainly they are not intelligent enough to know how to spy on their own government--unless of course they were being schooled by our own CIA!

[FZliveson]

06:40 PM on 08/23/2010

Sort of takes the edge off my desire to go have a Chile Relleno and a Margarita.