A Mexican police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on a border lake plagued by pirates has been decapitated and his head was found in a suitcase, a Texas sheriff said.
Sigifredo Gonzalez, the sheriff of Zapata County, Texas, told reporters Wednesday that drug cartel assassins delivered the head of Rolando Flores to a Mexican army base. Texas Gov. Rick Perry said it was a message to "stay out of their territory."
Flores was part of a group investigating the reported Sept. 30 shooting of David Hartley, an American oilfield services worker. Hartley was jet skiing with his wife on Falcon Lake, which straddles the Texas-Mexico border. Tiffany Hartley said they were ambushed by armed men in motorboats who shot her husband in the head. She said she escaped on a jet ski.
That part of Tamaulipas state is dominated by two drug mafias -- the Zetas and Gulf Cartel --battling for control of the valuable smuggling corridor. Cartels have used beheadings in the past to terrorize the public and send messages to Mexican law enforcement.
U.S. officials have said threats from drug gangs that control the area around Falcon Lake have hampered the search for Hartley, though divers have been in the lake searching this week. The search is expected to continue, although Gonzalez said it's becoming increasingly unlikely the body will be found.
Perry said investigators shouldn't back off because of threats such as Flores' slaying. "The worst thing we can do is let the terrorists dictate the terms of how we're going to live."
Instead, he said, the threat should be handled by increasing the numbers of law enforcement and military.
Ruben Rios, a spokesman for the Tamaulipas state prosecutor's office, said authorities "don't know how or why he was killed. We don't have any details on how he died."
U.S. officials and Hartley's family have been pressuring Mexico to step up the search for Hartley and determine what happened.
Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande, 25 miles long and 3 miles across. Pirates have robbed boaters and fisherman on the Mexican side, prompting warnings to Americans by Texas state officials, but Hartley's death would mark the first violent fatality on the lake.
Dennis Hartley, David Hartley's father, expressed shock and regret at Flores' killing. "I just, I'm in shock about this right now," he said from his Colorado home. "I really don't have any hope that David will be found. I really hate other people putting their lives at stake. We don't need more sons lost."
The Mexican Foreign Ministry says it has been using federal, state and local resources, including the military and helicopters, to search for Hartley's body and has opened an investigation. Over the weekend, authorities named two possible suspects.
However, Rios on Tuesday said no suspects have been identified and wouldn't comment on why a state investigator had already named two suspects.
On Sunday, state investigator Juan Carlos Ballesteros, who is assigned to Ciudad Miguel Aleman, said police believe brothers Juan Pedro and Jose Manuel Zaldivar Farias may have killed Hartley. Ballesteros didn't answer calls seeking comment Tuesday.
NPR's John Burnett contributed to this report, which contains material from The Associated Press
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