RUIDOSO, New Mexico — A suspected Mexican cartel hitman has been charged for the brutal double murder of a Texas family. The brutal killings occurred as the family members were sitting down for dinner together in the Texas border area home in Hidalgo county.
This week, Justice of the Peace Charlie Espinoza formally charged 21-year-old suspected cartel hit man Jose Carlos Campos Martinez with two counts of capital murder and set his bond at $1,750,000 before sending him back to his cell.
The charges against Campos stem from a double execution where two gunmen stormed a house in rural Mission, under orders of a drug cartel, and indiscriminately sprayed several rounds at a family that was having dinner.
On November 8, 2012, sheriff’s deputies responded to the 3000 block of 5 Mile Road to a house where five persons had been shot by two gunmen that had fled in an SUV, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas show.
The victims included a 12-year-old male teenager, his 13-year-old brother and a 19-year-old woman, however 64- year old Ramiro Rodriguez and 52-year-old Castos de los Santos died at a local hospital as a result of their wounds.
Not far from the murder scene, sheriff’s investigators found an abandoned Cadillac Escalade with firearms, gloves and face masks. For close to two years the murder remained unsolved until DNA evidence gathered from the crime scene and the SUV resulted in a positive match to 21-year-old Jose Carlos Campos Martinez who was in custody on another crime.
Investigators told Breitbart Texas that they believe that Campos was working under orders of a Mexican cartel at the time of the murder. While officials would not confirm with cartel was responsible for the hit, historically, the area just south of Hidalgo County has been under the control of the Gulf Cartel which crosses its drugs and smuggles humans across the Rio Grande using the Rio Grande Valley as a corridor before getting its goods into northern cities.
Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter: @ildefonsoortiz
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