While certain politicians claim the border area is safe, local, state and federal officials are investigating three separate homicides where authorities have recovered the bodies of four men. While authorities have not publicly confirmed if the four murders are connected to drug trafficking or human smuggling, the Rio Grande Valley is a known corridor used by Mexican drug cartels who in the past have a history of settling their scores in a violent and efficient manner.

The most recent homicide took place on May 1 when firefighters in rural Hidalgo County had been trying to put out a car fire, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office revealed. Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies of two men inside the vehicle but have since turned the investigation over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation since the bodies were found in federal land.

According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the FBI, the agency is taking over the investigation into the possible double homicide; however their identities have not been released.

On April 29, local police and sheriff’s deputies responded to an area near the border city of San Juan where they recovered the decomposed body of 56-year-old Miguel Angel Muro; the body had signs of foul play, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office revealed.

Muro had been reported missing by his relatives to Pharr police the prior week when they claim he got into a gray SUV with two unknown men, information provided to Breitbart Texas by Pharr Police revealed.

The same day that sheriff’s deputies found Muro’s body, their counterparts in McAllen responded on April 29 to a golf course in the border city of McAllen where the body of 32-year-old Elpidio Noyola had been dumped. According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by McAllen Police, Noyola appears to have been killed in an unknown area and then his body dumped by the golf course.

Breitbart Texas was able to confirm through court records that Elipidio Noyola was in the country illegally and he had been previously deported in 2013 after U.S. Border Patrol agents found him near the border city of Hidalgo. Noyola had apparently rafted across the Rio Grande.

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