OLMITO, Texas — Fishermen found a nude decapitated man floating in the water near the Texas border beach resort of South Padre Island. While the motive has not yet been established, authorities are looking at a possible cartel execution.
The body was found on the bay side of the island by the fishermen who called authorities, said Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio during a news conference that Breitbart Texas attended.
While the head has not been found, authorities were able to identify the body through fingerprints which were run through a federal law enforcement database. The search revealed that 30-year-old Franklin Rodriguez Palacios Paz had previously been arrested by Edinburg Police and had been turned over to U.S. Border Patrol. He was an illegal alien.
“At first glance this could very well be a cartel murder,” Lucio told Breitbart Texas after the news conference. “It is still too early to make that determination since we don’t have all the facts, but yes at first glance the brutality of this murder fits with gruesome cartel videos.”
While an autopsy as not yet been conducted, Lucio said the victim’s head was cleanly severed and it appears to have been done with a very sharp instrument. Rodriguez also has a series of lacerations in his chest area which may have been an attempt at cutting the body open, the sheriff said.
“I have been in law enforcement for a very long time and this is the first time that I see a murder like this,” Lucio said. “The only time I had seen something like this is in training videos dealing with cartel activity.”
According Lucio, Rodriguez Palacios had been living in the border city of Edinburg prior to his murder and his investigators already notified the victim’s wife. Sheriff’s investigators are now working with their counterparts in Edinburg to help establish a timeline as to Rodriguez’s activities leading to the murder.
While a motive has not yet been ruled on to confirm or disprove cartel involvement, as Breitbart Texas previously reported just across the border two rival factions of the Gulf Cartel have gone to war setting off a series of fierce firefights and executions which have terrorized the border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa.
Earlier this month, Brownsville Police found a corpse wrapped in a blanket in a manner that is commonly used for cartel executions, Breitbart Texas reported. While police have not confirmed if that murder is in fact a cartel crime, the manner is consistent with the way Mexican cartels particularly in the western side of Mexico executed their associates who have gotten out of line.
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SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — Border authorities have found a nude decapitated body of a Mexican national near the Spring Break resort city of South Padre Island. The area is a popular destination for Texas students and sits close the U.S.-Mexico border on the Gulf of Mexico.
Details of the homicide have not yet been released, however Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio confirmed the gruesome murder to Breitbart Texas stating that additional information would be released this afternoon in a news conference.
The body of the victim who had been identified as a Mexican national was found Monday night, authorities said. A motive has not yet been released.
South Padre Island currently is a tourist destination hosting thousands of tourists for Spring Break. On the other hand, as Breitbart Texas previously reported, the tourist destination is near the border with Mexico where currently the Gulf Cartel is undergoing a fierce internal war with two factions fighting for control.
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