Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/falcon-lake-shooting-david-michael-hartley-feared-dead-2689692.html
(video)
Falcon Lake Shooting: David Michael Hartley Feared Dead
October 1, 2010


David Michael Hartley Was Shot By Mexican Pirates on Falcon Lake on Thursday and Police Fear He is Dead

Hartley, 30, was jet skiing with his wife on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake when he was reportedly shot in the head by Mexican pirates. His wife Tiffany Hartley tried to save him, but had to retreat back to American waters when she heard bullets whizzing by her.

Search teams are still looking for Mr. Hartley on Friday but it is feared he is dead. It is thought that the couple were on the Mexican side to take pictures of a famous church in Old Guerrero and were on their way back when they saw the armed gunmen on boats. It is thought that one of the boats strayed briefly into U.S. waters when it was trying to run down Mrs Hartley.

The gunmen are suspected to be Mexican pirates, whose activity on Falcon Lake, which spans the U.S. and Mexico border, has increased over the past year. There have not been any shootings this year, and it is not known why the pirates fired at Mr. Hartley and his wife.  
(snip)

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/new-details-emerge-in-deadly-shooting-on-us-mexico-border-lake/19658735
(video)
New Details Emerge in Deadly Border Lake Attack
October 3, 2010

(snip)
The couple were sightseeing on Jet Skis on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on Thursday when Hartley says several boats of gunmen opened fire, striking her husband in the back of his head.

A recording of her 911 call released this weekend and reports from law enforcement officials detail the tragic incident.

"He was thrown off the Jet Ski and I couldn't pick him up to get him on mine," Hartley, 29, told the 911 dispatcher after she safely made it to shore. "Oh, God."

Texas authorities believe David Hartley, 30, died in the attack.

"[Tiffany Hartley] said she was seeing bullets hitting close to her in the water and realized that her husband had been hit behind the head," Zapata County, Texas, Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. told ABC News. "She went back trying to find, trying to help him. She went in the water trying to load up her husband to her Jet Ski ... trying to get his body and Jet Ski back to the U.S. side. She was being shot at so she finally had to let go of the body, climb back in her Jet Ski and head back over here to the United States."

Hartley told police that the armed men, who Gonzalez said he believes are pirates associated with a Mexican drug cartel, chased her into U.S. waters as she fled.
(snip)
"The one thing I dreaded on Falcon Lake has happened," said the Zapata County sheriff. "The lake is not secure, the border is not secure because the incident that I dreaded the most has in fact happened. We cannot go to Mexico, we cannot recover that body, we cannot conduct an investigation, we have to tell the family we can't do anything about it."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/mexican-pirates-mother-slain-american-begs-hillary-clinton/story?id=11801126
(video)
Mother of American Killed by Mexican Pirates Begs Hillary Clinton: 'Help Me'
The Family of David Michael Hartley Says They've Gotten Little Help in Bringing His Body Home
October 5, 2010

A U.S. woman whose son was shot in the head by Mexican pirates while boating on a border lake in Texas is begging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to help her, "mother to mother."

The body of David Michael Hartley, 30, has yet to be recovered days after he was killed by teenage pirates on Falcon Lake after he and his wife, Tiffany Hartley, crossed the border on their Jet Skis. U.S. officials said they're prohibited from entering into Mexican waters to search for his body and Mexico said it doesn't have the money to look.

"He needs to come home and we're begging the Mexican government, the governor of Texas, President Obama," the man's mother, Pam Hartley, told "Good Morning America" today.

"To Hillary -- mother to mother -- help me bring my son home, please," she said, crying. "She's a mother, she would know."

Tiffany Hartley, 29, said they dismissed warnings about crossing into the Mexican side of the lake to take pictures of a historic church, as part of her husband's history hobby. As they made their way back to the U.S. border, they were approached by three boats of fully-armed pirates.
"David and I were racing back to the U.S. and they started shooting," she told "Good Morning America." I looked back and I saw that David had been shot and I turned around to go get him."

Hartley said she tried as hard as she could to pull her husband onto her own Jet Ski to take him to safety, "but he's a lot bigger than me.

"You can't imagine how awful it was not being able to help him," she said.

Knowing her own life was in jeopardy, Hartley said she was forced to abandon her husband. She took her Jet Ski at top speed back to the U.S. shore and placed a panicked 911 call.

U.S. authorities have searched Falcon Lake on the U.S. side but to no avail.

"We need to get on the Mexico side so we can search for him," Pam Hartley said.

The state of Texas had warned boaters and fisherman as far back as April to stay away from the Mexican side of the lake. Since then, the drug wars along the border have gotten more violent and there have been reports of more pirate encounters.

San Antonio dentist Richard Drake said he made sure to stay on the U.S. side of the same lake while fishing in a tournament in May, but pirates attempted to lure him across the border by pretending to be Mexican authorities.

"I turned and looked over my shoulder ... three guys in a bass boat with machine guns waving and yelling at me, 'Pull over! Pull over!" he said.

Texas' Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez put it simply: "Stay away from Mexico. It's as simple as that."
A Recent Increase in Violence

Hartley said both she and her husband knew of the warnings.
"We've heard of pirates and stuff being over there before. But we hadn't heard anything for several months," she said. "I know David. He would never put me in a position that might be dangerous."

Falcon Lake, part of the Rio Grande situated directly on the Texas-Mexico border, has recently become a haven for the pirates, and there have been at least five reported run-ins with pirates on the lake so far this year, although this is the first reported case of a death.

The sheriff said many of the pirates are teens or pre-teens, and some "barely even know how to use a weapon."

But despite that, he said he has long feared that someone would be killed.
"The one thing I dreaded on Falcon Lake has happened," he said. "The lake is not secure, the border is not secure because the incident that I dreaded the most has, in fact, happened. We cannot go to Mexico, we cannot recover that body, we cannot conduct an investigation, we have to tell the family we can't do anything about it."

According to ABC Rio Grande, Texas, affiliate KRGV-TV, there have been at least four previous incidents on the lake in the past five months:

April 30: Four heavily armed men boarded two boats near the Old Guerrero area demanding money.

May 6: Two armed men approached a boat and demanded cash.

May 16: Five armed men boarded a boat on the United States side of the lake.

Aug 31: Pirates, using a small boat marked "Game Wardin" tried to stop a Texas fisherman.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/david-hartley-victim-mexican-pirates-falcon-lake-remembered/story?id=11808897
(Video)
David Michael Hartley Memorialized, Wife Tiffany Hartley Defends Herself Against Accusations
Woman Says She Would Never Hurt Her Husband
October 6, 2010

As she held a memorial service for her husband who was allegedly shot dead by pirates on the Mexican side of Texas' Falcon Lake, Tiffany Hartley addressed skeptics on both sides of the border who doubted her story.
"It's hard just to hear it," she told "Good Morning America."  "But I can see it from their point of view. I can understand why they might think that, but it's not true. ... I would never even think about hurting my husband.

"I loved him," she said.

The case has gotten so much attention that Texas Gov. Rick Perry is asking Mexican President Filipe Calderon to call him, the Associated Press reported, with assurances that Mexican authorities are searching for David Michael Hartley's body.
Perry told the AP that He says he hopes "within the next 48 hours, that the body has been retrieved. If not, we're not looking hard enough."

Hundreds of mourners gathered in a south Texas church late Tuesday night to remember Hartley.

Mexican Authorities Question Wife's Story

Hartley said she and her husband came under attack from Mexican pirates as they rode their Jet Skis on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake, but Mexican authorities have said there is no evidence of a crime as described by Tiffany Hartley.
Hartley told police the pirates shot her husband in the head. The 30-year-old man's body has not been recovered.

U.S. officials said they're prohibited from entering Mexican waters to search for his body. David Hartley's mother, Pam Hartley, has issued a public plea to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking for aid in bringing her son's body home.

"He needs to come home and we're begging the Mexican government, the governor of Texas, President Obama," the man's mother, Pam Hartley, told "Good Morning America" Tuesday.

"To Hillary -- mother to mother -- help me bring my son home, please," she said, crying. "She's a mother, she would know."

Dennis Hartley has said Mexican police aren't doing enough to find his son's body. On Tuesday he told The Associated Press that he believed the Mexican authorities were being paid off by drug cartels.
ouple Disregarded Warnings About Danger

"I don't think anything right now is being done," he told the AP. "I don't think at this time Mexico is really doing anything."

David Hartley was a history buff. Tiffany Hartley, 29, said she and her husband dismissed warnings about crossing into the Mexican side of the lake so they could take pictures of a historic church. She said it had been some months since they had heard reports of pirates being on the lake.

While they were making their way back to the U.S. border, they were approached by three boats of fully armed pirates, she said.

"David and I were racing back to the U.S., and they started shooting," she told "Good Morning America." I looked back, and I saw that David had been shot, and I turned around to go get him."
Under Attacks, Woman Had to Leave Injured Husband Behind

Hartley said she tried as hard as she could to pull her husband onto her own Jet Ski to take him to safety, "but he's a lot bigger than me.

"You can't imagine how awful it was not being able to help him," she said.

Knowing her own life was in jeopardy, Hartley said she was forced to abandon her husband. She took her Jet Ski at top speed back to the U.S. shore and placed a panicked 911 call.

U.S. authorities have searched Falcon Lake on the American side, to no avail.

The state of Texas had warned boaters and fisherman as long ago as April to stay away from the Mexican side of the lake. Since then, the drug wars along the border have gotten more violent and there have been reports of more pirate encounters.
Lake Has Become Pirate's Haven

Falcon Lake, part of the Rio Grande situated directly on the Texas-Mexico border, has recently become a haven for the pirates, and there have been at least five reported run-ins with pirates on the lake so far this year, although this is the first reported case of a death.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20018731-504083.html
Falcon Lake Update: Witness Supports Tiffany Hartley's Pirate Chase Description
October 6, 2010

(http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2010/10/06/falcon_%25282%2529_370x278.jpg)
David Michael Hartley, right, believed shot by Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake. (Personal Photo)

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) On Monday, a Mexican official seemed to question whether an attack on an American couple by Mexican pirates took place at all, but now Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez says he has a witness who saw Tiffany Hartley, the wife of missing American David Hartley, being chased by men in a small boat.
Police in Mexico will search Falcon Lake along the Texas-Mexico border today using boats and military helicopters in their search for the body of David Hartley, who was allegedly shot by pirates while jet skiing on the Mexican side of the lake five days ago.

Tiffany, who has said she was with her husband but could not save him, expressed frustration on CBS News' "The Early Show" on Tuesday that the Mexican government wasn't doing enough to help.

"As far as we know, we don't think they have been looking," she told the morning show. "We understand the possibility that the people who did this probably have him. And that's why maybe they can't find him."

In a statement, Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrizales, district attorney for the Miguel Aleman Province, writes, "We are not sure. We are not certain that the incident happened the way they are telling us."

David Hartley father, Dennis Hartley, told the Associated Press, "I don't think at this time...Mexico is really doing anything."

That should change, according to Gonzalez, who met with Mexican authorities last night. He told CBS News they promised to search all day or until they find David Hartley.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7233983.html
(video)
Perry calls for Mexico probe of death at Falcon Lake
October 6, 2010

AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday he has asked Mexico's president to call him in the next 48 hours to say that the body of an American reportedly shot to death on a border lake has been recovered.

"If not, we're not looking hard enough," Perry told The Associated Press.

Tiffany Hartley of Milliken, Colo., says her husband, David, was shot by Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake last week as they were returning to the United States on Jet Skis. Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande that has been plagued by pirates who rob boaters and fisherman who wander into Mexican waters. Hartley's death would be the first killing on the lake.

The Hartley family has complained that Mexican authorities are not doing enough to find David Hartley's body. Tiffany Hartley has said that her husband was shot in the head by three men chasing them in speedboats and that he fell off his Jet Ski and into the lake. His body has not been recovered.

Perry said Mexico needs to use every resource available to find the body and have it returned to U.S. soil.

"I hope that if (Mexican President Felipe Calderon) calls me within the next 48 hours, that the body has been retrieved," Perry said.

Officials in Mexico's Tamaulipas state, where the shooting occurred, have cast doubt on Hartley's story, telling the McAllen Monitor that no one near the lake reported hearing gunshots or the sounds of a Jet Ski engine.

The district attorney there, Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrixales, also told the paper that authorities "are not certain that incident happened the way that they are telling us."

Mexican authorities have not responded to requests for comment from the AP.

Perry said the couple was sightseeing in Mexico.

"I find it really reprehensible for anyone, U.S. or Mexican, to speak otherwise," he said.

Perry used the incident to renew his demand that the federal government do more to secure the U.S.-Mexico border as northern Mexico sinks deeper into drug-gang violence. The violence has spread in the last few months from Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of Mexico's drug war across from El Paso, Texas, to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande Valley, including Tamaulipas state where Hartley reportedly disappeared. Two drug gangs, the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, are battling for supremacy there and fighting the Mexican military.

"Frankly, these two presidents (Calderon and President Barack Obama) need to get together with their secretaries of state and say, 'What are we going to do about this?'"

Perry also said he spoke Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's chief of staff and once again made his request for an additional 1,000 National Guard troops on the Texas-Mexico border, a request that has been repeatedly denied.

U.S. authorities are unable to investigate Hartley's disappearance because it happened in Mexico.

"How many more American citizens have to die?" Perry said.

Also: friends of the victim are planning a rally in Denver. The family of David Hartley say Mexican authorities aren’t doing enough to find his body. Supporters plan to gather outside the Mexican consulate at 1 p.m. Friday (Mountain time) to call on them to do more.
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(Bolded by me)
The above posted article says there are no witnesses, but today there is news of a witness.(article up thread)
It will be interesting to see if the witness I've read about in the news today is credible and can help shed some light on this case. JMHO

The wife says she had a gun pointed to her head (from a distance of about 10ft-that's what she said on Today Show) but was then let go by the pirates. Yet, the witness says he saw her approaching the shore while being chased by them. Why would they let her go, but then chase her? So many questions really, but that's the one most on my mind. The witness that came forth is the same one who called 911, atleast that's what I heard either on Fox or HLN.

Thanks Muffy for starting this thread.  I have had a funny feeling about this one since it was first reported.  Blink just did a post on it as well:

http://blinkoncrime.com/2010/10/05/david-hartley-gunned-down-on-jet-ski-in-mexico-tiffany-young-hartley-facing-scrutiny/

TY Klaas.  I just went over to read Blink's article.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/25303403/detail.html
Memorial Held For Colorado Man Killed By Pirates
David Hartley's Body Still Missing
October 6, 2010

MCALLEN, Texas -- More than 300 people attended a memorial service for Colorado native David Hartley Tuesday evening in McAllen, Texas.
(snip)
Pam Hartley, David's mother, said family members would be at the lake Wednesday to monitor the search.

"We're going to check [on the search] for ourselves," she said.

She also said she hopes their presence at the lake will help the family heal.

Friends and the Young and Hartley families have organized a rally to bring awareness to David Hartley's murder. It will be held Friday at 12:30 p.m. at the Mexican Consulate at 5350 Leetsdale Drive, Suite 100 in Denver.

"This has left the Northern Colorado community that the couple calls home in an outrage," said the organizer in a statement to 7NEWS. "This community of friends and family refuse to believe that everything that can be done has been done and are using this rally to communicate to the Mexican Consulate, Media and hopefully the U.S. State Department, that we will not accept that 'there is nothing we can do' and that 'David may never be returned home.'"

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7234351.html
Mexican officials stepping up search for body
October 6, 2010
 AUSTIN, Texas — The Mexican government says authorities have stepped up their efforts to find the body of an American reportedly shot to death on a border lake.

The statement from the Mexican Foreign Relations Ministry was in response to a call from Gov. Rick Perry, urging Mexico to use every resource available to find the body of David Hartley and have it returned to the U.S.

Tiffany Hartley, of Colorado, says her husband, David, was shot by Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake last week as they were returning to the United States on Jet Skis.

The statement said Mexican authorities "from the first moment" have been in contact with their U.S. counterparts to coordinate search and recovery of Hartley's body, and noted that Mexico has "stepped up their actions with the support of specialized personnel, boats and helicopters."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/10/mexican-army-joins-search-for-texan-missing-on-border-lake/1
Mexican army joins search for Texan missing on border lake
October 6, 2010

(http://i.usatoday.net/communitymanager/_photos/on-deadline/2010/10/06/Lakex-wide-community.jpg)


Mexican authorities, including members of the Mexican army, are now involved in the search on a border lake for a Texas man whose wife says was shot while the couple was touring the area on Jet Skis, the McAllen Monitor reports.

The Texas newspaper also says the police commander of Tamaulipas and his full staff are also joining the search.

Tiffany Hartley reported that she and her husband, David Michael Hartley, came under fire from gunmen in speedboats on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake.

She says her husband was shot through the head and that she had to abandon him and flee back across the lake to Texas.

Authorities in Mexico had questioned her account. The police commander told the Monitor earlier that no one near the lake reported hearing gunshots or the sound of anyone on a Jet Ski.

The Tamaulipas state district attorney, Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrixales, also told the newspaper that authorities "are not certain that incident happened the way that they are telling us."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is facing re-election, today called on Mexico's president to get involved in the case.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7233872.html
Rally planned for man allegedly shot by pirates
October 6, 2010

 DENVER — Friends of an American man allegedly killed by pirates in a lake on the Texas-Mexico border are planning a rally in Denver.

The family of David Hartley say Mexican authorities aren't doing enough to find his body. Supporters plan to gather outside the Mexican consulate at 1 p.m. Friday to call on them to do more.

David Hartley's family lives in Colorado and he and his wife Tiffany were planning to move back before she says they were chased by speedboats while on Jet Skis on Falcon Lake last week. She says gunmen shot her husband in the head.
(snip)

http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Sheriff-Search-Under-Way-on-Both-Sides-of-Falcon/SK8jd2yiNkGA9quMDllNdg.cspx
Sheriff: Search Under Way on Both Sides of Falcon Lake
October 6, 2010

ZAPATA - Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, Jr tells CHANNEL 5 NEWS authorities are looking for David Hartley's body on both sides of Falcon Lake. Gonzalez has been in touch with Tamaulipas state police. They tell him they'll be using boats, helicopters and jet skis to search on the Mexican side.

The sheriff also confirms he's expecting the Mexican army and federal police to assist.

On the US side, searchers will use US Border Patrol boats, air support and boats provided by Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens.

Sheriff Gonzalez says there's a coordinated effort on both sides of the lake.

Interesting comment:
Pahoua Mouoa says:
The whole story is fishy.. things don't add up!
#1. How did David Hartley accept someone as a friend after Oct. 2 2010?
http://www.facebook.com/Mandiexxx?ref=sgm#!/Mandiexxxxx
 
From here: http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/10/tiffany_young-hartley_plot_in.php

Edit link.  MuffyBee

Hope it's ok to post that, if not someone delete & I'm sorry if I posted something I shouln't have. I only thought of that after I posted it. I do think it's odd, but who knows. I'm not sure how fb works. Maybe he requested her and she accepted it on that date? ugh, now I feel bad for posting it.  ::MonkeyNoNo::

Sorry, I'm talking about the link to that woman's facebook page. I shouldn't have posted it. I know she has it set to public, but still.  ::MonkeyNoNo::

If she had it set to public it's probably okay, but I've edited it since you feel badly about it QuietMonkey.  Sometimes I'm in a bit of a quandary about things like that myself. 

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1006/Falcon-Lake-pirate-shooting-Where-s-missing-boater-David-Hartley
Falcon Lake 'pirate' shooting: Where's missing boater David Hartley?

Nearly a week after Mexican pirates allegedly shot and killed David Hartley on Falcon Lake, Texas, his body has still not been found. What might be causing the delay?
October 6, 2010

The Mexican government on Wednesday stepped up a search on Falcon Lake – 60 miles long and straddling the US-Mexico border – for a missing US boater, presumed shot and killed by Mexican pirates nearly a week ago.
The halting attempt by the US and Mexico to find the body of David Hartley and establish security on the deceptively placid lake  highlights the degree to which cross-border communications and trust have broken down since the start of the Mexico drug war in 2006, says Texas state legislator Aaron Pena.

The result is that an issue that once might have been handled between local officials from Texas and the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas has now escalated into an international incident demanding the involvement of the Obama administration.

Border security "will be much more successful if both sides are working toward the same goal," says Peter DeShazo, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

That is often no longer the case, mostly because Mexican officials who had good relations with local government and law enforcement in Texas have been forced to flee from the drug war that has claimed more than 26,000 Mexicans in the past four years, says Mr. Pena, the Texas lawmaker.

"The leaders of border communities on the Mexican side now live on our side," says Pena, who met with local and state law-enforcement officials at the lake on Wednesday. "Plus the cartels have infiltrated many aspects of government on the border, they've infiltrated law enforcement, so you don't know who to trust anymore."

The incident began last Thursday afternoon when presumed Mexican pirates, already implicated earlier this year for robbing US bass boaters who had crossed over to the Mexican side, began shooting at Mr. Hartley and his wife, Tiffany, who had gone six miles into Mexico to visit the ruins of a submerged church.

Ms. Hartley says that when her husband was shot, she doubled back to try to fetch him, but had to abandon the rescue effort in order to escape. One eyewitness saw a boat matching Ms. Hartley's description of the boat used in the alleged attack chasing her deep into US waters. A memorial service for Mr. Hartley was held Tuesday.
Mexico: No formal complaint

Amid pleas from the family and wife of Mr. Hartley, the US has put pressure on Mexican authorities, some of whom have publicly doubted the veracity of Ms. Hartley's story. Mr. Hartley's father, Dennis Hartley, told the Associated Press, "I don't think at this time ... Mexico is really doing anything."
Tamaulipas state police, however, say that Ms. Hartley must file a formal complaint  before they can begin an official investigation. Ms Hartley is expected to travel to Mexico today. In the meantime, an informal search has already been launched, said Ruben Dario Rios, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office, according to published reports.
US officials and politicians like Sen. John Cornyn (R) of Texas and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D) of Texas say they've been in communication with various Mexican agencies since the shooting happened and demand prompt action.

"David Hartley must be found," Congressman Cuellar told a Texas newspaper. "We can and must continue to urge our Mexican counterparts to search for David Hartley.”

On Wednesday, that pressure seemed to pay off as Mexican officials began a more thorough search, using helicopters and more boats on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake, which US authorities are not allowed to patrol. The investigation also appears to be making some headway as Texas authorities glean more information from sources on the other side of the lake.

Yet the cross-border tension remains palpable as Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, who is heading up the investigation on the US side, declined an invitation to join the search in Mexico. "I think if we go out there and we end up getting into a gun battle, it's definitely an international incident that would have some repercussions," he said.
'Take back the lake'

In an interview on KURV radio in Texas, Ms. Hartley herself echoed a call by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to address the situation not just diplomatically, but with a show of force, including more National Guard troops.

“They need to have a realization, a wake-up call," Ms. Hartley said. "We need to get people down here. We need to get our Army and military and whoever. We need to double our Border Patrol and take back the lake. Why in the heck do [the cartels] have [control of] that lake? They have most of that lake.”

Pena echoed her sentiments: "On the Mexican side every inch is controlled by the cartels and it's a hotbed of criminal activity."

In the past, the Obama administration has defended its border policy against critics, saying it has spent more time and money, and deployed more National Guard troops to secure the border than any other administration. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said the US government has offered resources to help find Mr. Hartley.

Nevertheless, pressure is rising on the Obama administration to get more directly involved with the situation on Falcon Lake.

"President Obama says he wants lawmakers in both houses of Congress to make progress this year on reforming the immigration system," writes Jim Kouri, vice president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, on the Borderfire Report blog. "However, he's not talking about how his administration is failing to protect citizens from criminal aliens."

Thanks MuffyBee!  ::MonkeyAngel::

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/1006/Mexico-Probe-into-Falcon-Lake-killing-delayed-by-Tiffany-Hartley-s-missing-complaint

Mexico: Probe into Falcon Lake killing delayed by Tiffany Hartley's 'missing' complaint

Mexican officials said Wednesday they still awaited a formal complaint, which would trigger a full investigation into the alleged killing of David Hartley on Falcon Lake.
Mexico City

Six days after Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake allegedly shot an American tourist, Mexican officials said they expected Tiffany Hartley, the wife of the deceased, to formally file a complaint with Mexican authorities today.
But the prosecutor’s office in the border state of Tamaulipas said Wednesday morning that it was waiting to receive that complaint, which is needed before a formal investigation can begin into the alleged Sept. 30 killing of David Hartley.

“The official complaint is missing.... Everything was ‘they said this, they said that’ but there hasn’t been a formal claim,” says Ruben Dario, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

Mr. Dario said Wednesday morning that Mexican officials expected Ms. Hartley to visit the municipality of Miguel Aleman and lodge a complaint in person.

The prosecutor's office said that a search began Sept. 30 for Hartley's still-missing body when the state was first contacted by the sheriff’s office in Zapata, Texas.

It was unclear Wednesday why Hartley would wait nearly a week before filing a formal complaint into the alleged killing, though it comes amid tit-for-tat accusations that Mexican authorities are not searching hard enough and that Hartley is withholding details about the incident.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry also entered the fray today, giving Mexico a subtle two-day deadline to find the body.

"I hope that if [Mexican President Felipe Calderón] calls me within the next 48 hours, that the body has been retrieved," Governor Perry told the Associated Press. "If not, we're not looking hard enough."

Shortly thereafter the Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement condemning the alleged murder and saying that authorities have been coordinating with United States officials from the beginning.

“The Mexican government offers its commitment to investigate the death of a US citizen in waters of the Falcon Dam,” the ministry said.

Specialized personnel, boats, and helicopters have been deployed to the lake, according to the statement. It added that Hartley has already given testimony at the Mexican consulate in McAllen, Texas, permitting "Mexican ministerial authorities to integrate the investigation into whoever is responsible for the US citizen."

Boaters on Falcon Lake, a 60-mile area of reservoir and lakes straddling US and Mexican territory, have come under repeated attacks in recent months.

Since April 30, four incidents of armed robberies or attempted theft have been reported on Falcon Lake: one in April, two in May, and one in August. The fifth ambush ended last week with the possible death of Mr. Hartley, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

In fishing boats, gunmen armed with AK-47s and AR-15 rifles disguise themselves as Mexican police, while others use crude signs to disguise their boats as Texas Parks and Wildlife vessels.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-mexico-border-news/texas-mexico-border/the-us-offers-to-assist-mexico-in-finding-victim/
The U.S. Offers to Assist Mexico in Finding Victim
October 6, 2010

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said today that his office sent a letter to Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., offering to assist in the search for the body of a U.S. citizen allegedly shot and killed last week on South Texas’ Falcon Lake.

Cuellar — who chairs the Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism, and whose district includes the freshwater lake — was in Austin for a conference on international human trafficking. Tiffany Hartley told Zapata County authorities Mexican pirates shot her husband David Hartley, 30, in the head while the two were sightseeing on the Mexican side of the international body of water. She said he was shot while the two were on Jet Skis. The shooters continued to fire at her as she tried to retreat, she said, and she could not carry her husband's body to shore.

A frustrated Hartley told the San Antonio Express-News  on Tuesday that she believed Mexican authorities were not doing all they could to locate her husband’s body. The Associated Press reported today, however, that Mexican authorities say they have stepped up their search efforts as a result of a phone call from Gov. Rick Perry to Mexican authorities urging them to do everything in their power to find Hartley’s body.

Some on both sides of the Rio Grande have speculated about what happened on the lake, and why the couple would travel into Mexico during what’s been dubbed an all-out war between cartels and law enforcement there. Former Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster — who also served as chairman of the Texas Border Coalition — expressed his own doubts about the incident to the Express-News on Tuesday, questioning whether there was any “domestic discord” between the two.

Cuellar acknowledged the rumors. He said he preferred to see what transpired before addressing their substance. “[Have] there been some questions that have been raised? Definitely. I’ve been privy to some of those, but we’ll wait until they do the investigation,” he said.

Cuellar, whom Perry appointed as Texas secretary of state in 2001, introduced the governor at the conference. Perry said the Falcon Lake incident should serve as yet another reminder that Washington needs to do more to secure the border, a theme he repeated more than once during his speech at the conference.

“These transnational gangs oppress their trafficking victims but they also employ them as pawns," Perry said. "That’s why in the absence of adequate assistance from Washington, we made another plea [Tuesday] to the office of Homeland Security and reached out to their counterparts in the Mexican side for continued effort to secure our border with Mexico.”

Addressing the governor’s comments, Cuellar told reporters that “this is not the time to be attacking, but I understand we are at that time of the [election] year.” Washington, he added, has added $600 million for border security, which he called “the largest infusion we’ve had for the border.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20018747-504083.html
Falcon Lake Update: Texas Gov. Calls On U.S., Mexican Presidents to Find Missing American
October 6, 2010


(http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2010/10/05/falcon_%280%29_370x278.jpg)
David Michael Hartley, right, believed shot by Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake. (Personal Photo)

I hope I am so wrong . . . I hope this woman is not involved . . . and thus making us look . . . whatever.

I am not buying this story...I hope that I am wrong..
if he had his life jacket on, it would have kept him afloat..also, where did his jet ski go? it would not have sunk easily...She could have perhaps stayed on her jet ski, grabbed his life jacket by the straps and drug him along side of her own jet ski till they got to safe waters? dunno, but where there is a will, there is a way..strange that his body disappeared like that..Why did the pirates let her go and didn't steal her jet ski too? the guy who saw her coming into shore said that he saw a boat coming towards shore but turned around..I didn't see anything where he said that he saw them chasing her..
if the pirates did kill David, why would they bother retrieving his body from the water? one thing comes to mind though..the jet ski key is usually hooked to the life jacket and when the body would have fallen into the water, the key would still be attached to his life jacket..maybe they took the life jacket off of him to get the key and then his body sank? just a thought...
like I said, I hope that I am wrong about all of this cynical feelings that I have...

As I read on Blink's site from one of the commentators, how do you turn someone over with a life vest . . . life vests are designed so you float on your back!
I hope I'm wrong too Cookie.

will go check out what Blink has to say about this matter...
how are ya Sister? ::MonkeyKiss::

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/search-for-man-missing-on-lake-thwarted-by-958992.html
Search for man missing on lake thwarted by gangs
October 7, 2010

ZAPATA, Texas — U.S. officials say the search for an American tourist reportedly shot dead on a border lake by Mexican pirates has been hampered by threats of an ambush from drug gangs.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas said the search for David Hartley was temporarily halted Wednesday evening as Mexican officials "worried about being ambushed because they've gotten the call already."

He said the search resumed Thursday morning, but Mexican searchers are "doing this under threat of their lives."

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said the area where the shooting allegedly happened while Hartley and his wife were exploring the lake on Jet Skies is a stronghold of the Zeta drug gang. Gonzalez said he has sent word to Zetas that he wants the body returned and has no plans to prosecute.

Cuellar and two other area congressmen say Mexico was "doing the best that they can" even though Gov. Rick Perry has said drug-gang fears are no excuse to call off the search.

___

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/7236619.html
Texas sheriff on Jet Skier: 'All we want ... is a body'
October 7, 2010

ZAPATA — A Texas border sheriff on Thursday said he was calling directly on Zeta operatives to simply produce the body of a missing U.S. citizen believed shot and killed last week by drug gangs on Falcon Lake reservoir.

“All we want on this side is a body,” Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said at a news conference here attended by three congressmen and a host of other U.S. officials.

Gonzalez said he had made his entreaty privately through channels he could not disclose, but that now he was making his request public so the Zetas — an assassination hit squad now turned full-fledged cartel — would know he had no jurisdiction to go after them.

Mexican authorities resumed their search Thursday morning for the body of David Michael Hartley. This morning’s ongoing efforts, being conducted by at least 40 troops, comes one week after Hartley’s wife made a frantic 911 call reporting his slaying during a sightseeing trip.

There were conflicting media reports early Thursday suggesting that Mexican officials had stopped their search because of threats from drug cartels, prompting criticism from Gov. Rick Perry, who on Wednesday called on Mexican President Felipe Calderón to do a thorough search for the body.

Speaking in Houston, Perry, who's running for re-election, said he had not heard from Calderón. He was harshly critical of the Mexicans’ efforts to find the body.
“No, I’m not satisfied, I don’t think we’re doing enough. When you call off a search the way they did this morning, and give as the reason that the drug cartels are in control of that part of the state, something’s not right,” said Perry, after receiving the endorsement of the Houston Police Officer’s Union at their headquarters. “If they need some assistance, the United States needs to be visiting them about how we can give the assistance to take back control of that part of the state. "

“But we do not need to let our border continue deteriorate from the standpoint of having drug cartels telling us whether or not we can go in and bring back the body of an American that’s been killed, that is irresponsible,” Perry added.

Meanwhile, three members of the South Texas congressional delegation said they had called for more federal Homeland Security resources, not only along the border, but directly on Falcon Lake and Amistad reservoirs.

The congressmen said they wanted to emphasize that the incident did happen on Mexican waters and that people were safe to visit the U.S. side of the lake.

The ambush by three boatloads, as the couple was on Jet Skis viewing Mexican ruins, was the fifth reported confrontation with “pirates” on the border lake since the spring. It was the first involving a shooting death, followed by a gun chase extending to the U.S. side.

Tiffany Hartley and her family met Wednesday night with two Mexican state police commanders at an international crossing linking Roma, Texas, with the Mexican city of Miguel Aleman.

“I took them to the Roma ..... port of entry and brought them face to face with the two people that were in charge of the search,” Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar said. “One of the things I wanted to do was make sure the family met up with the people in charge of the search and let them know that the Mexican government is indeed searching.”

Cuellar said officials on Wednesday searched a tributary where the reported incident had occurred, and planned Thursday morning to widen the search into the lake.

Family members said they were encouraged by the meeting.

“They were extending the courtesy to come out and to try to put us at ease,” said Paul Hartley, David Hartley’s uncle who traveled from Tucson, Ariz.

The Mexicans are frank about their fears searching an area under known control of traffickers protecting prime real estate for contraband. On either side of the 60-mile-long lake are long stretches of privately owned scrub land, with the U.S. side patrolled primarily by a handful of game wardens.

Eleven mayors have been killed, and police on all levels are under pressure to moonlight for the cartels. Kidnappings are rampant, as are threats to harm officials and their families.

“We don’t want that on our conscience,” Paul Hartley said.

Tiffany Hartley said it was difficult returning to the lake to observe the Texas efforts in the search Wednesday, as it brought back memories of how last week’s sunny day on the lake ended in horror.

Laying a wreath in the water from Tuesday night’s well-attended memorial service gave her some peace, she said, but closure won’t come until her husband’s body is found.

She said she’s hoping that by speaking publicly, the Obama administration will ramp up border security more than has already been done. She’s also dealing with a nation that largely doesn’t want to believe her, with some television personalities insinuating she killed her husband.

“How on earth could I want to live this life without him?” she said. “I can’t even imagine why people would think that I would do this to him. But there’s people who don’t know us.”

watching Tiffany on JVM now...She is sooooooo calm about this whole ordeal...
she could recount almost everything she was saying to David as he lay in the water with the gang holding a gun to her practically but she does not know what any of the gang looked like...
now she wants to get his body back so they can on get on with the lives..wth???

no tears, no trauma in her voice...no hesitation in explaining her story...l don't get it...

Statement analysis is thought provoking:

http://seamusoriley.blogspot.com/2010/10/mexican-standoff.html

http://seamusoriley.blogspot.com/2010/10/statement-analysis-of-tiffany-hartley.html

very good read there nicubird...thanks...just reinforced what I already feel about her..
don't know how a bullet didn't hit her and how did David get hit in the forehead...and how did she just go by on her jet ski right past 3 boats of murdering gang members? without any harm to her at all...
nope, not buying any of it...those jet skis are not the easiest to get back up on from the water once you have fallen off of them...why didn't she just drag David in the water along with her, holding onto the strap of his life jacket to at least get him over to the American side...? and of course, the pictures of the church that they went out to photograph was in the camera on David's jet ski..which can not be found...I think that those pirates/gang would have taken her jet ski too..maybe left her alone but why leave an expensive jetski there when they are theives? or ask her for money? too fishy for me..

http://www.gazette.com/articles/colorado-106005-trees-mill.html
SUNRISE: Efforts to retrieve Colorado man's body ramped up
Comments 0
October 08, 2010 7:25 AM
MATT STEINER
THE GAZETTE

(NEWS REPORTS) Authorities in Mexico say the search has intensified for a missing American tourist presumably shot and killed by Mexican pirates on a border lake.

That news came after U.S. officials said threats of an ambush from drug gangs temporarily thwarted efforts.

"When darkness was falling (Wednesday evening), they got word that there might be an ambush," U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said. "People that are trying to do their job on the Mexican side are facing a risk, they're right inside the hornets' nest ... they had to suspend the search."

Berthoud, Colo., native Tiffany Hartley said her husband, David, was shot to death by Mexican pirates chasing them on speedboats across Falcon Lake on Sept. 30 as they returned on Wave Runners from a trip to photograph a historic Mexican church.

Neither his body nor the Wave Runner has been recovered.

Mexican officials say hundreds of people using speedboats, helicopters and all-terrain vehicles are searching for David Hartley.

The Denver Post reports that Texas officials have warned boaters and fisherman that pirates frequent the Mexican side of the lake, a 25-mile by 3-mile dammed section of the Rio Grande.
That part of Tamaulipas state is overrun by violence from a turf battle between the Gulf Cartel and the Zeta drug gang, made up of former Mexican special forces soldiers, and both are battling the Mexican military.

The couple were planning to return to Colorado after David Hartley's work in the oil industry slowed in Texas, according to the Denver Post.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/07/mexican-authorities-say-search-american-tourist-began-week-alleged-pirate/?test=latestnews
Authorities: 'Info' Indicates U.S. Woman Had No Role in Husband's Death on Border Lake

Published October 07, 2010
| FoxNews.com
An American woman isn't being identified by as a suspect in her husband's death on a Mexican border lake, U.S. investigators said, tamping down speculation about the credibility of her story.

U.S. law enforcement officials said Thursday that they have undisclosed "information" leading them to believe Tiffany Harley had no criminal involvement in an alleged attack on her husband on Lake Falcon, a 60-mile-long lake that connects Texas with Mexico.

Sheriff Martin Cuellar of Webb County said Thursday that authorities have information suggesting Hartley's story is credible. Hartley of Milliken, Colo., said her husband, David, was shot by Mexican pirates on the lake last week as they were returning to the United States on Jet Skis.
Information has surfaced that we can't disclose at this time that she didn’t commit any kind of offense," Cuellar told reporters.

Hartley has said she tried to pull her husband's body from the water after he was shot in the back of his head but was unable to. The 29-year-old woman told authorities she fled the scene for fear that Mexican bandits would shoot her.
No body has been recovered and Mexican authorities, meanwhile, have questioned Hartley's account, saying there's no evidence indicating that a crime was committed.

On Wednesday, Cuellar sought to dispel such suggestions. He told reporters "there is indication of blood on her vest," and he suggested that the blood -- which he didn't immediately identify as David Hartley's -- got onto his wife's vest as she was trying to lift him from the water.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, the sheriff's brother, also said that a "reliable" eyewitness on the U.S. side of the lake saw Tiffany Hartley being chased back to shore by an unknown boat.

"A person did see her coming in with a boat chasing her," the lawmaker told reporters.

Mexican authorities said they began searching the border lake Wednesday for Hartley's body -- almost one week after the 911 call from his wife reporting the alleged shooting.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry said Wednesday they have been coordinating a search "from the first moment" that Hartley reported Mexican pirates shot and killed her husband as they were riding Jet Skis across the lake last week. But Rios' comment suggests the search didn't begin until Texas Gov. Rick Perry called Mexican authorities late Tuesday to demand more action.

Ruben Rios, spokesman for Tamaulipas state prosecutors, said the search was suspended at 5 p.m. Wednesday because of bad weather conditions and was resumed Thursday morning.

Rios says authorities have been looking by air and in the lake, but he says, "so far they have found nothing."

U.S. officials also said Thursday that the search has also been hindered because of threats of an ambush on the lake.

"There is a threat. There is a drug war going on in Mexico," Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County said during the press conference.
Perry said Wednesday he has asked Mexico's president to call him in the next 48 hours to say that the body of an American reportedly shot to death on a border lake has been recovered.

There is no word yet on whether such a call has taken place.

Rep. Solomon Ortiz said Thursday that Mexico is fully cooperating in the search to recover Hartley.

"There's no doubt that we see this as a cooperative effort," he said.

The U.S. State Department said in an e-mail sent to FoxNews.com Thursday that: "Mexican authorities are engaged in the search effort and the U.S. government has offered our assistance in that search."

FoxNews.com's Cristina Corbin and the Associated Press contributed to this report

Thank you Trimm.
I wish I felt this woman was telling the truth . . . but I don't.

I wish I felt that she was telling the truth too, but I don't either...

Looky here!


I think we have stumbled onto a family of gun lovers, folks!

-source

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=713984458&v=wall#

Tia Young's FB.

Tiffany Young-Hartley's sister. David's S.I.L.


Joshua Cunningham Well we won't see eachother for a week so maybe you'll get over being sick of me by then, look at it this way, u have to see me, but u get to shoot my gun! ;)
May 17 at 1:00pm

Tia Young Don't you know that is why I keep you around. Mister AR-15
May 17 at 3:47pm

Joshua Cunningham Well getting to shoot your gun is why I keep YOU around Ms. XDM. ;)


Tia Young What a perfect day! Enjoyed the sunshine read a whole book, 200 rounds through my pistol and dinner with a friend tonight.
March 6 at 5:05pm

Tia Young It's decided my next gun is an AK-47!! I'm thinking this habit is going to get expensive!
February 7 at 8:20pm

Ryan Barney You cant go wrong with that one
February 7 at 9:15pm

Chansa Doris Mulenga Oh yeah!
February 7 at 9:17pm

Ryan Dick You and Jacob both...
February 7 at 9:56pm

Jamie Alluisi Good luck getting that gun. I am pretty sure that they are illegal here. You may be able to construct one from parts though.
February 8 at 8:57am

Tia Young I shot one this weekend so I don't think they are illegal.
February 8 at 12:36pm

Jacob Roush As long as it's only semi-auto it is legal
February 8 at 12:38pm

Ric Kucharyson Tia, nice going... You can own any non-full-auto, you can buy a full auto with a class 3 tax permit. If I might suggest that you play with an AR15 first, my choice, I've owned both, dumped my AK/ SK, but still have my AR.
February 8 at 2:23pm

Tia Young Im waiting for my brother in law to buy the AR 15 since he lives in Mexico I told him I would break it in for him til he comes back to a free country.
February 8 at 4:25pm

(Tia's brother-in-law: the late David Michael Hartley)

Ric Kucharyson What are you holding in your picture, looks like a Mouser action? Looks competitive...
February 8 at 4:45pm

Tia Young It's my brother in laws 228. (David's 228)
February 8 at 6:53pm

Lyssa Lochard Tia, the thought of that gum scares me, what the heck are you gonna shoot with something like that??? You need to talk to Clint, he loves his guns too, and being part of Mister Money he gets some great deals. (don't tell him I told you that part though... lol) Good luck with your collection, and BE CAREFUL!! ♥
February 12 at 11:31am

Jared Webb Now there is a girl after my own heart!!
February 25 at 7:38pm

Tia Young's FB pics with some impressive guns.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/tia1.jpg

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/tia2.jpg

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/tia3.jpg

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/tia1.jpg)

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/tia2.jpg)

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/tia3.jpg)

David's FB -

http://www.facebook.com/dmhartley?v=wall

facebook.com/dmhartley

David Michael Hartley is now using Facebook in English (US).

David Michael Hartley is now using Facebook in Español.


RECENT ACTIVITY

David Michael Hartley joined the group National Rifle Association of America (NRA) -- Official Group. · Join this Group

Honey Bunny be swingin' some heavy artillery.

If I had to break off a relationship with her... I'd be sure to say:

It's not you... It's ALL MY FAULT...  ::MonkeyDevil:: ::MonkeyWink::

You got that right!   ::MonkeyDevil::

Me either..............

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/crime/4822-search-for-victim-of-pirate-attack-on-mexico-texas-border
Search for Victim of Pirate Attack on Mexico-Texas Border  | Print |   E-mail 
Written by Warren Mass     
Friday, 08 October 2010 16:18 
An article in the New York Times for October 7 summarized the backdrop behind the apparent killing of an American jet skier, David Michael Hartley, on September 30, as he and his wife, Tiffany, were riding across Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Mexican border.

In the article, headlined “A Fishing Paradise Gains a Deadly Reputation,” the writer observed: For decades, Falcon Lake was known primarily as an anglers’ paradise, a tranquil reservoir straddling the border with Mexico, where a clever fisherman could catch enormous largemouth bass. These days, however, the lake is developing a reputation for something else: piracy.

As a prolonged conflict between drug dealers and the government has eroded civil order in Mexico, gangs of armed thugs in speedboats have begun robbing fishermen and tourists on the lake.

Last week, gunmen in three boats reportedly shot and killed an American as he and his wife toured the lake on Jet Skis.

The Times report quoted Mrs. Hartley’s father, Bob Young, who said that his daughter and her husband had traveled on their Jet Skis to the village of Guerrero on the Mexican side of the lake to take photographs of an old church there. Ironically, the couple had just moved to McAllen, Texas, after finishing a two-year job assignment in Reynosa, Mexico, and their primary reason for leaving was to escape the increasing violence south of the border. The couple planned to move back to their native state of Colorado soon and wanted to take a final excursion on the lake before leaving.

“[Michael told [Tiffany], ‘We might as well go and check out this old church and take the Jet Skis out one more time,’” Young said. “It was just a fluke. Wrong place, wrong time.”

Mrs. Hartley told reporters in interviews that after they visited the church and started back across the lake, armed men in three small boats raced toward them from shore. The couple tried to speed away, but the gunmen opened fire and Mr. Hartley was shot in the head.

She tried to haul her unconscious husband onto her own Jet Ski but was not strong enough. “I tried pulling him up, and you cannot imagine how awful it was not being able to help him,” she told ABC News.

Authorities and others fear that the Hartleys may have inadvertently entered an area of the lake, part of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, that is a battleground between two rival drug gangs, the Gulf Cartel and the Zeta.

Over a week later, neither Michael Hartley’s body nor his Jet Ski has been found. AP, citing Mexican authorities, reported that hundreds of people using speedboats, helicopters, and all-terrain vehicles haver been searching for Hartley, but that the search had temporarily been suspended because of threats of ambush from drug gangs.

The report quoted U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, who told reporters about the ambush threat that put a hold on the search: "When darkness was falling [on October 6], they got word that there might be an ambush. People that are trying to do their job on the Mexican side are facing a risk, they're right inside the hornets' nest ... they had to suspend the search."

Cuellar said the search resumed midmorning on October 7.

Texas Governor Rick Perry expressed a less understanding opinion about the interruption in the search for Hartley’s body:

I don't think we're doing enough. When you call off the search the way they did ... and give as the reason because the drug cartels are in control of that part of the state, something's not right. We do not need to let our border continue to deteriorate from the standpoint of having drug cartels telling whether or not we can go in and bring the body of an American citizen who was killed. That is irresponsible.

Zapata County, Texas, Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said he has sent word to the Zetas that he simply wants Hartley’s body returned and that the gang need not fear prosecution from his office:
We cannot arrest anybody for what happened in Mexico, we cannot prosecute on the state level anybody for what happened in Mexico. We just want a body. I did send word to the drug cartel, the Zeta cartel in Mexico, I sent word to them unofficially. I can't tell you how but I sent word to them."

Gonzalez said he has not received a response to his plea.

In an interview on the CBS program The Early Show, with co-anchor Harry Smith, Rep. Ted Poe, (R-Texas), said that he has made a request to the State Department to permit a U.S. search on the Mexican side.

The Mexican government said yes, then backed off and said, "No, we don't want the Americans over here." We need to use the American resources that we have, because that area of the lake is controlled by the Zetas, there is an island on that lake where the Zetas really operate, the drug cartels. If we mean business about trying to recover David Hartley's body we need American involvement and the Mexican government needs to be relentless to find it. They are intimidated now, they really won't go near the area where the Zetas operate.

Smith added, "We need to stop and pause a second because even the Mexican authorities themselves are clearly not in control. It's the drug cartel that is in control because … the Mexican authorities backed away when they were threatened."

Poe agreed, saying, "That area of Falcon Lake on the Mexican side, all the way to the American edge of the water is controlled by the Zeta cartels. They bring those drugs into the United States, usually at night by high-speed boats, and they operate — that is their operation — and the Mexican government hasn't been able to stop them, won't stop them, refuses to or cannot, whatever the situation is, and they control that area. The government, neither government, controls that area, the drug cartels. And we're being held really hostage by the drug cartels on that area of the lake."
The entire interview lends insight into not only the Falcon Lake violence spree, but the overall issue of securing the U.S.-Mexican border against the increasing threat of crime posed by the Mexican drug cartels. The Texas congressman also expressed similar sentiments in another interview with Fox News.

With the U.S.-Mexican border as porous as it is, the spread of violence over to the U.S. side is inevitable — unless our fedeal government fulfills its constitutional mandate to defend our states agains invasion, or allows the states to do the same, as Arizona has attempted.

Wow! and these are the folks that are possibly crossing into our country through our own borders....
don't even get me started on that!

Makes me wonder again why any American would go into those waters knowing the risk..which Tiffany said that they did know of...Would you ride a jet ski in crocodile or shark infested water? I think not..
Also, if they saw the boats approaching them and they were on their jet skis, they should have been able to outrun the boats...bullets were flying, by her own words...they didn't hit the jet skis at all? only hit David in his forehead? pretty bad shooters then... When David was lying in the water, Tiffany was off of her ski, the cartel reached her, pointed a gun at her but did not rob her or ask her for money which is what they are normally after right? just let her go?  still not buying it...jmo...

In Texas it is custom to see guns mounted in the back truck window. So it's not really any big deal to see anyone shooting a gun/rifle etc. Very common in Texas.

Warnings Issued: Armed Mexican Drug Cartel Pirates in Texas Lake… Terrorizing & Robbing US Citizens Who Are Fishing & Boating in Falcon Lake (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson onMay 28, 2010

On April 30, five U.S. men on two separate boats ventured into the area of Old Guerrero, a colonial town that’s now a ghost town, on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake, according to a press release from the Texas Department of Public Safety (TDPS).
Tom Bendele, owner of Falcon Lake Tackle, in Texas, said he knew the victims involved in the incident.

Bendele said while his friends were taking photos of an old church during a fishing trip on the Mexican side of the lake, four heavily tattooed gunmen in an old bass boat approached them.

“They boarded the boat at gunpoint,” Bendele recounted. “They were all wearing black and [my friends] told me one had Z’s tattooed around his neck — the others had Z’s tattooed on their wrists.”
http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/falcon-lake-tx-map.jpg



(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tl4UyAwfkzA/TA_I14Q7iUI/AAAAAAAAF8I/2ZALcLBrQ9I/s1600/APj_Zapata_Co.jpg)
Law enforcement arrest along the border yields 400 rounds of 50 caliber and AK-47 machine gun ammunition. I am wrapping up a tour of Falcon Lake in Starr and Zapata County. My thanks to the men and women in local law enforcement who bravely protect and serve our community.

Right. I don't see many AR-15's or AK-47's though, unless of course they are working for SWAT.

This was more my focus of the value in posting Tia's FB info:


Tia Young Im waiting for my brother in law to buy the AR 15 since he lives in Mexico I told him I would break it in for him til he comes back to a free country.
February 8 at 4:25pm

(Tia's brother-in-law: the late David Michael Hartley)

Ric Kucharyson What are you holding in your picture, looks like a Mouser action? Looks competitive...
February 8 at 4:45pm

Tia Young It's my brother in laws 228. (David's 228)
February 8 at 6:53pm

----

David is probably going to have guns. Tiffany is probably gonna have access to 'em.

If she is like her sister - she may be very comfortable with shooting them.

Some may be high powered - after seeing this stuff.

I don't care what they say in McAllen... you don't need an AR-15 to kill a deer.

Those are man killers.

Tia and Tiffany

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/77.jpg)

Mexican officials have reportedly identified two men they say are suspects in a pirate attack nine days ago on a Texas couple Jet Skiing on a border lake in which the husband was killed.


Mexican officials have not released photographs of the two men, but identified them as Pedro Saldiva Farrias, 27, and his brother, Jose Manuel Saldiva Farrias, Juan Carlos Ballesteros, an investigator with the attorney general's office of the Mexican state of Tamaulpas told ABC affiliate KRGV-TV in McAllen, Texas.

Both were said to be suspected members of the Zeta drug cartel from Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, near the abandoned town where David and Tiffany Hartley were sightseeing before they were ambushed, according to Ballesteros.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/mexican-pirate-attack-suspects-identified/story?id=11842316

IMO, they weren't there sightseeing, they were there buying an AR-15 or drugs and the deal went bad.

agree...something more happened...no camera, no jet ski..dead husband...
also, it occurred to me that we always have a rope on our jet ski to tie up to docks when we stop somewhere...couldn't she have tied the rope around David's life jacket and at least drug him along with her until they got into American waters? she did not even know if he was dead when she left him...he may have drowned after she left him...Easy for me to say what she could have done since I was not there...however I don't picture myself leaving my husband especially when she said that the gang had pointed a gun at her but then drove off...she was in the clear at that point don't ya think? very disturbing case if you ask me...wonder if David's father suspects something? he has sat quietly the times that I have seen him during news ....Tiffany meanwhile has been on about every major program that will have her...cool, calm and collected...

That is some darn good thinking. I love your brain! ::MonkeyCool::

I agree with Klaas.

Carpe,your avi is cracking me up.    ::MonkeyHaHa::

http://seamusoriley.blogspot.com/2010/10/has-tiffany-hartley-lawyered-up.html
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Has Tiffany Hartley Lawyered Up?

http://abcnewsradioonline.com/national-news/2010/10/10/mexican-police-we-know-who-killed-american-jet-skiier.html
Mexican Police: We Know Who Killed American Jet Skiier
Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 11:56AM
(REYNOSA, Mexico) -- Police are looking for two suspected members of the Zeta drug cartel believed to be directly involved in the shooting death of an American man killed while jet skiing with his wife on a Texas-Mexico border lake.

Mexican authorities have identified the men as Juan Pedro Saldivar Farias, and his brother, Jose Manuel. The two are suspects in a string of murders, kidnappings, armed robberies and fires, according to officials.

David Hartley was shot in the back of the head, according to his wife, as the couple fled the Mexican side of the lake to U.S. waters on Sept. 30.

Tiffany Hartley says her husband fell off his watercraft after he was shot. She told investigators that she attempted to circle back, but that the gunmen were still firing, forcing her to abandon the rescue.

David Hartley’s body has not been recovered.

His mother made a public plea to U.S. and Mexican authorities last week, appearing on ABC News’ “Good Morning America.”
"[David] needs to come home and we're begging the Mexican government, the governor of Texas, President Obama," said Pam Hartley, who also appealed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "To Hillary -- mother to mother -- help me bring my son home, please," she said, crying.

Falcon Lake, part of the Rio Grande situated directly on the Texas-Mexico border, has become a haven for pirates, and there have been at least five reported run-ins on the lake so far this year, though this is the first instance of a death.

this article is not correct from the others that we have read...He supposedly was shot in the forehead..
Supposedly she was at David's side in the water, the gang had a gun pointed at her and asked them not to shoot her and then they left...She tried to get David on the jet ski with no luck right?

according to above article:
David Hartley was shot in the back of the head, according to his wife, as the couple fled the Mexican side of the lake to U.S. waters on Sept. 30.

Tiffany Hartley says her husband fell off his watercraft after he was shot. She told investigators that she attempted to circle back, but that the gunmen were still firing, forcing her to abandon the rescue.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/09/earlyshow/saturday/main6942375.shtml
(videos)
Police: Video Supports Lake Pirate Story
Texas Police: Officer's Dash Camera Caught Hartley's Car Going to Falcon Lake, Supports Tiffany's Timeline, Story of Shooting
October 9, 2010

(CBS)   More evidence has been released today that supports the story of Tiffany Hartley, the wife of American David Hartley, who is presumed dead after an alleged attack on a lake that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.

CBS News correspondent Don Teague reported police dash cam video shows the Hartleys pulled over shortly before they went to Falcon Lake in Texas, which supports her story and timeline.
Mexican authorities initially questioned Tiffany Hartley's story, but Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, who is investigating the shooting, says he has no doubt she's telling the truth.

Gonzalez said, "There's no reason for us to doubt what she's saying. Our investigation is really for us to get a body."

Teague added Mexico announced on Friday it's launched a formal investigation into the alleged shooting on Falcon Lake.

Authorities there are also ramping up the search for Hartley's body with boats, soldiers and a military helicopter.

Eduardo Arnal, of the Consul General of Mexico, told CBS News, "I can assure them that the Mexican government will do anything in its hands in order to find David and to find what happened in this case."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/10/10/2010-10-10_two_suspects_named_in_case_of_david_hartley_missing_american_allegedly_attacked_.html
(video)
Two suspects named in case of David Hartley, missing American allegedly attacked by Mexican pirates
October 10, 2010

The search goes on for David Hartley, the missing American whose wife says was shot in the head by Mexican pirates ten days ago.

Mexican authorities launched a federal investigation into Hartley's disappearance last week, and announced Saturday they have named two suspects in the case: brothers Juan Pedro Saldivar-Farias and Jose Manuel Saldivar-Farias, according to Mexican newspaper El Universal.

The pair already stand accused of a long list of criminal activity in Mexico, according to the paper, including arson, theft, and involvement in prior murders.

It is not clear how they were identified as suspects, local television station KGBT reported.

Tiffany Hartley, 29, claims she and her husband were spending an afternoon on Jet Skis at the lake on the Texas-Mexico border on Thursday, Sept. 30, when pirates appeared and shot David in the head, causing him to fall into the water.

She says she tried to pull him out, but panicked and fled when the men continued to shoot at her.

Hartley's body has still not been found, causing some to question Tiffany's story.

"My question is, OK if he had a vest, why is the body not floating?" U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Tex) said Friday, according to The Associated Press. "We asked the Coast Guard, if he had a Jet Ski, would that Jet Ski be floating somewhere around? Our Mexican friends have said they've been searching around; they've even used a helicopter. If you have a general idea of where that is, why is the body not floating? Why is there not a Jet Ski?"

But Cuellar said the area where the Hartleys reported being attacked is a "hornet's nest" for the Zetas drug cartel, and that there is reason to believe Tiffany’s story is true.

"The bad guys could look at the Jet Ski as an asset that they could take," Cuellar said Friday, noting that Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez "does have an eyewitness, a person that did see her [Tiffany] coming in with a boat chasing her, so we have to rely on law enforcement officials."

Gonzalez told CBS News he has blood evidence from Tiffany Hartley's life vest that supports her version of events.

"Our information is indicating that the witness is reliable, the witness is truthful," he said, citing "other evidence" that also backs up Tiffany’s claim. "I'm not at liberty to discuss it at this time, but it does indicate that she had nothing to do with" her husband's disappearance.

Tamaulipas State Police say they have dispatched teams on land, in the water, and in the air, deploying a military aircraft in search of Hartley's body.

CBS also reported on Friday that police have video of the Hartleys being pulled over shortly before they went to the lake, which corroborates the timeline of Tiffany's story.

"There's no reason for us to doubt what she's saying," Gonzalez said. "Our investigation is really for us to get a body."

Hartley continues to defend herself, telling Fox News on Saturday, "I've spoken the truth...I’m telling everything I can."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7240824.html
Brothers sought in reported border lake shooting
October 10, 2010

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Mexican authorities are searching for a pair of brothers as suspects in the reported border lake shooting of American David Hartley.

Hartley hasn't been found since the Sept. 30 attack on Falcon Lake on the Rio Grande.

Tamaulipas State Police unit chief Juan Carlos Ballesteros said investigators believe brothers Juan Pedro and Jose Manuel Zaldivar Farias may have killed Hartley as he snapped photos of a sunken church from a personal watercraft.

The officer said the pair are already sought for allegedly belonging to a gang of pirates operating on Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. Ballesteros also said they allegedly terrorized a Mexican town at the south end of the lake.

Ballesteros gave no details of the investigation.

no doubt they were there...just don't know who shot David..
she might be innocent as heck..I just find her very puzzling by her demeanor...but who knows, maybe things are as she says they are...time will tell...

BBM - this has been my theory from the beginning.

http://www.themonitor.com/news/mexican-43489-officials-reports.html
Mexican officials: No suspects in Hartley death, despite reports
Comments 0
October 10, 2010 10:28 PMZAPATA — Mexican officials said Sunday they still had no suspects and no body following the disappearance of a McAllen man widely presumed dead after his wife reported the couple came under attack by “pirates” 10 days earlier on the Mexican side of Falcon Reservoir.

Despite reports Saturday by U.S. and Mexican news outlets that a Tamaulipas official had identified two brothers as the men responsible for David Michael Hartley’s death, Mexican authorities categorically denied on Sunday that they had any suspects.

Both men reportedly belong to a gang operating out of a town near the reservoir’s southern end, according to The Associated Press. The news broke Saturday when Spanish-language newspaper El Universal reported that Juan Carlos Ballesteros, a Tamaulipas State Police group leader based in Miguel Alemán, had identified the duo.

Hartley, 30, was fatally shot in the head when three boats of gunmen opened fire on him and wife Tiffany Young-Hartley on Sept. 30 as the couple were riding personal watercraft on the Mexican side of the lake, according to U.S. investigators.
In a media blitz that has brought widespread attention to the case, Young-Hartley, 29, went on all the major TV networks and cable news outlets last week with her account of fleeing for her life to the U.S. shore of the lake after trying in vain to get her husband’s limp body onto her personal watercraft. Earlier in the week, Mexican officials questioned her version of events, saying they had found no evidence of the purported attack or Hartley’s remains.

Ruben Dario Rios Lopez, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office in Tamaulipas, known by its Spanish designation PGJ-Tamaulipas, denied that Mexican authorities had identified any suspects and said his office would have been informed if that were true.

“Neither the (Tamaulipas) attorney general’s office nor the personnel working in this investigation have named any suspects,” he said in Spanish. We (the state attorney general’s office) did not release that information. We do not know where it came from, or how it came out, and why those names appeared in (El Universal).”

“Officially, there is nothing,” said Rios Lopez, who works directly with Tamaulipas Attorney General Jaime Rodriguez Inurrigarro.

A Tamaulipas State Police representative reached Sunday night at the agency’s Miguel Alemán office confirmed there is a group leader there named Juan Carlos Ballesteros. But the representative referred requests for comment to the state police office in Reynosa, which was closed Sunday night. The offices in Reynosa and in Miguel Alemán are both under the Tamaulipas attorney general’s jurisdiction.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez – whose office is heading the U.S. investigation – said Sunday that he had received no official word the two men named in the Universal report were considered suspects and that he hadn’t heard their names before
At least two local TV stations carried the story about the suspects Saturday night, with one of them citing El Universal as the source of the information. Gonzalez said at the time that he wasn’t sure where the information was coming from and hadn’t heard about the suspects.

Meanwhile, searches by U.S. and Mexican officials on both sides of the reservoir have failed to turn up Hartley’s body.

Doubts about his wife’s harrowing tale of a pirate attack emerged during the search as officials not directly involved in the case expressed skepticism. Gonzalez, the sheriff, said he considers Young-Hartley’s account of her husband’s disappearance credible.

U.S. Border Patrol agents and Texas Park and Wildlife Department officials continued efforts to find Hartley’s body Sunday.

Two days earlier, on Friday, Mexican officials came under attack on their side of the binational waterway during their own search operation, Gonzalez said.

Mexican Army Lt. Héctor Gerardo López Arellanes confirmed the attack occurred in Ciudad Mier as a convoy was on its way from Miguel Alemán to Falcon Reservoir to continue with the search. Three drug cartel members were killed, but no soldiers were injured in the incident.

____

Martha L. Hernández covers Mission, western Hidalgo County and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4846. Dave Hendricks covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4452.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/11/texas.missing.american.seach/
Wife, mother of American who went missing at lake plead for help
October 11, 2010

CNN) -- The wife of a U.S. citizen who disappeared late last month in a reported pirate attack renewed her plea for help Monday.

David Michael Hartley went missing September 30. His wife, Tiffany, told authorities her husband was shot and killed during a sightseeing trip on Falcon Lake, which bisects the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas.

On Monday, Tiffany Hartley, along with David Hartley's mother, Pam, appeared on several morning talk shows asking for information that will help investigators find those responsible for David's death and help them find his body.

"Until we have him back, it's not final," Tiffany Hartley said on NBC's "The Today Show."

Officials in Texas are meeting Monday morning to determine their next step in the investigation, according to Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzales.

On Sunday, the U.S. Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and Parks and Wildlife officials were back on the U.S. side of the lake searching for new evidence in the case, Gonzales said. Mexican authorities were searching their side of the lake as well, he said.

Over the weekend, news reports indicated that two suspects connected to a Mexican drug cartel were linked to Hartley's disappearance, but Agent Antonio Garcia of the ministerial police said there is no truth to the report.

Authorities from both nations are conducting separate searches and are coordinating and holding regular meetings, State Department spokeswoman Virginia Staab said. But because the disappearance happened on the Mexican side of the border, the United States cannot prosecute or make arrests in the case, the sheriff said.

Tiffany Hartley told NBC that the reports were frustrating, but she said that "either way, I hope that they do find somebody who can lead us to where David is. Ultimately, that's all we want."

Hartley was on several CNN shows Thursday, recounting what happened on Falcon Lake. She also talked about her feelings about people doubting her account of the alleged attack.
Video: Search for missing boater

Hartley said on HLN's "Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell' that "I know what I know."

"It's hard being judged and thought of that I might have done something to him," she said.

But she added, "As long as I know the truth, God knows the truth. And other than that, it almost doesn't really matter to me, because I know what happened that day."

Falcon Lake is on the Rio Grande in Zapata and Starr counties in South Texas. The U.S.-Mexican border runs through the middle of the lake.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, says 60 Mexican personnel, three boats and a helicopter have taken part in the search.

Despite the dangers on the Mexican side of the lake, Texas officials said Thursday that the U.S. side of the body of water remains safe.

"It's is just as safe now as any other time. However, there is a threat," said Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas.

oxymoron? snipped from above....
"It's is just as safe now as any other time. However, there is a threat," said Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas.

Tiffany notable quotes from her latest interviews.


http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/mexico/hartley_family_says_theyre_not_leaving_without_david_104711294.html?showFullArticle=y







 ::MonkeyBike::

Tiffany was spouting on JVM about protecting our borders and talking about the wars...seems she is making some political statements...what does her supporting the wars have to do with her husband being murdered? honestly, I have to shake my head at some of the stuff that has come out of her mouth..
I think I heard her saying something about the President calling her, that he hasn't called her yet....blaahhh blaaahhh

Yep cookie -

I heard it too... she wants the White House to get in touch with her.

It absolutely is unreal... like Casey Anthony Part 2 (the remix)

Yes Yes!! that is how it went...for the White House to get in touch with her...
gobsmacked is what I was!

It reminds me very of much of George Casey and Cindy...

They didn't want to focus on the crime either...

They wanted to move on join a missing persons club

and save all the other children of the world.

They were on to bigger and better things immediately, as well.

As we were still all asking: Where's Caylee?

Tiffany Hartley is dirty.

It's just a matter of time until we find out just how dirty.

We are Monkeys - we've played this game a time or two before!

We know how it's going turn out. ::HelloKitty::

 ::MonkeyRoll::

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7242536.html
Frustration grows in Falcon Lake case
Reports that two men sought are discounted
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
Oct. 11, 2010, 10:31PM
McALLEN — Tiffany Hartley said her hopes turned to frustration after officials denied media reports that police had zeroed in on the men behind her husband's Falcon Lake slaying.

Several news agencies reported Sunday that Mexican state police had identified two known "pirates" on the lake as suspects in the alleged killing of David Michael Hartley. But by Monday, the reports had been discounted.

"It's real up and down. It's a roller coaster," Tiffany Hartley said.

According to Hartley, her husband was shot in the head by gunmen on Sept. 30 when the couple were riding personal watercraft to view a sunken town on the Mexican side of the binational reservoir. After trying to lift her husband onto her watercraft, she fled back to U.S. waters.

The search for David Hartley's body has been hampered by jurisdictional issues and the drug war. U.S. officials say they are unable to cross the border. Mexican officials have vowed to assist, but say they endanger their lives because that side of Falcon Lake is known turf for drug-cartel smuggling.

The search also has been shadowed by suspicion that Tiffany Hartley made the story up.

Issues With Jane Velez Mitchell
10/11/10
<snipped>
A frantic hunt on for two suspects in the murder of a Jet Skier. Tiffany Hartley, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: The desperate hunt for two suspects in the death of jet skier, David Hartley. Cops now say two brothers may have shot and killed David when he and his wife Tiffany jet skied into Mexican waters.

For a week doubters questioned Tiffany`s story about a Mexican pirate attack. So with possible suspects now, does she deserve an apology?

Plus, shocking sentencing day testimony: 18-year-old tough girl Misty Croslin breaks down sobbing uncontrollably as a hushed courtroom hears her traumatic childhood story. But the tragic truth still couldn`t save her from 25 years behind bars. You`ll see the dramatic courtroom video.

Tonight: bombshell developments in the deadly border shooting of an American jet skier; a man hunt now under way for two brothers in the death of David Hartley. Authorities say these suspects are members of a Mexican drug cartel wanted in a rash of violent crimes.

Tiffany Hartley says she and her husband were sprayed with gun fire September 30th as they jet skied on Falcon Lake. She says David was shot in the head.

What does Tiffany think about the man hunt for two suspects? She joins me live right now.
Tiffany -- forced to leave David`s body behind. Police have not been able to recover his body or even his jet ski. The couple was captured on this police dash cam video on their way to the lake that day. You`ll see it right there. There it is. This footage was captured just three hours before the shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TROOPER JOHNNY HERNANDEZ, TEXAS DEPT. OF PUBLIC SAFETY: The trailer had expired registration so we pulled it over and made contact with David Hartley. He advised he was coming from McAllen, Texas on his way to Falcon Lake to enjoy the day over there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Will David`s family ever be able to bring him home? I am thrilled to welcome back Tiffany Hartley. Tiffany, I know you must be exhausted given your relentless battle for justice in your husband`s case. I want to thank you so much for taking the time tonight.

What was your first, initial reaction to the news that Mexican police have named two suspects in your husband`s murder?

TIFFANY HARTLEY, WIFE OF DAVID HARTLEY: Well, they named the suspects but at the same time, you know, we were just like, ok. Well maybe this is the chance that they`re going to tell us where David is and David`s going to be able to come home. But then we were also kind of hearing that, no, we don`t have suspects.

You know, really, ultimately, we just want David. We just want them to tell us where he is or show us where he is or bring him over to the states so we can have him back. And then, you know, the Mexico authorities can deal with, you know, finding who did it. You know, there are three boats so out of the three how do they know which one actually shot at us or at David?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Mexican authorities are saying, Tiffany, the two suspects are members of Mexico`s Zeta drug cartel.

Police say these brothers have aliases. They`re calling them El 27 and El 31. We don`t have the photos. Certainly it would be tough to get pictures of known cartel members. But, Tiffany has anybody shown you photos of these suspects and said, hey, are these the guys who shot at you?

HARTLEY: No. They haven`t. But then, I don`t know if I can really identify anybody just because I was more focused on the gun pointing at me than I was at their faces. I don`t know if I could identify them or not.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, here`s my big issue, Tiffany. Do you feel that you`re owed an apology at this point? I mean, from day one there were people who questioned your story and doubted whether you were telling the truth or may have had even some people speculated could you have had something to do with it?

Now that police are searching for suspects, do you think it`s time for all these skeptics to say, hey, I`m sorry.

HARTLEY: Well, especially the Mexico authorities, they know the cartel. They know what they do. They know them better than we do, YOU know. For them to question my story, you know, seems kind of silly I guess just because they know how they act and they know what they do and they don`t really care about anybody and if they shoot anybody. So it seems, you know, it`s hard to believe that they wouldn`t believe me in the beginning.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And just to get, put this issue to bed once and for all, you`ve said, and I believed you from the very start, and I`ve said that very emphatically, but you`ve said, hey, you know, I`ll consider taking a polygraph if it puts all the doubters to rest. Do you stand by that as well tonight?

HARTLEY: Well, yes. I mean, Sheriff Sigi, he doesn`t believe I need to. I mean because my story and -- plus also the Mexican authorities, they know the cartel and what they do.

I mean, I said it`s an option and, you know, it still is an option possibly. I still don`t feel I have to do that but if that`s what it`s going to take then maybe.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. I understand. It`s sort of a point of pride for you like you`re the victim here. Why are you being, you know, grilled? Is that pretty much your philosophy?

HARTLEY: Well, I -- I guess I`ve always, you know, from the beginning of us getting in the media, I mean you`re going to have the people who are going to doubt you. But people, even in, you know, other than the border towns, they don`t understand what`s going on in our borders. They don`t understand and they don`t know unless they`re actually living down here so until they actually have an idea and a realization of what is happening here, you know, our story is part of that. I mean, the cartel had shot my husband and this border needs to be secured.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Are you afraid for your own safety at this point, given that the two suspects are alleged drug cartel members and you`ve been so vocal, Tiffany?

HARTLEY: No. I`m not afraid. I mean, I`ve -- I didn`t get shot that day. I mean, God`s protecting me and I do believe he is still protecting me and I don`t believe that I am in any danger.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Governor Rick Perry of Texas says that you`re very frustrated over the lack of any kind of a call from anybody in the federal government. Who -- are you frustrated, who would you like to see call you, and what do you want from the feds?

HARTLEY: I just want the communication to be open. You know, from anybody in the White House, just address the situation, address what`s going on down here. I mean, if they don`t call me that`s one thing but I just wish they would address what`s going on and address the border issues. You know, I just think they need to start focusing on what`s going on, on our border across the river versus across the ocean.

And I truly believe everything that`s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, I support all of it. But we also need to take an eye and turn it towards what`s going on across the river -- what`s going on there.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Would you be willing, if they find these suspects, would you be willing Tiffany to go to Mexico and ID them and even testify against them?
HARTLEY: I don`t know if I would want to go to Mexico. I think that is a risk that would be taken that maybe isn`t needed. If they could send pictures and let me identify them that way versus me going to Mexico, I just don`t know if that`s a smart choice right now.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And I totally understand that decision. Will Ripley, reporter KRGV, you`ve been covering this from the start. What do you know about them kind of back sliding and saying yes there are two suspects we`re looking for? Well, maybe not. What`s that?

WILL RIPLEY, REPORTER, KRGV: Well, there was a lot of confusion over the weekend because Mexican investigators released this information. You asked earlier if there were photos of the suspects. There are not any known photos of these two brothers. All that we have are these government documents which actually contain tax information and license information. That`s it.

So Mexican investigators released this to the media but they never bothered to call U.S. authorities so U.S. authorities had no way to confirm the information until today.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Wow. That`s absolutely fascinating. Now, we have a caller, Dan, in Ohio, your question or thoughts, sir?

DAN, OHIO (via telephone): Yes. I know it might be totally out of line, but has anybody asked the question, because of the drug cartel down there, if it might have been a drug deal gone bad?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you know, I don`t think anybody has raised that whatsoever.

I want to go back to Tiffany and ask you a question, Tiffany, about your day. We got this, after I spoke to you on Thursday, on Friday the video surfaced of you and your husband going down to the lake and there was video of you stopped. They were checking your license on the trailer, some minor little thing. They didn`t even give you a ticket.

Here is the video right here. And yet it did completely verify your story that you were down there with your husband that day. Some people were wondering whether your husband was even there and this obviously was proof and vindication for you.

And some people have wondered so I`m just asking you why you didn`t -- did you mention that initially? Because we didn`t hear about it and it would have really clarified so much. Any reason why you didn`t mention that initially?

HARTLEY: Actually, the day of the incident they had asked me at the sheriff`s office if I had stopped anywhere on our way, if we, you know, if we went in anywhere. And I did remember that we were pulled over. I couldn`t remember what town it was.

And then also of course the Subway with border patrol. I told them we stopped there. But I didn`t even think about border patrol being there but they verified that story that that, yes, we did go to Subway, and my husband was there with me.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I just want to say, I applaud you and admire you so much for just being so up front and doing so much to try to find justice for your husband. And I just want to say that my heart goes out to you and our condolences, our condolences and I hope you come back again and we`re going to stay on top of your story and do everything we can to get justice for you and your family.

HARTLEY: Thank you. He -- he would do the same thing for me, so I -- I`m going to fight for him just like he would do for me.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I`m sure. Thank you so much, Tiffany.

HARTLEY: Thank you.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`re not letting this story go, people.

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/hartley-43519-team-vest.html
Forensics team still analyzing blood from Hartley vest
Comments 9
October 12, 2010 12:40 AM
ZAPATA �” A forensics team is still analyzing the life vest worn by the wife of a man believed to have been killed on Falcon Lake by Mexican pirates, said the sheriff investigating the case.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said the vest has not been returned to the couple’s family, even though the blue-and-green garment was featured on NBC’s Today show Monday morning during an “exclusive look” at evidence authorities have analyzed.

During a Monitor interview Monday afternoon, the sheriff said he was not sure whether the vest had been returned to Tiffany Young-Hartley, whose husband has been missing since Sept. 30. Later in the same interview, he gave a conflicting statement, saying the vest is in the custody of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

If the spot turns out to be blood from David Michael Hartley it would be the first significant physical evidence to come to public light in a case that has garnered international attention and has created tension between the United States and Mexico.

Authorities are trying to determine whose blood stained the piece of clothing, Gonzalez said.

“The test we ran showed it could be human blood,” Gonzalez said. “The next step is to determine whose blood it is.”
Blood evidence would lend credence to Young-Hartley’s harrowing tale of three boats of gunmen opening fire on the couple Sept. 30 as they were riding personal watercraft on the Mexican side of the lake, fatally shooting her husband in the head. Or the test results could raise more questions about what happened to David Hartley.

In a media blitz that has brought widespread attention to the case, Young-Hartley, 29, went on all the major TV networks and cable news outlets last week with her account of fleeing for her life to the U.S. shore of the lake after trying in vain to get her husband’s body onto her personal watercraft. Earlier in the week, Mexican officials questioned her version of events, saying they had found no evidence of the purported attack or Hartley’s remains.

“I know my story is true,” Young-Hartley said. “I think everybody else is standing behind me.”

On Monday, Tamaulipas state officials continued to deny U.S. and Mexican news reports that a Tamaulipas official had identified two brothers as the men responsible for Hartley’s death.

The Associated Press has reported that Tamaulipas State Police unit chief Juan Carlos Ballesteros said investigators believe brothers Juan Pedro and Jose Manuel Saldivar Farias may have killed Hartley as he snapped photos of a submerged church from a personal watercraft.

The officer told AP that the brothers are already being sought for allegedly belonging to a gang of pirates operating on Falcon Lake. Ballesteros also said they allegedly terrorized a Mexican town at the south end of the lake, but he gave no details of the investigation.

The sheriff said he has not considered giving Young-Hartley a polygraph test after a CNN reporter asked the young woman whether she would be willing to submit to one. Gonzalez said such a test would be “inconclusive” and “unacceptable.”
I cannot force her to take one,” Gonzalez said. “I believe her story, so why would I ask her for a polygraph?”

A DPS video that surfaced on Friday showed the Hartleys as a trooper pulled them over just hours before the man’s apparent death. Gonzalez said he had not seen the video until Friday �” eight days after the initial incident. The sheriff said he only saw the video after DPS released it to the press.

“I have very open records,” Gonzalez said. “If I have something, se los doy (I give it to you).”

A trooper pulled over David Hartley and his wife, Tiffany Young-Hartley, at 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 30, after noticing their trailer’s tags had expired. He let them go with a warning.

Hours later, Young-Hartley reported her husband had been shot dead, killed by attackers who opened fire on the couple from three boats while they were riding jet skis on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake. Despite searches by U.S. and Mexican authorities, Hartley’s body hasn’t been found.

The video shows at least three troopers stopping Hartley’s white truck in Rio Grande City. A trailer carried two jet skis. One trooper asked Hartley about his Colorado license.

"Been working and living, well, temporarily living in McAllen," Hartley said. "I was in Reynosa for about three years but they moved me back to McAllen because of all the (inaudible)."

After about nine minutes, the troopers let Hartley go with a warning.

Meanwhile, Young-Hartley and her mother-in-law, Pam Hartley, continue pleading with authorities to bring their relative’s body to the United States.

“Somebody knows where David is,” Pam Hartley said, in tears. “We need to bring him home.”
Martha L. Hernandez covers Western Hidalgo County and Starr County for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4846.

Ana Ley covers business and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4428.

 
Video at link

Mexican Police Official Investigating Border Lake Shooting Found Dead

AUSTIN, Texas -- U.S. and Mexican authorities say a Mexican state police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on a border lake plagued by pirates has been killed.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/10/12/mexican-police-official-investigating-border-lake-shooting-dead/

Cnn is reporting the lead investigator was beheaded.
I am looking for a link.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/12/texas.falcon.lake.head/index.html

Link

Mexican investigator in Falcon Lake case beheaded, Texas lawmaker says

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/12/texas.falcon.lake.head/index.html

http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/10/12/2540810/severed-head-of-falcon-lake-investigator.html
Severed head of Falcon Lake investigator delivered to Mexican army, state rep says
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2010
Staff and wire report

The severed head of a Mexican investigator involved in the investigation of a reported tourist shooting on Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border has been delivered to the Mexican army, a state representative from Edinburg declared in a Twitter report.

Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, said via Twitter that he confirmed the decapitation with Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, whose office is heading the U.S. investigation into the Sept. 30 disappearance of David Michael Hartley, 30.

Ruben Rios, spokesman for the Tamaulipas state prosecutor's office in Mexico, identified the slain Mexican officer as Commander Rolando Flores, the head of state investigators in the border city of Ciudad Miguel Aleman.

Rios says Flores' killing was unrelated to the Hartley investigation, but U.S. authorities have said threats of violence from drug gangs who control much of the area has hampered the search for Hartley's body.

Hartley’s wife, Tiffany, says pirates on Falcon Lake opened fire on them from speedboats while they were returning from Mexico to the United States on Jet Skis.

Her husband was shot in the head and she managed to flee, under fire, to the Texas side of the lake formed from a dammed section of the Rio Grande.

This report includes material from The Associated Press and The Brownsville Herald.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/12/world/main6951481.shtml
AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 12, 2010
Policeman in Missing Tourist Case Found Dead

heard about this on one of the shows..maybe HLN..and they were saying that Tiffany and her family could also be in danger! they have 24 hr security...

http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/automotive/50289d1254777400-question-about-changing-brake-pads-whats-strong_coffee.jpg
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Mexican official investigating Falcon Lake disappearance ends up murdered


Read more: http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2010/10/mexican-official-investigating-falcon-lake-disappearance-ends-up-murdered.html#ixzz12F2sdUJ5

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/investigator-beheaded-11868037
Investigator Beheaded
10/13/10

I would be mortified.  ::MonkeyCool::

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/12/texas.falcon.lake.head/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

 ::MonkeyShocked::   ::MonkeyNoNo::   ::MonkeyEek::

(CNN) -- The lead Mexican investigator in the Falcon Lake case, Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, has been killed, his severed head delivered Tuesday in a suitcase to the Mexican military, officials told CNN.

"His head was delivered to the army garrison this morning in a suitcase after he failed to report back home last night," Zapata County, Texas, Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. said.

A spokesman for the attorney general of Tamaulipas state in Mexico, Ruben Dario-Rios, confirmed the killing Tuesday afternoon in a telephone interview.

The report came a day after authorities in the Tamaulipas state attorney general's office gave conflicting information on whether authorities were pursuing a pair of suspects in the case of David Michael Hartley's disappearance.

Hartley's wife, Tiffany, told authorities that her husband was fatally shot September 30 during a sightseeing trip the two were taking on Falcon Lake, which straddles the border.

While Luis Homero Uvalle, a spokesman for the office, told CNN the suspects are brothers who are "well known to this area" -- identifying them only as "El 27" and "El 31" -- Dario-Rios, the chief spokesman for the attorney general said, "We have nothing official about suspects in the disappearance of David Hartley. I do not know where that is coming from."

Dario-Rios said Monday that Flores had not indicated to him that any suspects had been identified.

Eva Rodriguez, Flores' secretary, said the news of his death came as a surprise. "We saw [Rolando] last night," she said. "After he came back [from the search for Hartley] we were all together here in the office. That was the last time any of us saw him."

She said she was not aware that Flores -- whom she described as "very dedicated to his job" -- had received any threats from narcotraffickers.

"What can you do?" she asked. "We're still going to be here. We still have to work."

And, despite the fact that "we're all scared right now," their work will go on, she vowed. "The investigation and search will still continue," she said.

On Monday, Tiffany Hartley, along with David Hartley's mother, Pam, appeared on television talk shows asking for information to help investigators find those responsible for David's death and find his body.

"Until we have him back, it's not final," Tiffany Hartley said on NBC's "The Today Show."

On Sunday, the U.S. Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and Parks and Wildlife officials were back on the U.S. side of the lake searching for new evidence in the case, said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzales.

Authorities from both nations have been conducting separate searches and holding regular meetings, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Virginia Staab said. But because the disappearance allegedly occurred on the Mexican side of the border, the United States cannot prosecute or make arrests in the case, the sheriff said.

Falcon Lake is a reservoir on the Rio Grande. The U.S.-Mexican border runs through the middle of the lake, with Zapata and Starr counties on the U.S. side.

Rep. Cuellar said 60 Mexican personnel, three boats and a helicopter had participated in the search.


 I'm moving this article from "News of the Day"  to the thread for David Hartley in "Unsolved Crimes". MuffyBee

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/13/falcon-lake-lawmaker-state-department-blissfully-silent-murder-probe/?test=latestnews
Falcon Lake Lawmaker: State Department ‘Blissfully Silent’ on Murder Probe
October 13, 2010

The State Department  has not delivered diplomatic assistance to the widow of a man shot down by drug lords while on a jet ski trip on the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Rep. Ted Poe said Wednesday.

Poe, R-Texas, whose district contains the U.S. side of border-straddling Falcon Lake, said Tiffany Hartley did not even receive help from the U.S. consulate in Mexico to file a complaint against members of the Zeta drug cartel that is suspected of shooting David Hartley while the couple was skiing through the Mexican side of the border weeks ago.

"There seems to be inefficiency on this issue. She shouldn't have to be filing charges" on her own, Poe said, noting that the Mexican authorities were slow to help Hartley in part because they said she made no official complaint to the proper authorities. 

The State Department has also been "blissfully silent" on efforts to convince the Mexican authorities to let U.S. investigators help search for Hartley's body, Poe told FoxNews.com. The department must convince Mexican officials to let the FBI and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency investigators help conduct the search for Hartley's body and for the culprits, he said.

Poe sent a letter Oct. 4 to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying helping Hartley recover her husband's body is "the least" the State Department can do.

"We followed up yesterday to see when they were going to respond and they could not respond to our response," Poe said, adding that he hopes to have a reply soon from Clinton, who is traveling abroad right now.

The State Department has not responded to Fox News' request for comment, but the nation's diplomatic headquarters has warned Americans not to go to trouble spots in Mexico where drug traffickers control the country. Tamaulipas, where the Hartleys were visiting on the day of David Hartley's murder, is one of those areas.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigi Gonzalez, who was first to hear Hartley's account, said he has warned Hartley not to return to Mexico to give a statement to authorities there.

"Tiffany has given her official statement at the Mexican Consulate in Texas. She was assured by the government officials of Mexico and the consulate that her statement would go to any agency in Mexico that would request a copy of it," Gonzalez told Fox News, adding that the statement is "available to all Mexican agencies that may request them. I'd like to know what agency in Mexico is conducting the investigation of Mr. Hartley's murder because it was a murder case."

Poe said he doesn't think Americans any should be going to Mexico right now, and compared the danger to standing on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. He noted that the U.S. basketball teams playing in a pre-season game in Mexico City this week were forced to stay in their hotel and "couldn't go anywhere except with armed guards."

"Portions of the Texas-Mexico border are in operational control of the drug cartels," Poe said. "I would tell Americans not to go to Mexico. ... the rule of law is breaking down."

Poe said that some Mexican officials are corrupt but others, including Rolando Flores Villegas, the police officer who took up Hartley's search and was found beheaded on Tuesday, are honest Mexican authorities overwhelmed by a drug war that has taken the lives of dozens of Americans and thousands of Mexicans.

"I'm sure they're intimidated, that's obvious," he said. "If they don't work for the drug cartels, the drug cartels go after them and use their bodies as intimidation."

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, who is Hartley's congressional representative, expressed his "deepest sympathies" to the Flores family, noting that the police officer was killed for conducting the murder investigation.

"Commandante Flores had a reputation for cooperation and camaraderie with his American counterparts and he will sorely be missed. Commandante Flores and many of his peers had continued to search for David Hartley in the face of grave threats and imminent danger. This tragic incident demonstrates the continued efforts of the Mexican law enforcement community to help us in America solve the Hartley case," Cuellar said.

Meanwhile, Poe said the United States should reconsider financial aid to Mexico, which received $1 billion for the Merida Initiative aimed at helping law enforcement investigations but came with no strings attached. 

"I wouldn't be surprised if part of that money went to drug cartels," he said, adding that he has no knowledge of any accounting or audit of the cash assistance.

"Money always talks and we should limit and control any money that we send to Mexico," Poe said.

But Cuellar said the Merida Initiative, for which he is a vocal proponent, provides "ample support for our international partners in border security."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/13/texas.missing.american/
Cops vow killing won't stop search for missing American
October 13, 2010

Zapata, Texas (CNN) -- Despite the grisly slaying of the Mexican government's lead investigator, the search for an American reported missing in a lake straddling the border will go on, U.S. and Mexican authorities vowed Wednesday.

"We continue the search on this side of the border," Zapata County, Texas, Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. told CNN. "We're also sending a message that we're here."

But their determination has gotten them no closer to finding the body of David Hartley, who was reported to have been shot during a September 30 boating trip by gunmen investigators believe are linked to a Mexican drug gang.

"Our investigators are out there right now. A body has still not been found," said Ruben Dario-Rios, a spokesman for the attorney general of Tamaulipas state.

The search resumed after this week's killing of state police official Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, whose severed head was delivered to the Mexican military in a suitcase Tuesday, officials said. Tiffany Hartley, the missing man's wife, said she and her family were praying for the Flores family.

"He was so sincere and so considerate for us, it just breaks my heart that somebody would do that to him," she told HLN's "Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell."

Tiffany Hartley told authorities that her husband was fatally shot September 30 during a sightseeing trip the two were taking on Falcon Lake, a reservoir on the Rio Grande. Gonzalez has said the gunmen were likely pirates linked to one of the Mexican drug cartels, and Hartley has said she believes the attackers may still have her husband's body.

"We just want David back," she said. "Maybe they can't provide a body, I don't know. But they can provide something of evidence, anything that would tell us where David's at.

"We just want him back. Give us that, and we'll go away."

The Tamaulipas attorney general's office gave conflicting information Monday about whether authorities were pursuing a pair of suspects in Hartley's disappearance.

While Luis Homero Uvalle, a spokesman for the office, told CNN the suspects are brothers who are "well known to this area," identifying them only as "El 27" and "El 31." But Dario-Rios, the chief spokesman for the attorney general, said Flores had not indicated to him that any suspects had been identified.

Gonzalez said the killing was intended as "a message to Mexico to back off, for the search to stop." But while searchers returned to the 60-mile-long lake Wednesday, the sheriff said the prospects for finding Hartley's body are fading.

"We have to admit that our chances are getting slimmer and slimmer as we go along," he said. "It's hard for the family."

Mexican and U.S. authorities have been conducting separate searches and holding regular meetings, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Virginia Staab said. But because the disappearance allegedly occurred on the Mexican side of

the border, the United States cannot prosecute or make arrests in the case, Gonzalez said.

Falcon Lake is about 70 miles west of the Hartleys' home in McAllen, Texas.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1013/Falcon-Lake-pirate-murder-Is-beheading-message-to-the-Americans
Falcon Lake 'pirate' murder: Is beheading 'message to the Americans'?

The beheading of a Mexican detective investigating the shooting of American David Hartley on Falcon Lake raises the stakes for both the US and Mexico. The Hartley probe appeared to be narrowing to two alleged members of the Zeta cartel.
October 13, 2010

The beheading of a Mexican detective  investigating the Sept. 30 shooting of American David Hartley on a border lake is forcing both the United States and Mexico to weigh the pros and cons of a potential standoff with cartel-linked pirates on Falcon Lake.
Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, a homicide detective for the border state of Tamaulipas, was killed and his head delivered in a suitcase to a military outpost just days after he handed documents to a Texas TV station naming two Zeta cartel members as suspects in the shooting on Falcon Lake. The 60-mile-long lake straddles Texas and Mexico.

"The will of both nations is at stake right now," says Texas legislator Aaron Peña, who broke the story of the beheading via Twitter on Tuesday. "I think what [the beheading] does is strengthens resolve of people on the American side of the border and for the Mexican government exposes a do or die circumstance."

Coming after a record 79 Americans were killed in Mexico in 2009, the Falcon Lake shooting and the murder of the Mexican investigator has become a talking point in the Texas gubernatorial race, and has sparked calls for the White House to get directly involved by further militarizing the border.

On Wednesday, the Texas Department of Public Safety on Wednesday issued a new travel warning, for the first time bluntly telling people, "just don't go" to Mexico, reported KURV radio in McAllen, Texas.

"[The cartels] have notched it up a level, and the [beheading] is a message to the Americans as well," says Gary Freeman, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, and an expert on border politics. "The beheading has such strong resonance with Islamic fundamentalism that it raises the specter of groups in Mexico being as fanatical and as bloodthirsty as Osama bin Laden and his gang. They seem to be copying some of their techniques, and that might be deliberate."

The Sept. 30 shooting of Mr. Hartley, who was sightseeing on his Jet Ski deep on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake with his wife, Tiffany Hartley, is the most dramatic of a series of incidents in which armed men in boats have confronted, and in some cases robbed, US bass fishermen working the far shore of the lake.
Calls to beef up military presence

Falcon Lake, created in 1954, has long been a smuggling zone for drugs and humans, and is difficult to patrol. In the past year, tensions have risen as the Gulf Coast Cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, fight each other and the Mexican government in Mexico City for control of smuggling routes and remote hideouts like Falcon Lake.

To be sure, some have doubted Ms. Hartley's story of how the couple was chased by pirates and her husband killed. Others, including some US politicians, have questioned why the Hartleys ventured into Mexico despite warnings about pirate attacks.

But the beheading of the Mexican detective, says Mr. Peña, creates a new level of outrage in the US-Mexico border lands.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) last week urged the Obama administration to bring more national guard troops and to add armed aerial drones to patrol Falcon Lake. Governor Perry has resisted sending the Texas Rangers, who are under his command, to Falcon Lake in fear of political repercussions should someone get killed or hurt.

Last weekend, Sigifredo Gonzalez, sheriff of Texas's Zapata County, declined offers to help Mexican state authorities search the Mexican side of the lake, fearing a shootout. That came as other incidents of "spillover violence" from the drug war in Mexico, which has claimed more than 26,000 lives in the past four years, began to worry many in the borderlands.
Did detective have a lead?

Though Mexican authorities had publicly said they had no suspects, the Mexican homicide detective, Mr. Flores, delivered documents to KRGV-TV over the weekend that named two suspected Zeta members, Juan Pedro and Jose Manual Saldivar Farias, in Hartley's shooting, the TV station said.

According to the documents, the pair are members of the pirate contingent that has terrorized US boaters and residents of a nearby Mexican town, and both men are already wanted by Mexican authorities on murder and robbery charges, the TV station's statement alleges.

"I would assume he was killed because he was either trying to assist in the rescue operation or search operation, or because he may have provided some documents to the media, from what I understand," Sheriff Gonzalez told KRGV Tuesday.

In the wake of the new murder, border politicians stepped up calls for President Obama to become more directly involved in the US response, which has so far involved a contingent of local, state, and federal law enforcement authorities.

"There's no excuse for Obama not getting down here," says Peña. "We're only going to resolve it with a federal response. Just hoping that it's going to go away is not going to happen."

While much of the political debate in the US has focused on illegal immigration, the gruesome Falcon Lake cases could reshape the border debate as the cartels attempt to intimidate state and federal governments on both sides, says Professor Freeman.

"Our concern about migration … is missing the point," he says. "Now it's really lawlessness on both sides and the spread of violence across the border that has really created a great crisis. With the increase in violence, people are going to have to rethink their attitude toward the border and think of that river or line in the sand as being something that might need to be seriously enforced."

think we can close our borders now??? ::MonkeyNoNo::

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=215041
INVASION USA

Investigator's decapitation is 'message to White House'
Mexican drug cartels declaring U.S. 'no longer controls border'
Posted: October 13, 2010
11:50 pm Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
The decapitation of the lead Mexican investigator in the alleged murder of a jet-skier on a border lake is a sharp retort to President Obama's administration, a Texas congressman said.

"The Mexican drug cartels just sent a message to the White House that the United States no longer controls the border," Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, told WND.

The severed head of investigator Rolando Armando Flores Villegas was delivered this week to an army garrison in Ciudad Miguel Aleman in the Tamaulipas state in Mexico. The city is across the river from Zapata County, Texas, the location of Falcon Lake, where David Michael Hartley allegedly was killed by Mexican pirates while he was jet-skiing with his wife Tiffany.
Only last week, Tiffany Hartley met with Flores in Ciudad Miguel Aleman and reported that the investigator seemed to be working hard to find her husband, according to ABC News
When the Los Zetas drug cartel commits a murder, they dispose of the body where it will never be found, or they use the body to send a message to law enforcement," Poe said. "By decapitating Rolando Flores, the Mexican drug cartels sent a message to Mexico to stop investigating Hartley's murder."

The White House should not be intimidated, Poe insisted.

"Now is the time we should be sending more National Guard to the border."

Last week, Poe was joined by 20 members of the House to introduce the National Guard Border Enforcement Act, H.R.6253, authorizing the secretary of defense to make 10,000 National Guard troops available upon request by a U.S. governor to serve at the border under the command of the requesting governor.

Poe believes the Flores murder is just one more indication Mexico's drug war is out of control and increasingly dangerous to U.S. citizens.

"The decapitation of Rolando Flores is a warning to the United States and to Mexico that this portion of the border is protected by the Zetas," Poe said. "The Zetas intend to protect their drug routes on the border from law enforcement regardless whether that law enforcement is from Mexico or the United States."

Poe doubts Mexico will make serious efforts to apprehend David Michael Hartley's killers
Thousands of drug-related homicides are committed in Mexico every year, and very few are ever solved," he stressed. "That Mexican authorities have suggested Tiffany Hartley may have been involved in foul-play in her husband's death should make it clear Mexican law enforcement officers have no intention of seriously investigating or solving the crime."

Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrizales, the district attorney for the Miguel Aleman Province, adjoining Falcon Lake on the Mexican side of the border, has questioned whether Tiffany Hartley was involved in foul play.

As WND previously reported, Texas Zepata County Sheriff Sigifredo "Sigi" Gonzalez Jr. believes Hartley was killed by Mexican pirates operating on Falcon Lake as drug cartel operatives.

"A local witness saw Tiffany Hartley escaping on her jet-ski to the Texas side of the lake," Gonzalez said. "She came in at high speed and was being pursued by armed men in a Mexican fishing boat that that the witness clearly observed."

Gonzalez said the witness was a long-standing member of the Zapata community who was well known to him and regarded as highly credible.

He said the statement of the witness was recorded in the police file but the name of the witness was being withheld from the public to protect his privacy.

The testimony of this witness dispels any idea Mrs. Hartley was involved in any wrongdoing regarding the murder of her husband," he said firmly. "She called in a 911 phone call to our office at around 2:20 pm on the day of the incident, immediately after she got to shore, and her statements to my office confirm what the local witness observed."

Gonzales confirmed to WND that he had interviewed Mrs. Hartley himself.

He attributed the failure to recover David Hartley's jet ski and his body to the unwillingness of Mexico to cooperate

"The drug cartels operate from an island on the Mexican side of the lake," Gonzalez explained.

"Mexican law enforcement authorities do not control the lake – the pirates do," he said. Tons of illegal drugs are warehoused on that island by the drug cartels for smuggling into the United States and the pirates are well armed."

Emphasizing the need for the National Guard bill, Poe said the "first duty of the federal government is to protect its people."

"Texans are tired of the federal government's failure to secure our borders and enforce our laws, yet at the same time running roughshod over state governments when they try to enforce the law and protect their citizens," he said.

The Obama administration entered U.S. District Court to oppose Arizona's tough immigration law SB 1070, resulting in a decision by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton to strike down several key provisions of the law.

In the past four years, an estimated 28,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-related violence.

Currently, the Department of Defense has allocated only 250 National Guard troops for the entire 1,256 mile-long Texas-Mexico border.

Under the National Guard Border Enforcement Act, National Guard troops would be authorized to conduct:

Armed vehicle and foot patrols of the U.S. southern border;


Interdiction of a vehicle, vessel, aircraft or other similar activities;


Search, seizure and detention of suspects;


Construction of roads, fences and vehicle barriers;


Search and rescue operations;


Intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance;
Aviation support.
Additionally, the bill would allow the secretary of defense to authorize additional troops should operational control of the U.S. border not be achieved with the first 10,000 deployed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39669630/ns/world_news-americas/
Sheriff: Jet Ski killing blamed on mistaken identity
Report says Mexican drug cartel took American for spy of rival gang
October 14, 2010

 Authorities believe the death of an American tourist on a lake on the Texas-Mexico border may be a case of mistaken identity in a turf battle between rival drug cartels, a sheriff confirmed Thursday.

"It wouldn't be unheard of for cartels to do this and it's the way cartels work," said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, who is heading the investigation on the U.S. side.
David Hartley vanished on Sept. 30 while jet skiing with his wife on Falcon Lake.

Tiffany Hartley said they were chased across the lake by men in speedboats as they returned from a trip to photograph a Mexican church. Neither David Hartley's body nor the Jet Ski has been recovered.

Hartley, of McAllen, Texas, is believed to have been shot by Zetas cartel enforcers because he was mistaken for an operative of the rival Gulf cartel, according to an independent intelligence report.

"The truck Hartley and his wife used to put their Jet Skis in the water at the lake had Tamaulipas state plates, and the Hartleys drove the Jet Skis to the Old Guerrero area of the lake, a known battleground in the ongoing war the Los Zetas and Gulf cartels," according to STRATFOR, a Texas-based think tank on intelligence and international issues.

"Given the couple’s license plate and method and direction of travel, it is possible that Zetas scouts identified them as a Gulf cartel surveillance team," STRATFOR said in its report.
"A damage control campaign is currently under way, led by Los Zetas No. 2, Miguel 'Z-40' Trevino Morales, to identify and eliminate those who engaged the Hartleys without proper authorization," according to the report.

It said Hartley's body had been destroyed as part of that effort.

The war between the Zetas and Gulf cartels erupted earlier this year over a fatal shooting and has spread through the Tamaulipas border region, Gonzalez said.

On Tuesday, the beheading of Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, the lead Mexican investigator in the Hartley case, was a chilling reminder of the cartel's brutal intimidation tactics.
Texas officials have long warned boaters and fisherman that pirates frequent the Mexican side of the lake, a 25-mile by 3-mile dammed section of the Rio Grande, Gonzalez said.

"The cartels do not normally target American citizens not involved in the narcotics trade, but cases of mistaken identity have occurred in the past," STRATFOR said.

Nonetheless, the lake can be treacherous, Gonzalez said.

"Anyone going into the area is going to get stopped and checked by the cartels," he said. "They have machine guns. They will pull you aside, grab you, put you on their boat face down, and with their knees into your back and a machine gun into your head, they will ask you who you are."

Gonzalez said the Hartleys tried to flee after they were stopped "and the shooting started. One unlucky shot hit in the man in the head."

But they leave a witness? Yeah right, when pigs fly
 ::piggy::
IMO TYH is not telling the truth!

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20019717-504083.html
David Hartley Update: Mexico Suspends Search for Missing American Tourist
October 15, 2010

McALLEN, Texas (CBS/AP) The search for American tourist David Hartley, whose wife insists was shot to death by pirates near the U.S.-Mexican border, has been temporarily called off, according to Mexican officials.
Tamaulipas state attorney general's office spokesman Ruben Dario Rios Lopez told the McAllen newspaper The Monitor  that the search was suspended Thursday so that authorities can look into new strategies to find him and hopes police will be able to resume "in a few days."

Hartley's wife, Tiffany, says they were on their way back to the U.S. after photographing a historic Mexican church when pirates in boats opened fire on them, shooting her husband. She says she tried to help her husband but had to flee because they kept shooting.

Earlier Thursday a U.S. consulate official said Hartley may have been a victim of mistaken identity.

"I think what you had is two innocent American tourists who mistakenly stumbled into a bad area and were pursued and the shooting occurred," said Brian Quigley, spokesman for the U.S. consulate in Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas.
Tamaulipas state is the center of a violent rivalry between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, a brutal drug gang made up of former Mexican special-forces soldiers. The search for Hartley's body has been repeatedly hampered by threats of an ambush from drug gangs, presumably the Zetas.

This week, a state police commander in Tamaulipas, Rolando Flores, who was investigating the Hartley disappearance, was killed, his decapitated head delivered in a suitcase to a local Mexican army post.

Mexican authorities say they don't know if Flores' death was related to the Hartley case because he was working on numerous investigations involving drug gangs.

Although no sign of Hartley or his Jet Ski have been found after more than a week of searching the lake, Quigley and local officials in Texas say they still believe Tiffany Hartley's story. The Stratfor report theorized that once the killers realized Hartley was an American, they destroyed the body to avoid a U.S. backlash.

http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Search-for-David-Hartley-on-Hold/vEgfg8rHXU-CK2u6ELGdvA.cspx
Search for David Hartley on Hold
October 15, 2010

ZAPATA COUNTY - The search for David Hartley's body is now on hold.

Mexican authorities suspended the search for David Hartley's body Thursday.

The Tamaulipas governor says the FBI is involved in the investigation.

Eugenio Hernandez Flores says the FBI and Mexican authorities met with the Hartley family in McAllen today.
Flores says, "We have a close relationship with FBI in Mexico, Texas, and here (Washington DC). So, because we work together almost everyday, we have a lot of jobs to do together."

A Tamaulipas state attorney general spokesman denied reports cartel threats had anything to do with suspending the search on Falcon Lake.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1015/Mistaken-identity-theory-gains-traction-in-Falcon-Lake-pirate-attack
Mistaken identity theory gains traction in Falcon Lake 'pirate' attack

An intelligence firm suggests that Americans David Hartley and Tiffany Hartley, who were attacked on Falcon Lake along the Texas-Mexico border, were mistaken as drug cartel spies by junior members of a rival Mexican gang.
October 15, 2010

Officials on the US side of Falcon Lake, where David Hartley, a US tourist, was shot on Sept. 30 while Jet Skiing, are giving some credence to a theory that Mr. Hartley and his wife were mistaken as drug cartel spies by "pirates" linked to another cartel, setting in motion a tense, and ongoing, international incident.
US and Mexican authorities so far have no official explanation for the shooting of Hartley, but a report by a global intelligence firm posited this week that Mr. Hartley and his wife, Tiffany Hartley, stumbled into an ambush engineered by lower-level cartel members – perhaps teenagers – who made an unauthorized decision to confront and fire upon the couple.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, the lead Texas investigator into the shooting, acknowledged on Thursday that it "wouldn't be unheard of" for cartel members to confront suspected spies.

Howard Campbell, author of "Drug War Zone," told CNN Friday that the shooting may be the result of the Zeta cartel, which is believed to be behind Hartley's murder, growing more desperate beneath a government crackdown and intensifying battles with other drug lords.

"There are reports that recently the Zetas have become a bit desperate and have been using ill-trained, reckless teenagers which can lead to mistakes of this kind," he told CNN in an e-mail Friday. "The leaders of Mexican drug cartels try to minimize attacks on Americans because they know this would bring pressure on their organizations."

Ms. Hartley told police in the US that lake "pirates" shot her husband and chased her into Texas waters before she got away.
A test for Mexico

That confrontation appears now to have roiled the local cartel wars, even as it has called into question the Mexican government’s ability to withstand intimidation from fearless cartels.

According to the anonymously sourced Stratfor report, the beheading this week of a Mexican investigator looking into the attack, Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, was roundly seen as a stern message to both Mexican and US authorities "that no body will be produced and to leave the situation alone."

On Thursday Mexican authorities ended a two-week search for Mr. Hartley.

"[As illustrated by the Falcon Lake situation], the stability of the Mexican political system seems to be under threat," says Gary Freeman, a political scientist at the University of Texas, in Austin. "These narcotrafficking drug lords seem to have no fear, and there's such corruption in the police that I just wonder how they can put the cap back on the bottle."

The Stratfor report has been neither confirmed nor denied by US law enforcement authorities.

According to the report, the Hartleys, who had recently moved back to the US from Mexico for safety reasons, showed up at Falcon Lake with a Jet Ski trailer bearing Tamaulipas state tags. The Stratfor report, which notes that rival drug cartels routinely use Jet Skis to spy on one another, says scouts from the notorious Zeta gang may have instead pegged them as spies from the Gulf Coast Cartel. Stratfor says a radio communication reporting the presence of the Jet Skiing couple was monitored.

Stratfor says the apparent case of mistaken identity may prove costly for some of the Zeta "pirates" who have terrorized US bass fishermen on the Mexican side of the lake at least five times this year. According to the report, after the men apparently broke cartel protocol by not getting authorization to confront the Jet Skis, the No. 2 Zeta cartel chief, Miguel “Z-40” Trevino Morales, is hunting for the men so he can "take care of them himself."
"[A] damage control campaign is currently under way … to identify and eliminate those who engaged the Hartleys without proper authorization," according to the Stratfor report. "Once Hartley was identified as an American, his body was destroyed the same day as the incident to prevent a backlash from the US government against the group."

The Zetas are fighting against their former bosses, the Gulf Coast Cartel, for control of parts of the border, including Falcon Lake.
Battles in Mexico

Gun battles have been reported near Falcon Lake in the aftermath of the Hartley murder. On Oct. 8, Mexican military engaged cartel members near New Guerrero in a battle that left six dead, including one soldier. On Thursday, an American traveler along the Rio Grande reported hearing a two-hour gun battle near the lake.

“The gunfire started at 9 a.m. this morning," Jay Johnson-Castro, a US environmentalist, told the Rio Grande Guardian newspaper. "As long as we were outside, we heard it. We were outside for quite a few minutes. It sounded like a real battle going on. It was automatic fire; then you would hear individual shots and then more automatic fire, and then rifles going."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that the United States is "doing everything that we know how to do" to find Hartley. "I hope that we can [find him]. I mean, the beheaded body of the brave Mexican investigator that just showed up shows what we're dealing with."

Mexican authorities on Thursday denied Mr. Flores' killing had anything to do with the Hartley investigation, saying he had many enemies in the area. But a Rio Grande Valley TV station says Flores, a few days before his murder, handed off documents to the station pointing to two specific Zeta cartel members, a pair of brothers who are wanted in Mexico on murder and robbery charges.

On Thursday, a search-and-rescue effort on the Mexican side that had involved more than 100 boats and divers ended. "Our investigators have taken a temporary recess so that we can better assess the strategies we are using to find the body. We are currently considering other approaches to our search," said Ruben Dario Rios, Tamaulipas state attorney general, according to CNN.

Falcon Lake, a historic smuggling route, has just this year turned into a major flashpoint in Mexico's drug war, raising worries on the US side about "spillover violence" that will affect Americans more directly. At the same time, it has given Americans a personal glimpse into the workings of fearless and ruthless cartels involved in a war with the Mexico government that has
cost more than 26,000 lives, including cartel ordered assassinations of mayors and police officials.

http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=526807
RAW VIDEO - Tamaulipas Governor Speaks About Slain Investigator (at link)
October 15, 2010
Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez-Flores was in Washington DC today where he spoke about a slain police commander killed after searching for missing American David Hartley.

Hernandez-Flores spoke with CNN about the death of Tamaulipas State Police Commander Rolando Armando Flores-Villegas.

Hartley remains missing more than two weeks after allegedly being shot by gunmen on boats on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake.

Commander Flores-Villegas was one of the Mexican authorities helping in the search for Hartley's body.

Flores-Villegas was killed and decapitated with his head left in a suitcase at a Mexican army post in Miguel Aleman.

Gov. Hernandez-Flores reiterated previous statements from Mexican officials officials that Flores-Villegas was killed due to an investigation in another case.

The governor said authorities couldnt' comment on the case at this time.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/mexico_suspends_search_for_hartley_105039659.html
Mexico quits its search of Falcon Lake
By Lynn Brezosky - Express-News Web Posted: 10/16/2010 12:00 AM CDT
BROWNSVILLE — Mexican state police said Friday they have ended the search on Falcon Lake for David Michael Hartley, contradicting reports to U.S. officials and the missing American's family that the efforts had been stopped only temporarily.
Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, the lead U.S. investigator in the case, said state police in Tamaulipas told him they had nowhere left to search.

“It's been over two weeks,” he said. “The probability of finding the body is dimmer and dimmer. They've looked everywhere.

“They gave it a very good shot,” he added. “They even lost a police officer.”

But Cynthia Young, Hartley's mother-in-law, said the family hadn't heard the search was over and maintained hope his remains would be found.

“What we've heard is that they are probably not going to search for a while but it will be picked back up,” she said. “They're just trying to strategize at this point.”

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said he, too, had been informed the stoppage was temporary.

“Today the specific question was asked and they said they're hoping to resume the search this weekend or even on Monday,” he said.

Hartley, 30, is presumed dead after he and his wife, Tiffany, were attacked by boatloads of gunmen during a Sept. 30 sightseeing trip on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake.

Tiffany Hartley has said they were shot at after they rode their personal watercraft toward historic ruins, not knowing they were making a dangerous encroachment into territory of the Zeta drug thugs.

She escaped with a tale that at first drew skepticism but since has brought international attention to the threat of drug cartels along the border.
On Tuesday, a Tamaulipas police commander who had apprised the family on the search turned up dead, his head delivered to the Mexican military in a suitcase.

Funeral arrangements for Cmdr. Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, a native of Tampico, were pending, a colleague said.

Cmdr. Gilberto Lerma, a colleague in Reynosa, remembered Flores Villegas as a respected public servant who had headed state police operations in Miguel Alemán, across the border from Roma.

“He was a good investigator, a good police officer,” Lerma said.

Meanwhile, the search for Hartley has from the beginning been hampered by the international boundary bisecting the lake.

U.S. officials by treaty can't search on the other side, and Mexico is fiercely protective of its sovereignty.

The lake is said to be prime territory of the Zetas, who are in a vicious war against the Gulf Cartel and its allies.

STRATFOR, an Austin-based intelligence group, has concluded that Zeta scouts spotted Mexican license plates on the Hartleys' vehicle as they approached the lake and mistook them as spies.

The Hartleys had lived for the past two years in Reynosa, Mexico, while David worked for an oil company.

(Page 3 of 3)They were days away from returning to their native Colorado.

Laredo Morning Times Staff Writer César G. Rodriguez contributed to this report.

"David Hartley's wife, Tiffany Hartley, is preparing to return to their home state of Colorado as the probe of David's death continues, reports CBS News Correspondent Don Teague"

http://wap.cbsnews.com/site?t=xqr7LaR4G9QLliEjuvH8wA&sid=cbsnews


Wife gives 2nd statement on border lake shooting


Mrs. Hartley said that pirates shot her husband in the neck and that she barely escaped when they shot at her when she tried to retrieve him.

http://www.cbs8.com/Global/story.asp?S=13336504

----

Hmmmm.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/video/?videoId=632799582001&lineupId=1184677040

Tiffany: (audio)

 5:20 mark


David getting shot -

She definitely says:

BECAUSE HE WAS BEHIND ME, I DIDN'T SEE IT.

--

10:50
POLYGRAPH TEST?

"We said it's an option, i don't think i have to do one (polygraph)
but, you know, if it ends up
HAVING to be done then we'll THINK about that. but as of right now
I'm not too WORRIED."


--

14:40 (more Tiffany audio)

We didn't wear wedding rings that day because we might lose it.

So, I was thankful that he had it at home, so I could have it.

--

How kind of David to leave his wedding ring at home.

Tiffany even gives you the reason:

"So I could have it."

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/video/?videoId=632799582001&lineupId=1184677040

David must also be psychic, just like Tiffany.

http://www.themonitor.com/news/private-43647-zetitas-detective.html
Private detective: ‘Zetitas' killed Hartley
Comments 7
October 17, 2010 12:34 AM

EDINBURG — While Mexican officials have put the search for McAllen man David Michael Hartley on hold indefinitely, a local man believes he has many of the answers to the mystery of the disappearance.

Hartley, 30, is widely presumed dead after what his wife, Tiffany Young-Hartley, has described as an attack by cartel "pirates" on the Mexican side of Falcon Reservoir, which spans that country’s border with the United States.

She has said three boats of gunmen opened fire on them, fatally shooting her husband in the head, as the couple rode separate personal watercraft during a sightseeing trip to a partially submerged church in the abandoned Mexican town of Old Guerrero.

STRATFOR, an Austin-based think tank that focuses on the drug war and other global security issues, reported Wednesday that the Sept. 30 incident may have been a case of mistaken identity by the Zetas drug trafficking organization.

On Saturday, prominent Edinburg private detective Raul G. Reyna Jr. told The Monitor that the theory put forward earlier in the week by a STRATFOR analyst — that the attack on the Hartleys may have been a matter of mistaken identity — is more complicated than what really happened.

Reyna, owner and lead investigator for GOTCHA! Investigations, an Edinburg-based agency that has gone into Mexico to seek out and bring numerous criminal suspects back to the United States, has been looking into the Hartley case on his own.

Reyna believes, after talking to his "network of intelligence sources in Mexico," that the lowest ranking members of the Zeta drug cartel were responsible for the shooting. The "Zetitas," or baby Zetas, shot at the couple to try to steal the personal watercraft they were riding, he said.

"The kid that shot (at the couple) did not know how to handle the weapon," he said. "Because of the recoil (and power of the weapon) one of the shots got away from him and he shot Hartley."

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said Saturday that he believes some of Reyna’s claims are possibly true, but added that Reyna needs to be careful about nosing around too much in this case "because he’s going to come up missing a head."

Gonzalez pointed out that Reyna’s state-issued private investigator’s license is expired, a fact confirmed by Reyna who said he has been awaiting its renewal since applying for it on Oct. 8.

"Yes, it was a baby Zeta," Gonzalez said. "Some of them are 15, 16 and 17 years old that operate that area."

The private investigator also claims the name of the shooter was Guadalupe Gomez, also known as "El Piojo," Gomez was killed in Matamoros on Friday, Reyna said.

Mexican investigators in Nuevo Laredo who are dealing with the case were unable to comment Saturday evening. They also could not verify if Guadalupe Gomez was dead or alive.

Gonzalez said he was also unsure if there was any validity behind the investigator’s claim of who the shooter was.

Gonzalez added that he does not believe that theft of the Hartleys’ personal watercraft was actually the motive in the shooting. However, he does believe the group of young men shot at the Hartleys as a scare tactic, which was used in several other incidents on the Mexican side of the lake earlier this year.

After reviewing the other cases," he said, "the same (scare tactics) were used in the other cases."

Another claim Reyna makes, which coincides closely with the theory put forward by STRATFOR, is that the "Zetitas" were not ordered to kill Hartley by Zeta leaders.

"They did all this without the consent or knowledge of the main Zeta group," Reyna said.

Sheriff Gonzalez agreed. The sheriff’s investigators are continuing to work on the case regardless of whether Mexican officials are searching for the body, which he believes will not turn up.

"We have also scaled down," he said. "If we know there’s no body to be found, why should we risk more people searching? Why should we risk having people out there searching and getting beheaded when we can’t find a body? The next step (for U.S. officials) is to continue to develop as much info as we can to pass along to the Mexican officials."

As the investigation began, following the Sept. 30 incident, Tiffany Young-Hartley was asked to give a statement to Mexican officials. However, after many invitations from Mexican officials, Young-Hartley refused to cross the border. However, Gonzalez said Saturday that Young-Hartley went to the Mexican consulate’s office in McAllen again on Friday to file a second statement.

"The (district attorney) in Matamoros wanted her to go his office and (the district attorney) in Miguel Aleman wanted her to go to his office (to give a statement)," he said. "She already gave one. They wanted to get another. So she did it here (in the United States)."

* One slight change - it wasn't his wedding ring she was touching.

She said it was the ring he liked to wear all the time. His favorite ring.


"We didn't wear rings that day because we might lose it."

because it is hard to tell with bad audio

she may have said

"He didn't wear rings that day because he might lose it"

"So, I was thankful that he had it at home, so I could have it."

---

I guess, the wedding ring wasn't his favorite and he didn't like to wear it everyday.  ::HelloKitty::

Tiffany's 'David was shot' Progression:

Shot In The _____

1. Back of the head
2. Front of the head
3. As far as I know (he was shot)
4. He was behind me so I didn't see
5. Neck? (latest media report - bad report?)
6. Now placing bets for next week!

 ::MonkeyBike::

thanks trimmon!

also, I thought that Tiffany showed more emotion when she was talking about the officer who was beheaded than she did when she was talking about her own  husband being murdered right in front of her.

She is one cool cucumber...jmo

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/18/earlyshow/main6968473.shtml
Oct. 18, 2010
Jet Ski Victim's Wife Questioned for Eight Hours
Tiffany Hartley, Wife of David Hartley, Says Mexican Cops Went Over Her Account of Day David Was Slain in "Major Detail"

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wife-man-allegedly-killed-mexican-pirates-questioned/story?id=11905913
Wife of Man Allegedly Killed by Mexican Pirates Questioned
David Hartley's Wife Tiffany Said Mexican Authorities 'Possibly' Want to Arrest Her
 
Post a Comment By RYAN OWENS, SARAH NETTER and LEE FERRAN
Oct. 18, 2010

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-10-18-advisory18_ST_N.htm
Texas sheriff mistrusts Mexico's border lake inquiry

The Texas sheriff leading the U.S. investigation into the fatal shooting of an American man said Mexican officials are trying to discourage the victim's wife from pushing for a fuller inquiry.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo "Sigi" Gonzalez said Sunday that Tiffany Hartley was subjected to 12 hours of questioning by Mexican investigators Friday in an effort to "intimidate and discourage her from doing anything."

Hartley is scheduled to meet with Mexican prosecutors and investigators today, Gonzalez said.

He said the questions asked by Mexican investigators were not aimed at resolving the Sept. 30 incident, when Hartley says her husband, David, was shot by Mexican pirates. His body has not been recovered.

"It's wrong. It makes no sense," Gonzalez said. He said he received an account of the meeting from U.S. officials who attended the session in McAllen, Texas.

Mexican officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Gonzalez's account contradicts a statement released Saturday by the Mexican attorney general's office. It said Hartley's wife provided new information about the Jet Ski outing on Falcon Lake, which spans the U.S.-Mexican border.

"Mrs. Hartley provided valuable information that will allow federal investigations to continue," the Mexican government's statement said.

The statement did not elaborate on the nature of the information provided by Hartley, who has expressed concern that the investigation and search would be abandoned.

Tiffany Hartley has said she and her husband were attacked when they ventured into Mexican waters on Jet Skis to photograph the ruins of a church.

She said her husband was shot in an assault by gunmen in boats. She said she tried but failed to pull her husband onto her Jet Ski and fled to the Texas side of the border as the gunmen continued firing on her craft.

Gonzalez said the gunmen are believed to be members of the violent Zetas drug cartel.

Last week, the Mexican inquiry into the Hartley shooting was shaken when the severed head of the commander in the case, Rolando Flores Villegas, was found.

Gonzalez said Villegas' killing is one of the reasons Mexican authorities do not want to proceed with the investigation.

During the questioning Friday, Gonzalez said, Mexican investigators asked Hartley to participate in a re-enactment of the incident.

Gonzalez said the request was inappropriate because it posed a clear risk to Hartley's safety.

"She's never hinted at not cooperating with them," he said. "But she's not going to go do that, and you can't blame her."

"They don't want to investigate this," Gonzalez said. "Their position is, 'We hope we can discourage her enough so that she won't continue to go forward with it.' "

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20019858-504083.html
David Hartley Update: Police Questioned American Tourist's Wife for Eight Hours
October 18, 2010

McALLEN, Texas (CBS/AP) The search for American tourist David Hartley, whose wife Tiffany insists was shot to death by Mexican pirates, may have been suspended due to intensifying violence on the U.S.-Mexico border, but the investigation is moving forward.
On Friday, Mexican authorities interviewed Hartley's wife for more than eight hours, later saying that she "provided valuable information that will allow federal investigations to continue."

Tiffany told CBS News' "The Early Show" Monday that she was asked about her last day with David in "major detail" and claims that it was not an interrogation.

"(Friday's questioning) was just a witness statement," she told the morning show. "We just, between translation and having to go between Spanish and English, it took a long time and then, of course, taking some breaks."

Mexican investigators plan to interview her again today, but Zapata County, Texas Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, who is also investigating the murder, wonders why.

"I think what they're really doing is trying to discourage her from filing a complaint. I think because of threats from the cartel," Gonzalez told CBS News.

Tiffany says they were on their way back to the U.S. after photographing a historic Mexican church when pirates in boats opened fire on them, shooting her husband. She says she tried to help her husband, but had to flee because they kept shooting.

Although no sign of Hartley or his jet ski has been found after over a week of searching the lake, local officials in Texas say they still believe Tiffany Hartley's story.

According to Austin, Texas-based research group Stratfor, which analyzes the Mexican drug war, the Hartleys may have been mistaken for drug runners from a rival cartel, and once the killers realized Hartley was an American, they destroyed the body to avoid a U.S. backlash.

 ::MonkeyTongue:: ::MonkeyTongue:: ::MonkeyTongue::

video 2
http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Tiffany-Hartley-Spends-Day-Speaking-with-Mexican/6OWRwTv8RkOEg-0Te-UO6w.cspx


Tiffany-
We`re not going anywhere until (hand clap) David is home.

*New
Moving day video:

http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=528748

“God just told her it was time to go home,” Tiffany's mother, Cynthia Young, said. “The other night we were up most of the night praying and that's what she got. She just decided God was telling her that it was time for her to go home and when David's found, we'll come back.”


http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/mexico/tiffany_hartley_says_its_time_to_go_home_105362188.html

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/20/texas.missing.american/index.html?iref=NS1
Missing American's wife moves back to Colorado
October 20, 2010

CNN) -- Tiffany Hartley, who reported that her husband was shot by gunmen in Mexico last month, is moving from Texas to Colorado without a trace of his body yet to be found.

"This is a very difficult day for her, this is her home," Harltey's mother, Cynthia Young said, as a moving van was being packed at the couple's Rio Grande Valley home.

The Hartleys had been planning to move back to their native Colorado before David Hartley was allegedly shot on Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.

On September 30, the two decided to ride their personal watercraft to the Mexican side of the lake to see a historical church there, she said.

But she said the couple was confronted by three boats, and gunmen -- believed linked to a Mexican drug gang -- began firing shots at them when they tried to flee the area. She said she saw her husband shot and attempted to pull him on board her watercraft.

David Hartley's body has not been found, despite extensive searches by both U.S. and Mexican authorities.

Most recently, Mexican authorities suspended their search after the head of the lead investigator in the case was found on the side of the road.

Young said the move to Colorado does not signal an end to their search for justice.

"We are not giving up. We will continue to call congressmen and lawmakers until they find David, and we will return immediately when they find his body," she said.

Tiffany Hartley agreed.

"Just because I'm going to Colorado doesn't mean I'm done," she said as she was leaving. "You'll still hear from me. I'm still going to be out fighting for my husband and fighting for everyone on the border."

Earlier this week, Hartley pleaded for help in finding her husband.

"I plea to the people who did this. To anybody who knows who did this," she said on CNN's "AC 360" Monday night. "Just give me my husband back. I want to take him home and honor him. And I am sure somebody out there knows. Just help me bring my husband home."

http://seamusoriley.blogspot.com/2010/10/ongoing-impact-of-deception.html
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The Ongoing Impact of Deception

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7261638.html
Wife of man missing on border lake back in Colo.
© 2010 The Associated Press
Oct. 24, 2010, 4:55AM
LA SALLE, Colo. — The wife of a man believed gunned down as he jet skied along the Mexico border says she intends to speak out about the violence plaguing that region.

Tiffany Hartley spoke to reporters after arriving back in La Salle Saturday evening.

She told authorities the couple were sightseeing when her husband was shot Sept. 30 by gunmen who ambushed them on the Mexico side of Falcon Lake, where pirates have robbed several Americans this year. Authorities have not found David Hartley's body.

She tells KUSA-TV that she wants to be a voice for people who live on the border and are afraid to speak out because of the drug trafficking violence.

Tiffany Hartley Speaks About Pirate Ambush After Returning To Colorado
By Tyler Lopez, 7NEWS Reporter

POSTED: 8:43 pm MDT October 23, 2010
UPDATED: 7:22 am MDT October 24, 2010

WELD COUNTY, Colo. -- Shivering from the light, high-altitude breezes, Tiffany Hartley jumped out of an SUV Saturday to again speak with the media about what happened to her husband David.

"You know, (for) so long we've focused on what's going on internationally, across the ocean, we need to focus on what's in our backyard," Hartley said.

Hartley said she and her husband were jet skiing Sept. 30 when Mexican drug cartel pirates shot David in 

the back of the head.


The pirates then turned to Tiffany Hartley.

"It was kind of one of those looks of, 'What do we do with her?'" Hartley said.

She said the next moment, she was pushing her jet ski to the limit, passing three boats of pirates, hanging her body to the far side of them as they fired at her.

"The whole way over there I was just screaming, 'How could I just leave him?'" Hartley said.

Hartley explained she patiently answered 16 hours of questions from Mexican investigators who came from Mexico City to meet with her in Texas, a rarity, she was told.

"And I think the only reason they did is A, I was not going over there. And B, (because) of the publicity they've had," said Hartley, adding she just felt it was time to leave that area. "But no, I don't live in fear for my life. David and I didn't live in fear. And that's how I am living."

At the first meeting, she was skeptical that officials believed her and had doubts of her own that Mexican and American investigators were doing enough to solve the crime.

Hartley said she now believes she has the support of her countrymen.

"They can only do what they can do. And so now we're at the mercy of Mexico," Hartley said.

Her mother told TheDenverChannel Tiffany Hartley "is the voice for America" to realize "this is happening in our backyard, not in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Hartley said she's looking forward to relaxing on her family's 20-acre Weld County ranch, but will do television talk show appearances to keep the story alive.

"Being here in Colorado, you guys are, you're going to be my way to get my voice out," Hartley said.


http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/25491607/detail.html

Now she wants the President to do something about the Mexican drug cartels?

Tell me why, when the Hartley's lived and worked in Mexico, did they go to an area KNOWN to be a drug drop off point?   It makes no sense at all unless they were part of a drug transaction themselves.  We don't even know for sure that Mr. Hartley is dead. 

Sorry but her story stinks.

There's so much to this that just doesn't add up.   ::MonkeyNoNo::

 ::piggy::

OCT. 26th - Today Show

Hartley said she wished she had spoken to local residents or authorities about what was going on in the area they visited. "We didn't know that was a high drug traffic area," she said on NBC. "We knew there had been pirate attacks."

"I love Mexico. I think it's a great country," she said on "Today." "I don't think we should support a country that trying to hurt our people over here. It's spillover violence."

(also video)

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/tiffany-hartley-falcon-lake-is-a-war-zone/19689508



BLOCKED WEBSITE

Tiffany Hartley - Borderline DVD Interview


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY50dLc90jc

 ::piggy::

More picture licensing. Talk of setting up a website and donations.

She just taped the Dr. Phil show.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/28/hartley.falcon.lake/

I am still skeptical of this whole story...

another thing that occurred to me, if you are packing up a house to move, do you interrupt your packing to go jet skiing and site seeing? if me and hubs was moving and I said, lets take the jet ski out, hubs would say, we have too much to do~ 
wouldn't you have the jet skis on the trailer and ready to go or in storage? 
this seems trivial maybe, but just one more thing that makes me think that there is something more to this story...

Sight seeing when you lived and worked not far from that very same area, on the Mexico side.  There isn't even any proof that he was shot and is dead.  You have to believe that the company he worked for warned it's employees of the bad areas.  This entire store STINKS.

 ::MonkeyJnBox::


Dr. Phil Show -

"Everyone who has to believe my story, does." -Tiffany Hartley

The only thing I believe about her story or "have" to believe about her story is her name.  Other than that . . . nothing.

guarantee before too long we will be hearing about a boyfriend in the picture...jmo...
I wonder if David's family is still standing firm with her story? the dad looked very serious and quiet during the news conference that I saw him in. At the beginning..

Exactly.

yep

http://www.gazette.com/articles/lake-107338-mexico-side.html
Memorial planned for man believed killed by pirates
Comments 17
November 02, 2010 9:08 AM
MATT STEINER
THE GAZETTE

The family of a man presumed dead after a shooting on a lake on the U.S.-Mexico border plans to hold a memorial service for him in Colorado on Sunday.

The service for David Hartley, 30, who grew up in Loveland, will be held in Fort Collins.

His wife, Tiffany, says he was shot on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on Sept. 30 while the two were sightseeing. She says she tried to drag her husband's body onto her watercraft but had to retreat to the U.S. side of the lake as bullets whizzed by her.

Authorities have not found his body. Officials in Zapata County, Texas, and Mexico are investigating the case.  -- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

I feel so sorry for the Hartley family.  I know in their hearts they must be having some serious questions about "her story" even if they are not speaking those thoughts aloud.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/tiffany-hartley-husband-moving-12053818
Tiffany Hartley on Her Husband, Moving On
The widow is planning a memorial service to honor the memory of her husband.
11/04/2010

geez...what is the hurry on having a memorial?
would love to know if there is insurance money involved in this..
she seems more interested in protection of the borders than she is in her husband...jmo...

Cookie, I don't think she is interested in the protection of the borders . . . it is just giving her a format IMO to go on shows and get those wonderful licensing fees for photos and to get her name out there.  She is on a media tour for herself IMO

KFI Los Angeles - John and Ken Interview Tiffany Podcast

Pirate Attack 4PM (11/5)
Widow Wants Country To Do Something

http://www.kfiam640.com/common/podcast/single_page.html?podcast=JohnandKen


IMO - These were the doozies!


John/Ken of KFI Radio: well, are you frustrated that they have not recovered your husband`s body? did you think it would be this big an ordeal?

Tiffany: No! I didnt think, I thought we`d have him back the... in a day. ya know, the next day or the following, i didnt realize it was gonna be such a... such a hassle. um now i know we`re dealing with cartels but at the same time... um, to me it just seems like, to me it`s just go over there and get him, ya know? and everyone is saying it`s not that easy.

----

John/Ken of KFI Radio: do you think they ran off with the body, or they let it sink to
the bottom of the lake?

Tiffany: um, actually... i know he`s not in the water, as soon as i left him they took the jet-ski and david and he`s buried... i believe he`s buried somewhere on land. um, and it`s probably in the area that they were. i doubt they, they took him farther, ya know, cuz they dont want to have to bring attention if they`ve got a jet-ski and...

John/Ken of KFI Radio: yeah, they want to cover the tracks is your feeling. what do you know about this area? is this an area where the drug cartels control the land and it may be very difficult for mexican authorities to penetrate and do a real investigation?

Tiffany: yeah, that`s what we found out, we didnt realize that it was a high drug traffic
area for the zetas, um it`s the closest distance on that lake between US and mexico, so
they can just come right over and deliver their drugs at night and be back pretty quick,
and after they get into to mexico waters... US cant do anything about it, so... (snip)


(whole transcript here)

http://seamusoriley.blogspot.com/

Tiffany on the Gayle King Show (interview)

Nov 5th, 2010


*Look at the pic she took with Gayle King!


http://www.thegaylekingshow.com/b/Tiffany-Hartley:-Were-Going-to-Find-Him/424203286165917146.html

the grieving widow...

did you read the message in the comments section..?
I was thinking the same things, including Gayle's armpit sweat..lol...

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/service-set-for-man-reportedly-shot-on-border-1028512.html
Service set for man reportedly shot on border lake
November 7, 2010

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A memorial is planned Sunday afternoon for a man presumed dead after a shooting on a lake on the U.S.-Mexico border.(snip)

LOL! Poor Gayle - she must be working too hard. ::MonkeyTongue::



I finished the transcription of the Gayle King interview today, if anybody cares to read it!

Here tiz! (towards bottom of page)


 ::MonkeyBike::

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=34799002&postID=5134175712808055151

Thanks for the Gayle King Show transcription, Carpe.   ::MonkeyKiss::

You`re welcome! I`m having a field day slicing it all up.

 ::MonkeyJnBox::

WHO`S ON FIRST?

Aired October 7, 2010 - 23:00   ET

http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/07/acd.02.html

CNN


COOPER: How quickly did they start shooting? And what happened then?

HARTLEY: Once we started going the opposite direction of what they were doing, it wasn't very long after once we started -- they realized that we were running away from them that they had started shooting.

-----------

Aired November 5th, 2010 - KFI RADIO John & Ken Show

HARTLEY: on our way back, that`s when i saw my husband looking, saw, looked to his left and saw a boat, and then we looked to the right and there was two coming towards us. once we got past to where we were going to be passing them, that`s where they turned their boats straight onto us and we knew, um it was, we had to get out of there my husband was motioning that we needed to leave, um...


------------

Aired November 5th, 2010 - Gayle King Radio Show

tiffany: when we were coming back from the church heading back to the US, um my husband looked over to the right and saw...we saw a boat and then he looked to the... well i guess he looked to the left and then to the right and we saw the other two boats, and once we started getting between them to where we were passing them they all turned their boats straight to us.

gayle king: and that`s when you knew you were in trouble.

tiffany: and that`s when i knew, and my husband was motioning we got to get out of here
cuz i was so far back there was no way i could hear him if he was telling me...

"Oh! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!"  -Walter Scott

Exactly!

It gets even worse. She is pulling a Joran on us.

****
John/Ken of KFI Radio: 11/5/2010

tiffany: "um, actually... I know he's not in the water, as soon as I left him they took him they took the jetski and David and he's buried...I believe he's buried somewhere on land. Um, and it's probably in the area that they were. I doubt they, they took him farther, ya know, cuz they don't want to have to bring attention if they've got a jetski and..."

She certainly wrapped that up and put a bow on it, now didn't she.

###########

Why suggest looking in the water then? She went from thinking to knowing in just a few short weeks.

----

10/7/2010

Jane Valez Mitchell

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So that is probably why the Mexican government hasn`t been able to find the body on that side of the water.

HARTLEY: Yes. I don`t believe he`s in the water. That`s why they need to be on land. They need to be searching all the brush and the area around that area. And maybe they just took him up on the side and took him in a little while and left him. I don`t know.

But they need to be on foot and in water. But I do believe that he is probably on land. But of course, that`s just what I think. But I don`t know for sure.

http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/07/ijvm.01.html

##########

...and then in this report 10/5 Today Show - Tiffany does not think or know LAND - she is directing investigators into the WATER.

If she thinks land or knows land - at this point she is sending them
in the wrong direction. 2 days later she DIVINES a land burial?


What????

--------


By John Springer
TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 10/5/2010 9:18:25 AM ET

“I believe in my heart that [the gunmen] went back and took him, and that they are hiding our Jet Ski and they are hiding him,” Tiffany Hartley said. “We just plead that we get him back ... They are not doing what they need to do to get back in the water and find him.”

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39515440/39865435

the more she talks, the more she forgets what she said before..

I still am wondering if there is an insurance policy and a boyfriend...just wondering..not saying that it is so...

http://seamusoriley.blogspot.com/2010/11/tiffany-hartley-and-deceptive-answers.html
Friday, November 12, 2010
Tiffany Hartley and Deceptive Answers

What did they know and when did they know it?

Tiffany posted this on her facebook on Oct. 28, 2010:

"This website is VERY grafic, David would look at now and again but I never really did due to the grafics. So if you can't handle the pictures just skip over them but read the articles. This will give you an eye opener to what is happening on the border. You will see why I'm speaking out and wanting all of you and America to realize what is happening and that we can't continue to be blind. It isn't your fault our own government and media is not reporting any of this. They don't want us know they just want to keep it quite, But not anymore, if they don't get it out I will.

Borderland Beat
borderlandbeat.com
Another mass slaughter against the youth of Juarez occurred Friday night, with at 13 people confirmed dead and another 20 wounded, some in critical condition according to official sources. The incident occurred at a birthday party being held at a private residence in the colonia Horizontes del Sur."


(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/aar.jpg)

Little Thompson High School Dance Team (Tiffany)

 ::MonkeySlide::

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/bar.jpg)

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/car.jpg)

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/iliketoN0KTEM/dar.jpg)

Since she knew of all the dangers on the border, why did she go?
I sure would not go near there....call me crazy but I don't intentionally place myself in dangerous situations on purpose... ::MonkeyEek::

Carpe said...

Change changin places...
Root yourself to the ground...
Capitalize on this good fortune...
One word can bring you round...
CHANGES! ( -Yes 1984)

############################

October 05, 2010 Fox & Friends

gretchen carlson: and so they shot your husband in the back of the head.

tiffany hartley: as far as i know

gretchen carlson: but you tried to get his body up on your jet ski, you could not and then you had to leave the scene because they were shooting at you?

tiffany hartley: yeah yeah they um, i had swung my jet-ski back around to get him because he was in the water. and i tried pulling him up, um but before that a boat approached me with a gun... had pointed the gun at me, and then they left and that`s when i tried pulling him up on my ski.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuDGxew9Rhs&feature=related


##########

John & Ken Show - KFI Radio - Nov. 5th

Tiffany: once i got, after the boat left, um, to meet up with the other two boats, i tried pulling david on my jet-ski, and i just, i couldn`t and i wouldn`t have had enough time um cuz i just kept hearing you have to go... so, i had to pass those boats to get to the united states, so i had to go by them, they shot a couple more times, and then once i got to the U.S. side i went to these houses, and i thought well somebody is home so i can have them... help me, but there was a guy standing outside in his backyard and he called 911.

############

Gayle King Radio Show - November 5, 2010

**Here she completely blanks out any boat holding her at gun point**

tiffany: yeah, i went straight to him jumped off of my jet-ski... and was in the water with him and i flipped him over and that`s where i found out where he had been hit... and when i was trying to get him up on the jet-ski i was pulling by his lifevest and that was coming up over... um, and then i just kept hearing you have to go, you have to go.

Sunday, 14 November, 2010
 Carpe said...

KFI RADIO - NOV. 5th

Ken/John: and what did you do next?

Tiffany: i went to him, uh, i went straight to him, jumped off my jet-ski, he was face down in the water, and i had to flip him over and that`s where i saw where had been shot in the middle of the head.

Ken/John: and were they still coming after you, these guys shooting, or where were they?

Tiffany: once they shot david they stopped shooting,um, and then from there i didn`t even focus on the boats. so i don`t, they went past me but i don`t know at what time, um, but then a boat came around and got in front of me and i was keeping david in one hand and the jet-ski in the other, and trying to keep the boat, my jet-ski between me and them, um, and that`s where they had the gun pointed at me, and trying to decide if, what to do with me.

Ken/John: at this point you`re panicking i`m sure.

Tiffany: of course.

Sunday, 14 November, 2010
 Carpe said...

JVM - 10/7

HARTLEY: And I, of course, no questions asked, not even thinking, just went right back to him to make sure and check and see, check on him to make sure he was OK. When I flipped him over, he was shot in the head.

And a boat came up to me and tried -- you know, I don`t know. They didn`t say anything to me, so I don`t know what they were trying to think or what they were doing, but they left. They just left me there. Thankfully, they didn`t shoot at me. They had a gun pointed at me.

And I tried getting David up on that -- on my Jet Ski, and then the three boats started heading back to me and I just had to go. I just didn`t have enough time to get him up. And I just couldn`t do it, because he`s so much bigger than I am. That`s when I -- once I started...

*no you gotta go. no God voice.

HARTLEY: Once I started heading back -- once I started heading back towards the U.S. side, they had shot a few more times at me. I was on the side of my Jet Ski, between them and my Jet Ski. I was on the other side, so once I started to get going, I just went as fast as I could and didn`t look back until I couldn`t see them anymore.

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/07/ijvm.01.html

Monday, 15 November, 2010
 Carpe said...

JVM - 10/7

HARTLEY: When I turned him over and I saw the shot in his head, and I was obviously screaming and yelling at him and trying to him to get him to wake up, and he just wasn`t waking up. And I truly believe that, you know, maybe he wasn`t gone completely at that moment, but he couldn`t hear me as far as -- you know, obviously, I don`t know if he could or not.

But screaming at him, just trying to get him to wake up, and I didn`t know what to do. I just kept telling him, "I don`t know what to do. I don`t know what to do. I don`t know. I don`t know."

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, at that moment, how long between that moment and when you were then confronted by the pirates who pointed a gun at you?

HARTLEY: Not very long. I couldn`t give you a time frame but probably a minute or so.

Monday, 15 November, 2010
 Carpe said...

Do you see with these posts back to back to back - the changing facts?

-Boats appear at different times
-Sometimes it`s 1 boat - then three racing towards her at once.
-Sometimes the boat comes too fast in some stories - in others she has a minute or so as she tries to save David and then the boat comes
- poor guy was shot in back of head
- as far as Tiffany knows
- one time he was shot in the middle of the head
-sometimes she flips him over
-sometimes she turns him over

In the 10/7 JVM interview -

Tiffany actually hopes David is shot in a shoulder, or perhaps
some other body part would be equally hopeful - But the head
wasn`t her expectation. The thing
about expectations - you have to
have them first. When in all these
sequences did she have the time to
form an expectation? - she was a little busy, as you can see.

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/07/ijvm.01.html

.......
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20101126/NEWS/711269999/1002&parentprofile=1001

Tia Young of Greeley put plenty of mileage on her sneakers for her first Black Friday experience this morning.

“We started at Target and then went to Kohl's and now Best Buy and then we're headed home,” Young said.

Tiffany Hartley, who joined Young on the early excursion to Centerplace in Greeley, said,

“It's a new experience for us.”

 ::piggy::

Authorities Release New Info in American's Shooting Death on U.S. Border Lake
By Cristina Corbin

12.15.10

Nearly three months after American David Hartley was shot and killed by a drug gang while jet-skiing with his wife on a lake straddling the Texas-Mexican border, U.S. investigators say the gunmen were "authorized" by their cartel to kill Hartley's wife, as well.

David Hartley, 30, of Milliken, Colo., was shot in the back of his head on Sept. 30 by alleged Mexican drug smugglers while jet-skiing on Lake Falcon with his wife, Tiffany.

Tiffany Hartley, 29, told authorities that the couple had set out on their jet skis to photograph the Old Guerrero church on the Mexican side of the lake -- an area notorious for illicit drug smuggling. Hartley said her husband was shot when the two tried to dodge bullets from three speed boats driven by the alleged smugglers. Hartley's body has never been recovered.

Mexican authorities in October identified two suspects -- Juan Pedro Saldivar Farias and his brother Jose Manuel, both members of Mexico's Zeta drug cartel.

On Wednesday, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said he recently received information on two additional suspects who may have disposed of Hartley's body and jet ski. He declined to name them, saying, "We don’t want to alert them that we know who's involved."

Gonzalez, citing confidential informants, also said that suspected Zeta drug cartel members on board the three speed boats were also ordered to kill Tiffany Hartley, who managed to escape.

"Information has been revealed that authorized her killing as well, but she was able to escape," Gonzalez said. "They were targeted because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Gonzalez also said that he believes at least six drug cartel members – possibly eight – were on the lake when the shooting occurred.

A U.S. law enforcement source speaking to FoxNews.com on condition of anonymity said Hartley's body and jet ski were likely destroyed to hide any evidence.

Gonzalez expressed frustration with Mexican law enforcement, saying sometimes "they just won’t call back," but said he’s optimistic the killers will eventually be caught and brought to justice.

"Eventually something’s going to happen,” he said, “Information is constantly flowing.”

Farias and Manuel are suspects in a string of murders, kidnappings, armed robberies and fires in the northern Tamaulipas state where the shooting took place.

Both suspects are reportedly from New Guerrero, Mexico -- close to the Old Guerrero church that Hartley and her husband had visited.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/15/authorities-release-new-info-americans-shooting-death-border-lake/

Years ago I was in a convenience store when it was robbed.  I was approached by a gunman who opened his coat and pointed a sawed off shotgun at me.  He said "get in the back room lady".  What did the gun look like?  It had huge barrels on it.  They looked like big black tunnels. I remember walking in what seemed like slow motion to the closet where he already had other people from the store.  How many?  I have no idea. I remember picturing my key in my car, the driver seat empty and my little girl, my sister and her baby sitting there helpless.    What did the gunman look like?  I don't know if he was black or white.  When you are a part of something like this, you go into shock.  It is like living in a strange dream for a long time even after it is over.  You remember bits and pieces, but it takes a long time before your mind will let you even put it into some sort of order that makes any sense. 

I believe Tiffany.  I believe she was in shock, and still is to a certain extent.  Her husband  who she was enjoying life with just minutes before, is suddenly dead, murdered by these gunmen who were also trying to kill her.   Why didn't they kill her at that moment?  Maybe they first thought she was a child because of her small size and by the time they decided to kill her she had come to her senses enough to run for her life.

Her life as she has known it for the past 8 years  is now over.  I believe that is why she clings to this thing about the border.  She has an aching need to do something for her husband, and this is all she knows to do right now.  She is young, and she talks much like a teenager would talk, which sometimes may sound awkward to us older folks.
 
Having lived in Mexico, she and her husband did not have the same fears as the rest of us do.  He had a good paying job with the oil company and they could afford to do a lot of things that many of us just dream of. They loved to get out and do things, to travel and see things.  This was normal for them.  They were moving away from this area and they wanted to take one last look at what they thought was interesting. 

To me, it all makes sense, and Tiffany makes sense in her young way of expressing herself especially considering what she's been through.

March 1, 2011
Jet ski murder suspects identified
Texas sheriff will not name names, but is hopeful information will lead to arrests in murder of American tourist David Hartley

Suspects have been identified in the case of David Hartley, an American tourist gunned down while jet skiing with his wife near the border of Mexico last September, authorities say.


CBS News Correspondent Don Teague reported on "The Early Show" Tuesday authorities in Texas say they finally have suspects in Hartley's murder.


Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County, Texas, told CBS News, "In that case, I believe there were about seven or eight shooters; we've identified four of these individuals."


The American's death was one of an estimated 12,000 murders in Mexico last year.

snipped/much more....................
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/01/earlyshow/main20037639.shtml

http://www.kvue.com/news/Man-presumably-shot-by-Mexican-thugs-still-missing-118904889.html
Man presumably shot by Mexican thugs still missing
March 30, 2011

DENVER (AP) -- The widow of a man presumably gunned down on a lake on the Texas-Mexico border wants federal officials to do more to find her husband's body and bring closure to her and his family.

Tiffany Hartley says the body of her husband, David, remains missing and nothing's been done since Mexican officials called off the search on Falcon Lake Oct. 14.  ::snipping2::

Hartley plans to attend a rally at noon Wednesday at the Colorado Capitol to call attention to her case.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7497156.html
Man presumably shot by Mexican thugs still missing
March 30, 2011

DENVER — A Colorado woman is demanding that the U.S. government do more to find the body of her husband, six months after he was presumably gunned down on a lake along Texas’ border with Mexico.

Tiffany Hartley, who lives east of Greeley in Weld County, said nothing has been done since Mexican officials called off a search for David Hartley on Oct. 14. She held a rally with family and supporters at the Colorado Capitol on Wednesday asking state officials to pressure the Obama administration to do more to find her husband and to secure the border.
 ::snipping2::
We don’t want to leave him in the hands of the enemy,” she told The Associated Press, referring to suspected pirates or drug smugglers known to roam the lake about 45 miles northwest of McAllen, Texas. “If we get his body back, we can at last honor him the way he would want to be honored, at least by his family.”

No death certificate has been issued, and Mexican officials have told Hartley the case remains open.

The Mexican federal attorney general’s office could not immediately provide an update on the status of the case and Zapata County, Texas, Sheriff Sigi Gonzalez, who led the investigation on the U.S. side, did not return telephone messages from the AP.

David Hartley’s case is not listed on U.S. State Department records of American citizens killed in Mexico, and State Department officials did not immediately respond to inquiries about the case. In cases such as Hartley’s, it’s up to families or acquaintances to file a report with local Mexican officials, which Hartley did through the Mexican consulate’s office in October.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said he’s been trying to move the case forward.

“My office has kept in close contact with the State Department on this matter, and we will continue to do so in the hope that it will help the Hartley family obtain the answers they desperately deserve,” the Colorado Democrat said in a statement.
 ::snipping2::
Officials in Tamaulipas state, Mexico, at first cast doubt on Tiffany Hartley’s story, saying nearby residents did not report hearing Jet Skis or gunshots in the area where Hartley reportedly was shot. Authorities later said they conducted a sweeping search involving more than 100 people by boat, helicopter and all-terrain vehicle. Divers searched the lake, which is 25 miles long and 3 miles wide.

U.S. consulate officials have said there’s no reason to doubt Hartley’s story.

The search was hampered by threats of ambush of authorities who were searching the lake, presumably by the Zetas drug gang, as well as the death of the Tamaulipas state police commander and chief investigator of the Hartley case, Rolando Flores, whose decapitated head was delivered in a suitcase to a local Mexican army post while the search was under way.

Mexican authorities said it was unclear if Flores’ death was related to the Hartley case because Flores worked on numerous drug investigations.

Violence last fall spread from Ciudad Juarez, an epicenter of the drug war across the border from El Paso, Texas, to areas of Tamaulipas where Hartley disappeared. Two drug gangs, the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, have battled for supremacy there.

“We’re not going away,” Tiffany Hartley said during the rally exactly six months after her husband’s disappearance. “As U.S. citizens we need to act. We cannot stop ignoring what’s going on in the border.”

After the rally, David Hartley’s mother, Pam Hartley of Loveland, said, “I didn’t think that six months later we still wouldn’t have David.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/09/murder.in.mexico.falcon.lake/?hpt=C1
Slide Show
A 'stupid' mistake or murder?
By Ashley Hayes, Drew Griffin, and David Fitzpatrick, CNN
April 9, 2011 -- Updated 2033 GMT (0433 HKT)

Were American tourists caught in the crossfire of a drug war? Or is there a more sinister twist to the story? Don't miss "Murder in Mexico: What Happened at Falcon Lake" at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on CNN.

(CNN) -- It was planned as a day of recreation for the young couple but turned into tragedy. A 30-year-old man dead, his body lost -- possibly forever.

As his grieving widow waits for answers, suspicion is cast on her. Then an investigator is murdered as he looks into the crime.

Today, nearly six months later, some of the puzzle pieces are falling into place regarding what happened to Americans David and Tiffany Hartley that September day on Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.

Even with the new information, however, authorities caution that the full picture of what happened that day, leading to David Hartley's death, may never be known.
More...

13 killed in lake gun battle in northern Mexico (Falcon Lake)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110509/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico

[snip]

Mexican marines patrolling a lake along the border with Texas discovered a drug gang camp on an island, provoking a gun battle that left 13 people dead, the navy said Monday.

Investigators in a different northern state reported finding 11 decapitated bodies.

One marine and 12 suspected gunmen of the Zetas drug cartel were killed in the battle Sunday on Falcon Lake in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, the navy said in a statement.

This article isn't about David Hartley, but it is about Falcon lake.

http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Pair-Who-Came-Under-Fire-on-Falcon-Lake-From/e4eKMmQ93k-c-Ou7nBifaQ.cspx
Pair Who Came Under Fire on Falcon Lake From North Texas
August 26, 2011

ZAPATA COUNTY - CHANNEL 5 NEWS has learned it was a grandfather and his grandson from north Texas who came under fire, on Falcon Lake.

Our sources in Zapata County tell us the pair visited Falcon Lake two weeks ago hoping for a quiet and calm day on the water. They found anything but.

The two were in a boat and crossed into Mexican waters into an area called the Arroyo Salado. Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez says members of the Mexican military flagged them down. Instead of stopping, they kept going.

The 10 troops in fatigues opened fire to get them to stop. One bullet hit the boat's windshield. The man and his grandson weren't hurt. The troops forced the fishermen into a cove, full of 50 more men, who eventually let them go.
 ::snipping2::
It's unclear if the grandfather and his grandson knew how far they had gone into Mexico.

This latest shooting comes as the anniversary of Tiffany and David Hartley's attack on the water nears. Tiffany says cartel gunmen attacked them while they were jet skiing near the ruins of Old Guerrero. David's body has never been found.

Thanks for posting this MuffyBee.  I was thinking about this case just yesterday.

Sheriff on cartel murder: Body 'will never be found'
10:12 PM, Sep 26, 2011 
ZAPATA, Texas - One year after Colorado native David Hartley's was murdered, allegedly by Mexican drug cartel members, nobody has been arrested and his body is still missing. A South Texas Sheriff tells 9Wants to Know the body likely will not be found.

Because the murder happened on the Mexican side of a lake that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Junior says it has been difficult to obtain information from authorities south of the border.

"I don't really think Mexico ever really started an investigation," Gonzalez said.

The Austin-based private intelligence agency STRATFOR put out a report indicating Hartley's body and personal watercraft may have been destroyed shortly after he was killed.

"It is my belief that David's body will never be found," Gonzalez said. "The body does not exist. The body disappeared. There's no body."

The Mexican government suspended the case shortly after Hartley's murder, when a lead investigator was decapitated.

 ::snipping2:: ::snipping2:: MORE
http://www.9news.com/news/article/221506/328/Sheriff-on-cartel-murder-Body-will-never-be-found

Skeletal remains found on border lake where Colorado man, David Hartley, disappeared


12:23 AM, Dec 30, 2011
http://www.9news.com/news/article/238693/207/Skeletal-remains-found-on-border-lake-where-Colorado-man-David-Hartley-disappeared-

ZAPATA, Texas - Skeletal remains have been discovered on the same border lake where a Colorado man was reported dead.

snip
"With what I saw I couldn't believe it would be a drowning victim or something like that. We examined it and it didn't take long for us to realize, 'Oh my gosh, that's a person.' There was no flesh left visible, just bones," Jones said.

Jones took a photo of the body which he released to law enforcement and the family of David Hartley.

9NEWS received a copy of the photo Thursday night. It shows a human skeleton with clothing still on it and the feet tied together. The Hartley family has not decided if they want to see the photo yet and out of respect for them, 9NEWS has decided not to show it at this time.

"Whoever that person was, somebody was trying to dispose of that body. The body, if that was him, it wouldn't have naturally ended up where it did. Someone would have had to take it upstream," Jones said.

Jones and his friends found the skeletal remains about 15 miles from where Colorado native David Hartley was shot and killed 15 months ago by suspected cartel members.
SNIP
Jones turned over the GPS coordinates to U.S. Border Patrol agents who said they would pass along the information to Mexican officials. Jones also says the water levels on Falcon Lake were down 23 feet, and the body was spotted in an area that was once submerged.

SNIP More at link   :2thinky:

Grim Discovery Made on Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border … Human Remain Found, Could It Be Missing David Hartley?

http://scaredmonkeys.com/2011/12/31/grim-discovery-made-on-falcon-lake-on-the-texas-mexico-border-human-remain-found-could-it-be-missing-david-hartley/



Um, the legs were tied together? Why? There is just something that never made sense in this story.

This entire story has smelled like 3-day old fish rotting in the sun.  JMO

I'd like to know why a boat load of fishermen didn't take one photo of this 'body' before noting the GPS coordinates?   I mean, really.  You see such a thing on Mexican soil (not known for its honest cops) and you ride away without one piece of evidence to back up your story? 

So, exactly how did media learn of this?

Widow: Body found on border lake isn't her husband
Published 12:11 a.m., Tuesday, January 10, 2012

 ::snipping2::
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — A woman whose husband was presumably killed on a lake on the Texas-Mexico border says she's sad that remains found at the lake recently are not those of her husband.

Tiffany Hartley says her husband, David, was shot in the head on Falcon Lake on Sept. 30, 2010, when they were using personal watercraft.

She told KUSA-TV in Denver on Monday that test results from the Mexican government show clothing on a human skeleton found at the lake recently don't match what her husband was wearing, and the skull does not have a bullet wound.
 ::snipping2::
 http://www.chron.com/news/article/Widow-Body-found-on-border-lake-isn-t-her-husband-2453001.php (http://www.chron.com/news/article/Widow-Body-found-on-border-lake-isn-t-her-husband-2453001.php)

BBM
Thanks for the update cartly.  I thought the odds of these remains being David Hartley's would be pretty slim.  I guess it's just the wording in the article, but the way it reads "...test results from the Mexican government show clothing on a human skeleton found at the lake recently don't match what her husband was wearing, and the skull does not have a bullet wound", it sounds like that is what the ID is based on, which wouldn't be very scientific and just because Mrs. Hartley said that's what he was wearing and that he was shot in the head doesn't mean it happened, because at this point there's been no proof.  This is a very strange case.  Surely they ran dna and other tests on the remains, since it shows someone was likely murdered. 

I thought the article (or lack of) was odd and left me shaking my head.  ::MonkeyNoNo::
Sadly, the fear and intimidation of authorities most likely will prevent Mrs Hartley from ever having answers.

RIP David ::MonkeyAngel::

The body turned out not to be that of David Hartley, but I came across this article that may answer some of the questions that were raised. And it looks like the fisherman took photos, according to this article. 

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/feb/25/jones-discovery-body-ended-fishing-trip-falcon-lak/
Jones' discovery of body ended fishing trip on Falcon Lake
Written by Ed Zieralski
February 25, 2012

BOSSIER CITY, La. — Of all the fishing stories told this week at the 42nd Bassmaster Classic, the one laid out by Alton Jones of Waco, Texas made my top-5, maybe top-3 before all the fish are weighed.

Jones, who is in contention here on Day 2 of the Classic, told me a grizzly tale earlier this week of finding the remains of a body last December while fishing at Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexican border.

In a way that a guy might flip to a picture of a fish or something cool in the outdoors, Jones opened the file on his iPad that revealed a gruesome sight.

All I could say was, “Wow.”

There on the screen, instead of a shot of a big bass or a big buck, were the skeletal remains of a person whose last moments on earth had to be a living, breathing hell.

Jones said that last December, while fun fishing with a couple of buddies, they discovered the remains of the body on the exposed bank of the 60-mile long lake that has been a top bass fishery for more than half a century.
 ::snipping2::
“On first glance, Bryan said, ‘That looks like a body there, look, the skull and rib cage,” Jones said. “It looked like a rock and a log laying there. I was all set to make a cast, and that’s when we could really see the pelvic bone and two legs and two arms and uh-oh, we’re looking at a skeleton. The clothes were kind of hanging on parts of it. Then reality set in and we realized we were looking at a human being, a tragic situation for someone and their family.”

Jones said they could see the body had been bound at the legs, weighted down in about 25 feet of water. There looked to be a bullet hole in the reddened section of skull.

Jones left the skeleton there and alerted the police.

Jones said the authorities told him later the remains were not of David Michael Hartley, who reportedly was shot off his Jet Ski in September of 2010 while he and his wife were riding on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake. That case received national attention.
More... (2 page article)

This transcript is over a year old now, but I'm posting it for future research and information. 

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1104/10/siu.01.html
CNN: SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT
Murder in Mexico: What Happened in Falcon Lake
Aired April 10, 2011 - 20:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: Are you sure that your husband got shot?

TIFFANY HARTLEY, DAVID HARTLEY'S HUSBAND: Yes. In his head.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS CORRESPONDENT: A brutal killing on a glistening lake.

(On camera): You saw your husband get shot and thrown from the jet ski?

T. HARTLEY: Yes.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Were they caught in a crossfire?

ROBERT "SPEEDY" COLLETT, OWNER, BEACON LODGE: The war over there, the two cartels fighting each other for control.

GRIFFIN: A drug deal gone bad or was this cold-blooded murder?

FRED BURTON, DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE, STATFOR: There has been a lot of suspicions based on some of her behaviors.

GRIFFIN: Tonight a CNN Special Report. MURDER IN MEXICO: WHAT HAPPENED IN FALCON LAKE.

It's late afternoon in McAllen, Texas. Air operations are about to begin.

CAPT. STACY HOLLAND, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: There's some areas of McAllen, west of McAllen along the southwest border that are completely out of control in my opinion.

GRIFFIN: Captain Stacy Holland and his team from the Texas Department of Public Safety are trying to stop drug smugglers from crossing from Mexico into the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right there. Right there. One guy has gotten out. One guy has gotten out. Radio that out.

GRIFFIN: They are also trying to stop the violence of a full-scale drug war from spilling north.

(On camera): Are there parts of this border that you would deem basically lawless or run by the cartels?

HOLLAND: Absolutely.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Smack in the middle of this 21st century version of the Wild West, two young Americans, David Hartley and Tiffany Young, just teenagers when they fell in love.

T. HARTLEY: We started dating in '98, the summer of '98. And dated for quite a while before we got engaged in 2001 and married in 2002.

GRIFFIN (on camera): What took so long?

T. HARTLEY: We were 18.

(LAUGHTER)

GRIFFIN (voice-over): They wound up here, in the Mexican border town of Reynoso, just south of McAllen. He was a district manager for an oil company.

T. HARTLEY: It was a blessing to us and our marriage. Yes. We're that's where we truly grew as a couple and had adventures.

GRIFFIN (on camera): When the Hartleys first arrived here this peaceful town was a perfect place for the young couple to live, but slowly it became more and more violent.

(Voice-over): There is a war in Reynoso. Two drug cartels battling for turf, the Zetas, a rogue band of former military, are trying to push out the Gulf cartel, which has smuggled drugs across the Rio Grande for decades.

Killings are constant. Tiffany and David Hartley learned firsthand, Mexican police were not to be trusted.

T. HARTLEY: For one instance, he was coming home from the bank after cashing our rent check. And police pulled him over, followed him from the bank, pulled him over, had him step out and punched him in the face and stole his money.

GRIFFIN: David, she says, saw someone get shot on the street.

(On camera): Did you sense it was getting more dangerous?

T. HARTLEY: You could. Yes, you could sense it. You hear more about it.

GRIFFIN: What do they look like? What -- describe how you can pick out a cartel member.

T. HARTLEY: Their trucks at that time had their name, the CDG or has a Z on it for Zetas. So they would actually mark their vehicles with their name and who they were.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): David convinced his company to allow him at least to live on the American side of the border in McAllen. And soon afterwards the company told David he was being offered another transfer, back home to Colorado.

To his mom, that was a blessing.

PAM HARTLEY, DAVID HARTLEY'S MOTHER: They were going to be home that next week, looking for a house to move into. I mean, we were excited about them coming home.

GRIFFIN: But there was some unfinished business. One last adventure David had long talked about but never got around to. He had heard of a church partially submerged in Falcon Lake on the Mexican side in an abandoned village called Old Guerrero. Perfect for a couple who loved their jet skis and loved adventure.

T. HARTLEY: I'm just like, OK, let's go see it.

GRIFFIN: Had they asked, local law enforcement would have warned them about pirates on the lake. Had they asked, Captain Stacy Holland would have told them not to go.

HOLLAND: We don't recommend, you know, going into Mexico on the side of the lake, but it's perfectly well within your rights. But we just want you to be aware that threat is out there and it's very real and you should take it seriously.

GRIFFIN: It was a Thursday and David Hartley called home.

P. HARTLEY: They were excited to go have one last big ride on their jet skis before they come back to Colorado. And Colorado doesn't have the water, what they have around there. So yes, one last time to have a good time.

GRIFFIN: It is a two-hour drive to Falcon Lake from McAllen. A trip documented by a traffic stop halfway there in a town called Rio Grande City.

(On camera): Something to the police looked suspicious.

T. HARTLEY: Right, right. We had --

GRIFFIN: Look like somebody might have you stealing some jet skis.

(Voice-over): The trailer had expired tags. Troopers let them go with just a warning, but this videotape would become part of the evidence for what was about to happen.

COLLETT: You come to any strange area on the United States/Mexican border and you go to sightseeing, you're a tourist, stop in and talk to the locals, you know? Talk -- find out what's going on in the area. If they would have stopped in here, and if I had known they were going on jet skis, that's a total no-no on Falcon.

GRIFFIN: Up next, jet skiing into the heart of a drug war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: Along the Texas/Mexican border, there's little doubt drugs and human smuggling are big business. Very big.

HOLLAND: They're operational plans are very good. And the one thing about these cartels is that they're ruthless and they're violent, but they're not stupid.

GRIFFIN: Captain Stacy Holland of the Texas Department of Public Safety says his proof is in these videos, captured night after night by the thermal imaging camera mounted underneath his helicopter.

Just the last year, there has been more violence and most disturbing of all to Holland, more coordination, lookouts, even reconnaissance in smuggling.

HOLLAND: One thing that you have to understand is how well coordinated this is and how -- what the level of scouting and planning and organization is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right curb in the road coming up.

GRIFFIN: These videos of chases had first made no sense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got a shot of that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I got it.

GRIFFIN: Drug runners caught in the U.S. and then racing back to Mexico.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Southbound, call the military. Coming up to the river.

GRIFFIN: There are stolen vehicles being hurled full speed into the Rio Grande.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Splash down.

GRIFFIN: At first, law enforcement believed these were desperate attempts to escape. Then they began to hear radio traffic, coordinates.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Going to be splash down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Those are -- that's a recovery team.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Recovery team. Recovery team right there at Timothy Park.

GRIFFIN: The cartels even began organizing search and rescue teams and suddenly the videos made sense. Drug smugglers hurling their stolen vehicles back into the Rio Grande were doing it for one reason, to protect their dope at all costs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All units, we have a splashdown, we have a splashdown in the river.

HOLLAND: They don't mind losing the truck into the river. But at the end of the day, if they can recover, you know, 2,000 pounds of narcotics it's got an estimated street value between $600,000 and $800,000, and that's what they want to do, is protect that inventory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going under. Yes. The suspect is just about on the back side.

GRIFFIN: Inside Mexico the army has visibly taken over much of the security in border towns. Local Mexican police who are not corrupted by the cartels are targets of them. Thousands killed. And Americans have been targets, too.

(On camera): You know, I'd almost think that we're flying over tribal Pakistan the way you describe this area. Are you surprised or are you hardened to the fact that most of America doesn't realize this is going on?

HOLLAND: You know, it does amaze me. And maybe it's because I'm exposed to it so much working on the southwestern border but we're in a war. We're in an engagement with an enemy that's like no other enemy we've ever faced before.

You have to combat these people with the same -- some of the same tactics that they employ on you. So, you know, if you'd have asked me 10 years ago would we be doing some of the missions and tactics that we're doing today, I would have said, absolutely not.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Since 2004, the State Department says 200 Americans have been killed in Mexico and nearly all caught up in the vicious fire fights between rival drug cartels. It is no different even along this peaceful 28-mile long lake, straddling the U.S./Mexican border two hours north of McAllen.

SIGIFREDO GONZALEZ, SHERIFF, ZAPATA COUNTY, TEXAS: We've had along the border shootings. We've had along the border murders, home invasions, burglaries, rapes. All types of crime where it's associated with what I call spillover violence.

GRIFFIN: Siggy Gonzalez has been the sheriff of Zapata County, Texas, for 16 years, ever since his predecessor was arrested for drug smuggling.

GONZALEZ: I remember when I first started as a deputy sheriff back in the 1970s where this lake was used for drug trafficking, human trafficking. It's been used for that forever.

GRIFFIN: And lately, even before the Hartleys' trip to Falcon Lake, Gonzalez says a new threat has emerged. Pirates.

COLLETT: Totally inaccurate. You know, the definition of piracy is a lot different than what I know it to be. You know, have one robbery on the lake, totally.

GRIFFIN: Robert "Speedy" Collett, who owns a fishing lodge here, admits he's been stopped by drug cartel members but he also bristles at news reports of piracy and danger. These reports have decimated his business on the lake which he insists is safe, as long as you know the rules.

COLLETT: It happened to me. I didn't run. They boarded. They found out I wasn't a threat and I was released. Never robbed. Never took a penny from me. They did not -- my wallet was in my glove box. I had 1100 bucks in my wallet. My clients were pretty wealthy people. They had plenty of money on them. Nothing ever happened to them.

GRIFFIN: In the air over Falcon Lake, Stacy Holland says the Texas Department of Public Safety was already advising boaters on Falcon Lake to be very careful.

HOLLAND: It's just a warning to let people know that this threat is out there and it's very real. That we've had documented cases of pirating. And so it's mainly for situational awareness. And, you know, we don't recommend, you know, they go going into Mexico on the side of the lake.

GRIFFIN: Tiffany Hartley says she had heard about troubles on Falcon Lake. But she and David had been there once before and things were fine. Never thought that somehow anything could happen.

T. HARTLEY: We hadn't heard anything for a while and we were just there in August. And enjoyed three, four hours that day on Falcon Lake.

GRIFFIN: After all, it was so sunny, so calm, so perfect for one last ride.

T. HARTLEY: I told him, please don't shoot. Please, don't.

GRIFFIN: In an instant, Tiffany Hartley claims she and David were caught in a war zone.

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: Are you sure that your husband got shot?

T. HARTLEY: Yes. In his head.

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: OK.

T. HARTLEY: He was thrown off the jet ski and I couldn't pick him up and get him on mine.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Don Lemon. Here are your headlines this hour.

The African Union says Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has agreed in principle to the terms of a deal that could end his country's civil war. It's not yet clear what those terms are. But it's believed they will include an immediate ceasefire in the nearly two-month long battle.

AU leaders met with Gadhafi in Tripoli today. Tomorrow the delegation will travel to Benghazi to meet with the rebels.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a pretty strong looking elephant trunk, nighttime tornado. Two of them. Dual funnels. Look at that.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Look at that, indeed. Wow. That is the voice of one very brave storm chaser. And this is the incredible nighttime video he shot. And you can see clearly two ferocious funnels at once.

In all, three tornadoes ripped through northern and west-central Iowa last night and more could be on their way in parts of Wisconsin right now.

The White House is looking ahead to the next big budget battle. Top presidential adviser David Pflouffe appeared on four Sunday shows this morning. He said President Obama this week will lay out his plans for long-term deficit reduction.

Friday night, as you know, Republicans and Democrats hammered out a budget deal that covers the rest of the fiscal year, narrowly averting a government shutdown.

Those are your headlines this morning. We now return you to the "CNN PRESENTS" special "MURDER IN MEXICO: WHAT HAPPENED AT FALCON LAKE."

GRIFFIN: David Hartley had always been interested in visiting the sunken church in Falcon Lake. On Thursday morning, September 30th, a week before he and his wife would move home to Colorado, David decided they would go.

(On camera): Did you know then what you must know now, that there had been several attacks on that lake? That fishermen don't cross into Mexico on that lake anymore?

T. HARTLEY: We did know that there were attacks. We didn't know where they were exactly.

GRIFFIN: You had no worries whatsoever when you took those jet skis?

T. HARTLEY: No idea.

GRIFFIN: And as tragic as this is, what I think I'm hearing from you is what the Hartleys did was incredibly stupid?

COLLETT: Incredibly.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Fishing guide and resort owner Speedy Collett says business on the lake has taken a beaten since the Hartleys made what he called a stupid church to see a sunken church. He is sick of the media attention and insists the lake and the fishermen are completely safe as long as they follow the unwritten rules.

COLLETT: This is not a jet ski lake. There's never jet skis seen here. They come -- they she show up on a jet ski, they don't see, and then they try to approach them and stop them because, you know, it's a war over there. Two cartels fighting each other for control. And they don't stop. They take off running.

GRIFFIN: Collett agreed to take us to Old Guerrero, eight miles into Mexico into what he describes as a drug war to show us just how safe it really was. Before he even passed the channel marker dividing the U.S. and Mexican border, Speedy made us promise not to raise our camera, not to raise any suspicion, and told us there's no doubt how jet skiers would look following this same path, like drug smugglers.

(On camera): Only people with jet skis are involved with dope?

COLLETT: Right.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Clearly nervous, Collett barely slowed down as we approached the church Tiffany and David Hartley visited on September 30th. He turned the boat and gave us 30 seconds to take there's pictures at the exact spot where Tiffany Hartley said they had stopped.

(On camera): So this is the last place that they came to, the Old Guerrero church. They took pictures on the front step, according to Tiffany Hartley. And then set out down this channel to head back. And it was about five minutes into their voyage when they were approached by the boats.

(Voice-over): In an instant the man who told us this lake was safe was again speeding away from Mexico 70 miles an hour. The same path the Hartleys were on when Tiffany says the attack began.

T. HARTLEY: There's a boat on our left and two on our right. On kind of towards the land, we're kind of in the middle of the lake. And then that's when he motioned that we needed to go.

GRIFFIN (on camera): Did you see something in his eyes that said, this could be serious?

T. HARTLEY: I could just tell by his body language. You know, I saw him and he was just kind of, we got to go. Like, this is serious. But he stayed behind and stayed between me and the boats.

GRIFFIN: You think protecting you?

T. HARTLEY: Mm-hmm.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): It was now a chase. Tiffany says her jet ski was going at least 65 miles an hour. They were racing for the other side, for the U.S., for safety.

(On camera): Were you -- I mean, were you scared? Were you frightened at that moment?

T. HARTLEY: Oh, oh, my gosh, yes.

GRIFFIN: You thought, these guys are coming after us? T. HARTLEY: Mm-hmm.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Three boats closing from two directions but not catching up. Tiffany thought they could outrun them until she heard the shots.

(On camera): You heard shots, boom, boom, boom?

T. HARTLEY: You could hear them, you could feel them. You could feel them fly by you, until I saw the two next to me, that's when it came really clear how close they were.

GRIFFIN: And you saw your husband get shot and thrown from the jet ski?

T. HARTLEY: Yes.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Tiffany says she circled back as the three boats encircled her. David was face down, she says, floating, when she jumped into the water in a failed attempt to save him. Turning him over, she realized there was nothing to save.

(On camera): Why did you turn around?

T. HARTLEY: It's my husband. He's my love. He's my life. He's everything to me. And once I saw him flying off, I didn't know where he was shot. But I knew he couldn't have been good. And there was no way I was going to not go and try to help him.

GRIFFIN: Can I ask you where he was shot?

T. HARTLEY: In the back of the head, but it came out in the front, forehead.

GRIFFIN: Did you know immediately?

T. HARTLEY: Yes. He wasn't -- he wasn't there. He was gone. You know, yelling for help and looking for anybody who could help me, but knowing there was not going to be anybody.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): But somebody was still there. She claims standing over her, a gunman in one of the boats.

(On camera): Did you think, this is it?

T. HARTLEY: Mm-hmm. I told him, please don't shoot. Please don't.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): In a moment of apparent confusion, Hartley says she saw her chance to flee.

T. HARTLEY: The gun would be on me and then he would take it off and then he would put it back on me. It's like he didn't know what to do with me. Do I shoot her, do I not? That's when they left to go meet the other boats.

GRIFFIN: Racing towards the U.S. she passed the boat slip where she and David launched from less than an hour earlier, the boats in pursuit. She spotted a man here watering his lawn, yelling, asking if he spoke English. That man would help a distraught Tiffany Hartley place this 911 call.

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: Are you sure that your husband got shot?

T. HARTLEY: Yes. In his head.

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: OK.

T. HARTLEY: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: Was he thrown off the jet ski? That he's in the water or something?

T. HARTLEY: Yes, he was thrown off the jet ski and I couldn't pick him up and get him on mine. He's -- he's just too big.

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: What's your name?

T. HARTLEY: Tiffany Hartley.

GRIFFIN: When the story broke it was almost unbelievable. Americans being fired on, a jet ski chase, a narrow escape and a dead husband whose body has yet to be found?

(On camera): When you're describing these horrific events, you seem somewhat detached.

(Voice-over): The victim, at least in the eyes of some, was about to come under suspicion.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: From almost the very beginning after the attack, Tiffany Hartley seemed to be everywhere telling her story.

T. HARTLEY: I think it would be difficult for anybody in my situation. And I know, you know, there's been stories out there before. And people question. But I know what I know. I know what I saw.

GRIFFIN: Not only interviews with local television stations but networks, on the "Today" show.

MEREDITH VIEIRA, "TODAY" SHOW HOST: How close did these people come to you? Can you describe them to me?

T. HARTLEY: Honestly, looking at the barrel of the gun is all I saw.

GRIFFIN: The "CBS Morning News."

T. HARTLEY: We never really had that feeling that something was going to happen that day.

GRIFFIN: But word began to leak out, even from Mexico, that her story was being doubted.

GONZALEZ: So she kept on coming this way --

GRIFFIN: Zapata County Sheriff Siggy Gonzalez was the first American law enforcement official to speak with her.

GONZALEZ: It seems that something made up. It seemed like a story out of the comic books.

T. HARTLEY: It's hard because I --

GRIFFIN: But Tiffany Hartley is insistent on telling her version of what happened. Here with CNN's Anderson Cooper.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN'S "ANDERSON 360": And I know you were meeting with Mexican investigators for much of today. Did you get the feeling that they believed you or that they didn't believe your story?

T. HARTLEY: No, I do believe that they believe my story. I mean, they -- we have people from the state and then also federal, so everyone has come together to get my statement. And that's why it's taken so long. Just so everybody has the statement. Everybody can't say that they don't have it.

GRIFFIN: And while Texas authorities mounted an intensive search for any evidence that could back up her story, Tiffany Hartley's behavior, detached to some, showing little emotion, ramped up gossip and suspicion that somehow she was not telling the truth.

BURTON: They think there has been a lot of suspicions based on some of her behaviors and interviews she did shortly after the murder of her husband, which raised doubt in people's mind.

GRIFFIN: Fred Burton's firm provides security information for companies worldwide. Including information on drug cartels operating along the U.S./Mexican border.

BURTON: Anybody that's an outsider that goes into that area is viewed as either working for another cartel or a possible informant for a government agency.

GONZALEZ: This is the boat ramp right here. This is the area where she -- where she came in to seek help.

GRIFFIN: Sheriff Siggy Gonzalez now trying to investigate a crime in another country, was fending off calls from reporters, asking if the Hartleys themselves were drug runners or if David Hartley was working with the cartel. Speculation began to swirl that Tiffany Hartley killed her husband for insurance money or even that Tiffany Hartley was seeing another man.

(On camera): People still have a hard time believing you. Does that hurt you?

T. HARTLEY: Some days. Other days they don't have room to judge. I mean, they don't know me. They don't know my husband. They weren't there that day. So really they have no room to judge me.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): With television and newspaper attention still at viral levels, authorities in Texas were trapped. They could dispatch all the boats and helicopters they wanted, but law enforcement in Mexico was still in charge.

What happened next in Mexico showed just how difficult getting any answers would be.

(On camera): One Mexican detective did try to find out what happened to David Hartley. But his head was severed from his body. And his decapitated head was delivered to the Mexican army here in a border town called Miguel Aleman. Since then, there's been little no news.

(Voice-over): His name, Rolando Villegas. His suspects, brothers who lived near the half submerged church in Mexico, Old Guerrero. It's unclear if he went looking for them but only a few days after he identified the brothers by name, the detective was dead. A clear warning for any law enforcement not to follow in his foot steps.

(On camera): One detective did try.

GONZALEZ: We understand that he did try, yes. And --

GRIFFIN: And he was executed.

GONZALEZ: I asked also if he was perhaps executed because of involvement with drug trafficking or because of the case, and I was told by the source that they thought he was killed because of his involvement in trying to assist in the investigation of the case.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): A case gone cold. But new evidence is about to emerge from Falcon Lake.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: I'm Don Lemon at the CNN world headquarters. Here are your headlines.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is speaking out for the first time since the revolution that ousted him from power two months ago.

In an audio message aired by Al Arabiya TV, Mubarak -- well, he denied he amassed billions in wealth during three decades in power. His remarks come as a public prosecutor wants to question Mubarak and his sons about violence against protesters corruption allegations.

The Egyptian Attorney General's Office told CNN that the speech Mubarak gave today will not affect the investigation.

Tokyo's electric power company is hoping a new tool will help with the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Engineers are using a remote controlled helicopter with a camera to get pictures of the damaged reactors. The camera can take both regular and infrared pictures. Those images are expected to be released tomorrow. The 75th Masters Golf Tournament is history and we have a new champion. He's not a household name. He is Carl Schwartzal of South Africa. Schwartzal finished with a 66 today with birdies on the final four holes for a two-stroke victory over Adam Scott and Jason Day. Tiger Woods closed with a 67 and was tied for fourth. Four strokes back.

Those are your headlines right now. We return you to the "CNN PRESENTS" special "MURDER IN MEXICO: WHAT HAPPENED AT FALCON LAKE." See you at 10 p.m. Eastern.

GRIFFIN: On Falcon Lake there has been no sign of David Hartley's body, his jet ski, anything that could prove his wife's story that her husband was shot to death by Mexican drug smugglers.

The beheading of the one Mexican detective willing to at least try to solve the crime has dealt the Hartleys another blow.

(On camera): You feel right now there's people in Mexico, maybe even police in Mexico, who won't say what happened to David.

P. HARTLEY: I do.

GRIFFIN: Because they're afraid.

P. HARTLEY: Yes. I said, if you have threats against your loved ones, if you don't know if they're going to come home, I mean, that's a fear that I can't imagine. I don't want to imagine. That's why it's like this has to stop.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Without any clearances from Mexico, the Hartleys have turned to intelligence sources north of the border who can try to explain why the couple was targeted.

Former intelligence official Fred Burton has been studying a turf war in Mexico between two drug cartels. A former band of military guards called the Zetas and the more traditional Gulf Coast cartel.

BURTON: What most people don't realize when you're looking at the border is that there are certain portions that are not controlled by the Mexican government. And the area of Falcon Lake was directly controlled by the Zetas. This was a very strong smuggling corridor for them.

GRIFFIN (on camera): So you believe this was mistaken identity?

BURTON: Clearly all evidence indicates that this was a case of mistaken identity base on the tactical intelligence I've seen surrounding the case.

GRIFFIN: The most likely scenario is David and Tiffany Hartley had wandered into a drug war and were mistaken as the enemy.

(Voice-over): Zapata County Sheriff Siggy Gonzalez now believes the Hartleys had not only wandered into a war but had arrived on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake at the exact moment a cartel was about to move a large amount of marijuana.

Up on a bluff, the spotters, his sources told him, caught the first glimpse of a possible glitch in the drug deal.

GONZALEZ: That area is an area that's notorious for crossing or storing of thousands of pounds of marijuana. We've known that for a long time. That's information that I have re-laid to federal officials, you know, local, state officials. We're all aware that area is used as an area that they hide tons of marijuana.

GRIFFIN (on camera): So based on your sources and your intelligence, when they began to encroach on what would be a drug deal, they were looked upon as potentially --

GONZALEZ: As threats. Yes, as threats. And this is why they were given the instructions to go ahead and shoot at them.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): The sheriff now tells CNN that eyewitnesses have come guard to him, witnesses he says who claim to know what happened here that day.

They describe a military-style attack. Three boats, several shooters and hundreds of rounds being fired at two jet skiers.

GONZALEZ: The shot that killed David Hartley was an unlucky shot.

GRIFFIN: The sheriff now believes the killers were instructed to kill Tiffany Hartley, too. What happens next, he says, is a scenario he has put together from three witnesses on the Mexican side of the lake. One source in Mexico and at least one witness who told CNN that he saw a high-speed chase on the U.S. side, a boat chasing a girl on a jet ski. It is clear that one of Sheriff Gonzalez's sources was involved in the attack itself.

GONZALEZ: So they were given instruction to go ahead and shoot her also but she was able to escape from them. And they also say, you know, she was able to get away from us and we kept shooting at her to hit her but she kept zigzagging all over the place and we were not able to hit her.

And she says she was zigzagging when she was coming across being chased by the boat into the United States. And of course there's a witness that corroborates that also.

GRIFFIN (on camera): The eyewitness who was standing here at the time is still too scared to show his face on camera, but is telling CNN now that he did witness not only Tiffany Hartley on her jet ski but the boat chasing her, right there, as they came into this inlet in American waters, chasing Tiffany Hartley almost up until the time she came ashore.

GONZALEZ: It's too many people involved for it to be a conspiracy, which is paying people off.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Sheriff Gonzalez says he believes Tiffany's story and his sources and witnesses confirm it. (On camera): You don't believe the Hartleys were involved in drugs?

GONZALEZ: No.

GRIFFIN: You don't believe that there's an insurance scam going on?

GONZALEZ: Where's the body?

GRIFFIN: You don't believe that Tiffany Hartley herself may have executed her husband?

GONZALEZ: I don't think so, no.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): And now even more evidence Tiffany Hartley is telling the truth. A surveillance photo taken that very afternoon, one hour after the attack.

GONZALEZ: You notice there in the front of the boat, you see bundles of marijuana there.

GRIFFIN: It shows a small boat and a group of men. One with a green shirt, one shirt black, fitting the description given by Tiffany Hartley and what Gonzalez says is a bail of marijuana in the (INAUDIBLE). It is information Mexican authorities have had since the very first day.

(On camera): Sheriff, I mean, I've got to ask you. Is that possible that Mexico is going to find, catch and adjudicate the killers in what is a lawless part of Mexico?

GONZALEZ: I really cannot answer that. But I can tell you this, based on their past record, I think they have a -- somewhat of a zero solvency rate and a zero conviction rate.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): And there is one more piece of evidence. A small blood spot on the life jacket Tiffany Hartley wore the day she says her husband was shot. The blood is from her husband. Sheriff Gonzalez says a DNA test confirms it.

But even the DNA match remains just one more piece of an unsolved puzzle. There is still no body, no jet ski.

Is Tiffany Hartley even telling the truth? Or is there another secret yet to be told?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: After all the searching, all the investigation, Texas authorities say they could not find the boat of David Hartley.

(On camera): Where is the body?

GONZALEZ: The body was disposed of. There is no body. This is the international boundary.

GRIFFIN: Yes. (Voice-over): In his office in Texas, County Sheriff Siggy Gonzalez says he knows for a fact that David Hartley will never be returned to the United States for burial.

(On camera): Do you know how?

GONZALEZ: Yes. Four different -- different sources with different agencies have come forward and they told us how they disposed of the body.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Those sources say the body of David Hartley was placed in a barrel and burned.

In Colorado where she now lives, Tiffany Hartley refuses to believe her husband body will never be returned.

T. HARTLEY: It's past my mind, but I'm not willing to accept it in my heart. I know my God and he's bigger than anyone and anything. And he wants justice just as much.

GRIFFIN: The cold reality, however, seems very different. On her Web site, bringdavidhome.com, there are plenty of people who still believe she is a suspect. She continues making statements perceived as odd. Like what she told me that God was involved in this traffic stop the day David was killed. To help her.

(On camera): Tiffany, you just said that from that moment I knew God's hand was in our lives that day.

T. HARTLEY: People probably think that, well, how?

GRIFFIN: I'm thinking that right now.

T. HARTLEY: Because I believe he had us being pulled over to prove, because he knew that I would be judged, that I would be questioned that day for what happened.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Even though DNA proved David's blood was on Tiffany's life jacket, questions persist. Where was the camera that they used to take picture of Old Guerrero? Why wasn't there far more blood evidence?

(On camera): The jet ski?

GONZALEZ: The jet ski was also destroyed. It's my understanding that the jet ski was taken apart. The parts that would float were burned and buried afterwards and the parts that would not float were just thrown in the lake. And of course, they sunk.

And see, this here is going back coming in again from Mexico.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Sheriff Siggy Gonzalez says he believes Hartley's story but he may never be able to prove it.

David Hartley's mother can barely control her emotions. P. HARTLEY: What happened to David and Tiffany was an act of terror. Plain and simple. It was a senseless violence but it was an act of terror and that is not going to end at the border. It's over here already.

GRIFFIN: And for Tiffany herself, it is even more troubling.

(On camera): Do you think your husband is a victim of -- in a way, politics?

T. HARTLEY: I would say a victim of terrorism, politics and the way of life of Mexico. And the politics, I think there's too many connections between U.S. and Mexico, too much money going back and forth.

GRIFFIN: Connections you mean in a criminal way?

T. HARTLEY: In a money way. I think it's all money.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): In the air over border country, Captain Stacy Holland says the financial stakes are so high for the drug cartels that money takes precedence over everything else.

HOLLAND: So what the state's faced with, and the nation really, is an aggressive narcotic smuggling ring or cartels that their interest lies in their inventory and so that's what they're going to protect. And they're going to do whatever means necessary to protect that inventory.

GRIFFIN: In the case of David Hartley, that includes the cartel inflicting its own investigation and its own brand of justice.

BURTON: That an individual --

GRIFFIN: Security expert Fred Burton has followed the case closely.

BURTON: It's my understanding that the individuals that were involved with the killing of Mr. Hartley were, in essence, picked up and killed by the Zetas themselves.

GRIFFIN (on camera): The killers were killed?

BURTON: Correct. The killers were killed by the organization because, remember, this is bad for business.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): If the killers are dead, Tiffany Hartley may never be able to prove what happened. She knows how many people still don't believe her story. That she and David were just sightseeing, that she tried to save him, that she outran boats with gunmen firing.

In interview she remains unemotional. That too in the eyes of many has made Tiffany Hartley a suspect.

T. HARTLEY: People don't see me at night when I go to bed. They don't see me in the mornings when I'm waking up.

GRIFFIN (on camera): What would they see?

T. HARTLEY: Every night I miss my husband. And I -- and I miss laying next to him and kissing him good night.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): And for Tiffany Hartley, those are the kinds of memories that will last, far beyond the questions and speculation that have followed her since that fateful day on Falcon Lake.

T. HARTLEY: I want my why to be answered. And I know I'm never going to know why. Until the day I can ask God.

http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=810395
Jailed Zetas accused of David Hartley murder, San Fernando massacres
October 8, 2012

A Zetas leader arrested in the streets of Nuevo Laredo is being accused of masterminding the Falcon Lake murder of American tourist David Hartley and the massacres in San Fernando.

Mexican marines arrested Salvador Alfonso Martínez-Escobedo in Nuevo Laredo around 7 p.m. Saturday.

Martinez-Escobedo, who goes by the nickname "La Ardilla" or "The Squierrel", is reported to be a regional commander for the Zetas drug cartel.
 ::snipping2::Martinez-Escobedo was take to Mexico City where he is being charged with long list of crimes.

Mexican Navy officials report that he is accused of masterminding the kidnapping and murders of bus passengers in San Fernando,Tamaulipas where a series of mass graves with 200 bodies was found.

Authorities believe Martinez-Escobedo personally murdered at least 50 people who were later buried there.

Mexican Navy officials said Martinez-Escobedo is also accused of being responsible for the murder of American tourist David Hartley on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake.

Authorities belive the jailed Zetas leader also ordered the murder and decapitation of Rolando Armando Flores-Villegas, a police commander investigating Hartley's disappearance.

 ::snipping2::

http://www.kvue.com/news/Intelligence-expert-questions-role-in-Cartel-for-Mexican-arrested-for-killing-American--173222011.html
Intelligence expert questions cartel's role in American's death
October 8, 2012

AUSTIN – The arrest of an alleged leader in Mexico’s Zeta Cartel is raising questions among some in the intelligence community regarding his role in the murder of an American two years ago.
David Hartley and his wife Tiffany were jet skiing in Falcon Lake on the U.S./Mexico border in 2010 when they entered Mexican waters and were shot at.
“I think they stumbled into a location that was protected by the cartels and the organizations either looked at the Hartleys as possibly being from a rival cartel or maybe U.S. undercover law enforcement,” said Fred Burton, a counter-terrorism expert with Austin-based intelligence company Stratfor.
David Hartley was shot in the head and died.
On Monday, Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobedo, nicknamed “The Squirrel” and other alleged Zeta members were paraded in handcuffs in front of cameras in Mexico.
Burton questioned if Escobedo had the authority inside the Zetas to make such a call regarding the Americans’ death.
“I have no doubt that probably this individual had some role inside the organization, but I'm fairly skeptical over any direct involvement that this individual may have had in the Hartley killing. It's our understanding that the Zetas picked up the individuals involved with the murder and had them killed. Remember, this kind of disruption was bad for business,” Burton said.
 ::snipping2::
When asked what the motivation was for Mexican authorities to arrest Escobedo in connection with the Hartley murder, Burton said he believed it was all political on the part of the Mexican government.
Burton advised any American traveling near the U.S. Mexico border to be aware of their surroundings at all times.
Video at Link

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2214848/David-Hartley-death-Mexican-cartel-leader-known-Commander-Squirrel-arrested.html
Wife speaks of her relief as Mexican Cartel boss dubbed 'Commander Squirrel' is arrested for murder of her husband as they jet-skied on border Published October 8, 2012, Updated October 9, 2012


A wife who saw her husband killed by Mexican drug cartels as they jet-skied together on the Texas border has spoken of her relief after a crime boss was arrested over the murder.

Tiffany Hartley was with her husband David Hartley on Lake Falcon when he was shot in the back of the head in 2010 by a gang who approached them in boats.

Police in Mexico on Saturday rounded up the drug cartel boss believed to be responsible for the killing Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobedo, a Zetas cartel leader is known as 'Commander Squirrel.'

He has been linked to numerous crimes, such as the escape of 151 prisoners in 2010 from a jail in the city of Nuevo Laredo and the recent flight of 131 prisoners in the city of Piedras Negras.

Escobedo was also wanted for his alleged role in the September 2010 killing of David Hartley on Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Mexican Navy said in a statement: 'Squirrel is credited with being the mastermind of the deaths of 72 undocumented migrants in San Fernando.

'[He] is the alleged perpetrator of the narco graves found in Tamaulipas state, with more than 200 bodies and the execution of more than 50 people by his own hand in different parts of the republic, [as well as] the murder of David Hartley, an American citizen killed at Falcon Dam on September 30, 2010.'

When asked if she had confidence that Mexican authorities arrested the man responsible for her husband's death, Tiffany Hartley said: 'It's really hard to really feel like this is going to be the final, but at the same time we're very hopeful that it will because we want some closure as a family.'

She said she was hoping for more details on how Martinez might be linked to her husband's death and also for information on where her husband's remains are so the family can move forward.

'But that's what we're really looking for is: What is his link to David and does he know where David's body is?' said Hartley, who lives in La Salle, Colorado.
 ::snipping2::
The investigation into Mr Hartley's death was a dealt a blow in October of 2010 when Mexico's lead investigator, Rolando Flores, was decapitated.

Mr Flores's severed head was delivered in a suitcase to a military post near the border with Texas.
Falcon Lake has been the scene of drug-related violence for years.

Escobedo is also accused of murder in that case.

Vergara said Martinez was captured in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. He was shown to reporters on Monday.
The navy said Martinez is also a suspect in dozens of killings of people who were buried in mass graves at the same site of the 2010 massacre of migrants.

Nearly 200 bodies were discovered in April 2011 in the town of San Fernando, close to the U.S. border.

Those two crimes have been the most fatalities since Mexico's federal government launched an armed offensive against drug traffickers in December 2006.
 ::snipping2::

Video  & photos at Link

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/Suspect-arrested-in-Falcon-Lake-killing/-/1719418/16898270/-/65tpme/-/index.html
Suspect arrested in Falcon Lake killing
Drug cartel leader accused in death of American on Falcon Lake
October 8, 2012

(CNN) -
For more than two years, details about the investigation into who killed David Hartley have been as murky as the waters where his body disappeared.

His grieving widow told police that attackers shot him in the head on a lake that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. She said she was forced to flee and leave his body behind.

Some blamed her for his death. Then the severed head of the case's lead investigator was delivered in a suitcase to a Mexican military post.

The trail seemed to go cold until Monday, when Mexican authorities said they had arrested a leader of the ruthless Zetas drug cartel and linked him to the Falcon Lake killing.

Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobedo also is a suspect connected to the slaying of the Mexican state police investigator who was heading the investigation into Hartley's killing until he turned up dead himself nine days later, the Mexican navy said in a written statement.
 ::snipping2::
Authorities accuse Martinez, known as "The Squirrel," of being a regional leader of the Zetas in three northern Mexican states and heading up a brutal battle with the rival Gulf cartel. They had offered a reward of more than $1 million for information leading to his capture.

He was picked up in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo on Saturday night and presented to the media on Monday. But one Texas sheriff says the 31-year-old alleged cartel leader wasn't on a list of five suspect names in the Hartley case that he's handed over to the FBI.

"Based on the information I have, he may have been the one responsible for that area, but not the one responsible for the actual killing," said Sigifredo Gonzalez, sheriff of Zapata County, Texas.

The navy didn't explain why or how authorities believe Martinez is connected to the case.

But his arrest appears to be the first that officials have publicly tied to Hartley's killing.

"If this is, in fact, true that he was involved," Gonzalez said, "it's a welcome sign that the Mexican government is trying to solve the killing of yet another American citizen on Mexican soil."
 ::snipping2::
Tiffany Hartley has said that she and her 30-year-old husband were ambushed by assailants while riding Sea-Doo personal watercraft on the lake.
 ::snipping2::
Hartley's remains have never been recovered, and Tiffany Hartley said Monday that she hopes his body is found as a result of the arrest. She said her confidence in authorities has been hard to come by two years later, but, "At the same time, we're hopeful."

WoW TY Muffy

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1210/08/acd.01.html
Romney Closes Gap in Latest Polls; Jerry Sandusky Speaks from Jail; High Stakes for VP Debate

Aired October 8, 2012 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Ashleigh, thanks. Good evening, everyone.

 ::snipping2::
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: More than two years ago, Tiffany Harley told police she and her husband were ambushed on their jetskis on a lake along the United States/Mexico border. That he was shot in the head. She was forced to leave his body behind. Now a suspect is in custody. Tiffany Harley's reaction when we continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
 ::snipping2::Up next, a major break in a murder mystery that we have been following closely on this program. An arrest in the death of an American, David Hartley, who was killed while jet skiing with his wife on Falcon Lake. Tonight, his wife, who some had suspected in some way of being involved in the killing, she is speaking out. Tiffany Hartley in her own words, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Let's see what other stories we're following. Susan Hendricks joins us with the "360 News and Business Bulletin" -- Susan.

SUSAN HENDRICKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, we begin with a "360 Follow." A Zetas cartel drug leader is detained in Mexico, suspected in dozens of killings, including the death of an American two years ago on a lake that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mexican authorities believe Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobado, also known as the squirrel, has a connection to the execution of David Hartley. His body has never been recovered. Hartley was shot in the head while on the lake with his wife, Tiffany. She is shocked by the arrest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIFFANY HARTLEY, HUSBAND MURDERED ON FALCON LAKE: If this gentleman, this suspect, does have involvement, we want to know where David's at and get some evidence of his remains and let us as a family two years later be able to have some closure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)
 ::snipping2::

So, basically, the guy arrested is the 'boss' of the drug gang that patrolled that particular part of the lake?  So, this was a warning for others?

"Tiffany Hartley has waited since 2010 for Mexico to return her husband’s body to the U.S". Are we to assume Mexico found David Hartley's body and is in possession of it?  Or is Tiffany being hopeful they do have it?  Or has she been told they have it?  I haven't seen that anywhere yet.  Even the article I've linked back to below indicates his body has never been found.  Of course, maybe it has and we haven't been told.  We may never know.  And we may never really know if the man arrested in David Hartley's death had anything to do with it all.  I don't find it surprising two months have passed since the arrest and no information released, since it's Mexico and a drug cartel leader involved.  Tiffany Hartley is probably in for a long, long wait and may never know the answers to the questions she's seeking. 


http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/11/27/hartley-frustrated-in-wait-for-news-since-murder-arrest/
Hartley Frustrated In Wait For News Since Murder Arrest
November 27, 2012

LaSALLE, Colo. (CBS4) – Nearly two months after word of an arrest in her husband’s death, a Colorado woman says she’s received very little information about the case since.

A Mexican drug cartel leader is accused in the killing of David Hartley in 2010. It happened as he and his wife jet skied on Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border.

Tiffany Hartley has waited since 2010 for Mexico to return her husband’s body to the U.S. After that arrest last month she thought her family may finally have some closure, but she said that optimism is turning to frustration.
 ::snipping2::
David’s body has never been found.

At the time of the drug cartel’s arrest, Tiffany held a press conference from her LaSalle home. Since then she has heard virtually nothing from either side regarding the arrest.
 ::snipping2::
Tiffany says that U.S. and Mexico authorities are communicating about the case, but she’s gone nearly two months without any updates.

“I’ve made calls to the State Department, to the Department of Justice and the FBI. They just don’t have the information to tell us.”

Tiffany believes the suspect knows something about David’s death.

“He knows something, and if he does I don’t know why it’s keeping all this information from coming forth.”

Despite the lack of information, Tiffany says her faith has pulled her through. No matter how long it takes, her number one priority is to eventually bring David’s body back to Colorado.
 ::snipping2::