Feds charge driver as death toll hits 10
Immigrants banged on trailer’s walls in desperate bid to get driver’s attention, victim tells officials.
In one of the deadliest human smuggling cases in Texas in at least a decade — which authorities say could be connected to the Zeta drug cartel — federal officials have charged the driver
of an 18-wheeler after his tractor-trailer was found crammed with dozens of immigrants, 10 of whom have died from the heat
inside the container. A criminal complaint filed in San Antonio shined new light on the hourslong ordeal the 39 immigrants endured in the back of James Bradley Jr.’s truck in a case that prosecutors say could carry the death penalty, though Bradley is currently just charged with illegally transporting immigrants in the U.S.
The 60-year-old driver did not speak during a federal court hearing Monday. His next court date is tentatively scheduled for Thursday.
Authorities discovered Bradley’s truck in the parking lot of a Walmart on San Antonio’s Southwest side early Sunday after they were called by a storeemployee. Inside, they found the immigrants listless and overheated. Eight had already died.
Nearly 20 taken from the rig were hospitalized, officials said. One federal official told The Associated Press that 17 of those rescued were found in critical condition and suffering from extreme dehydration and heat stroke. Two would later die at area hospitals.
According to court papers, one
victim told federal investigators that as many as 100 people were inside the trailer at one point.
“We’re looking at a human trafficking crime,” San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said, calling it “a horrific tragedy.”
The victims “were very hot to the touch” and the “people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water,” said San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood, who said his paramedics and firefighters found victims whose pulses were racing at more than 130 beats per minute.
Temperatures in San Antonio hit 101 degrees Saturday and remained above 90 degrees until well into the night. It was probably far hotter inside the trailer. At just 80 degrees outside, the temperature inside a closed car can reach 115 degrees in less than half an hour.
This is one of the deadliest smuggling cases in the country since 19 immigrants died after being locked inside a stifling rig that was discovered in Victoria in May 2003. The immigrants were being taken from South Texas to Houston. Prosecutors said the driver heard them begging and screaming for their lives but refused to free them. The driver was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.
The immigrants inside Bradley’s truck came from at least two countries, Mexico and Guatemala, authorities have confirmed. Four of the survivors appeared to be between 10 and 17 years old, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Thomas Homan.
The court papers filed Monday offered details about the immigrants’ journey through the stories of three surviving victims, none of whom was named.
One left his home in Aguascalientes — about 250 miles northwest of Mexico City — and traveled to Nuevo Laredo on the U.S.-Mexico border. There he paid a group of people he was told were linked to the Zetas cartel 12,500 pesos, or about $700, for protection and a trip across the river Friday night. He said he would owe the smugglers another $5,500 when he got to San Antonio.
The victim told authorities he was picked up around 9 a.m. Saturday and taken to the trailer, where he would spend the next 15 hours. Inside, it was pitch black and already hot, he recounted, with no food or water. The trailer would sit there for another 12 hours before beginning the trip to San Antonio around 9 p.m., the victim estimated.
During the first hour of the trip, he told investigators, things seemed to be OK. But then air started running short and people began to pass out. He described immigrants banging on the walls of the trailer in a desperate bid to get the driver’s attention. People took turns breathing from a hole in the container’s wall, he said. They were so weak that many fell over when the driver hit the brakes at the end of the trip, he added. When they arrived in San Antonio, the truck was met by six black SUVs, which were filled in minutes and then drove off, he said.
The accounts included by investigators in court papers from the two other undocumented immigrants had fewer details. One said he was traveling with seven relatives to San Antonio after spending 11 days at a “stash house” in Laredo. The other said he was traveling with his brother to Minnesota. He told investigators that there were between 180 and 200 people in the rig when he boarded.
However, Bradley offered a wildly different story to federal investigators after waiving his Miranda rights to remain silent, authorities said in a criminal complaint.
He told them that he was hauling the trailer from Iowa toward Brownsville to deliver it to its new owner and that he had no idea anything or anyone was inside. According to the criminal complaint, Bradley told investigators he only became aware of what was happening when he stopped the truck to urinate and heard the “banging and shaking in the trailer.”
He told investigators that he went to open the doors and “was run over by ‘Spanish’ people and knocked to the ground,” and added that he then noticed bodies just lying on the floor “like meat.”