MISSING IN MEXICO
Charred bodies, van found after tourists go AWOL in cartel-plagued northern state
MEXICO CITY— Prosecutors in the northern Mexico state of Sinaloa said Monday that a burned-out vehicle found with two charred bodies inside was registered in the name of one of two missing Australians.
Sinaloa state Attorney General Marco Antonio Higuera said the vehicle’s serial number matches one registered in Alberta to Adam Coleman.
Officials said earlier that identification had been complicated because much of the van’s paint had burned off and its licence plates were missing. Coleman and Dean Lucas were travelling from Edmonton to Mexico and failed to arrive as planned on Nov. 21 in the city of Guadalajara.
Guadalupe Martinez, a spokesman for Higuera’s office, said the bodies were so badly burned that only tests such as DNA or dental records could identify them. He said those tests were being carried out.
Higuera said the two got off a ferry from the Baja California peninsula at Topolobampo, Sinaloa, at about 10:30 on the night of Nov. 20.
They apparently began driving immediately, but didn’t get far.
The van and the bodies were found a day later in a rural area of Novolato, about 160 kilometres south of Topolobampo, after police received a citizen’s report on the abandoned vehicle. Higuera said “they may have camped out on the way to Guadalajara.”
Sinaloa is a drug gang-plagued state that is home to the cartel of the same name. Lucas’s partner, Josie Cox, said she’d received a text message the night of Nov. 20, and she said Coleman had planned to meet his girlfriend, Andrea Gomez, in Guadalajara, on Nov. 21.
“Adam wanted to get to Guadalajara as soon as possible,” Cox said. “I presume that from when they got off the ferry to Guadalajara, it was an unfortunate time . . . and they maybe pulled in to sleep or something.”
An online fundraising campaign to support the two men’s families to travel from their home in Golden Bay in Western Australia state had raised more than $16,000 (U.S.) within a day.
Family members will travel to Mexico within days to assist Mexican police and Australian consular officials. A GoFundMe page has received do- nations from almost 230 people since it was established late on Sunday.
“My brother’s family is overwhelmed by the response,” Coleman’s aunt, Jane Cattermole, said on Monday.