9 migrants found dead in overheated Texas truck

SAN ANTONIO (AFP) — Nine people died after being crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer found parked outside Walmart in the mid-summer Texas heat, victims of what authorities said on Sunday was an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong.

At least 39 people were in the trailer, including one person who was later found dead in a nearby wooded area, federal prosecutors said in a statement. At least two were school-age children, Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

It was not immediately clear how many suspected migrants might have fled and were unaccounted for.

City police chief William McManus told CNN that the dead were all adult men. Authorities were not releasing the victims’ names or nationalities until their families were notified.

Mexican officials were working with US authorities to identify the dead, the country’s foreign ministry said.

McManus told a news conference that someone from the truck had approached a Walmart employee asking for water.

The employee brought water to the truck in the parking lot, and then called the police who “found eight people dead in the back of that trailer,” the police chief said, calling it a “horrific tragedy.”

“We’re looking at a human trafficking crime,” McManus said.

The truck driver had been arrested, he said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr, 60, of Florida, was in custody and would be charged this week in San Antonio.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed on Sunday evening that the death toll had climbed to nine and called the case “a heartbreaking tragedy.”