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Segment Transcript
Anderson Cooper 360º -- CNNANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
Aired January 31, 2005 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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COLLINS: 360 next, Americans tourists crossing the border into Mexico disappearing at an alarming rate. What's going on? 360 investigates. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Nuevo Laredo, is a Mexican border town where Americans like to go and relax, to party, to shop or maybe buy prescription drugs. But something very scary is happening there. In an increasing number of cases the Americans who go to Nuevo Laredo are not coming home. They're simply vanishing.
CNN's Drew Griffin with the chilling story of those who have disappeared and the families that want them back.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL slathering, STEP-FATHER: No, is that the correct time?
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the past four months, William Slemaker, says he's made this crossing more than 100 times, crossing the international border into the narrow streets of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, searching for a daughter who has not called, not come home, not been seen since September.
B. SLEMAKER: You see, I cruised up and down all these streets looking for Yvette's car.
GRIFFIN: Slemaker's step-daughter is 28-years-old. In the early morning of September 17th, she and her friend, Brenda Cisneros were on their way home from a concert and night on the town in Neuvo laredo. It was Brenda's birthday. At 4:00 a.m., still on the Mexican side but just four blocks from the border they called a friend.
B. SLEMAKER: And the call she got was from this intersection right here.
GRIFFIN: The young women made the call to ask their friend to meet them for breakfast on the American side. Somewhere within these four short blocks, Yvette Martinez, and Brenda Cisneros vanished.
B. SLEMAKER: I can see the American flag. Yes. She was not far at all. It's very unfortunate that she didn't make it from such a close distance.
GRIFFIN (on camera): You must have stood here many a time and thought, what -- what happened?
B. SLEMAKER: What happened.
GRIFFIN: In the five minutes it would take.
B. SLEMAKER: I stood there, parked my car there, stood at that intersection looking and wondering to myself where could she be. Trying and praying, hoping she could contact me and let me know, to get a feel of what to do.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Bill Slemaker and his wife, Maria, no longer know what to do. Days have turned into weeks and now months. (on camera): The last phone call that she made, that you know she made, was so close to the border, it must have be absolutely frustrating to have heard that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. To know that she was so close and didn't make it.
GRIFFIN: She probably could have seen the border. Certainly the lights.
B. SLEMAKER: Oh, yes.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Bill and Maria are not alone. People are being kidnapped, killed or simply disappearing at an alarming rate. In past years, the number of Americans kidnapped in this border town averaged three or four a year. But just since August, 27 Americans have been kidnapped or have gone missing and police are quick to say those are only the reported cases. Nuevo Laredo, just a walk across the bridge from Laredo, Texas, is being described, by U.S. police officials, as lawless.
PATRICK PATTERSON, FBI: I would call it epidemic.
GRIFFIN: Patrick Patterson is the special FBI agent in charge.
PATTERSON: They're kidnapped. They're held for ransoms. We even express kidnappings, what we call express kidnappings, when the individual is grabbed on the other side of the border, held in the trunk of the car for 24 hours while they deplete the bank account with a credit card. This has all the time. Many times goes unreported to local law enforcement, state law enforcement or federal law enforcement.
GRIFFIN: And according to Patterson, the kidnapping is out of control. Yvette Martinez and Brenda Cisneros are just two of the missing caught up in a violent Mexican border town says Patterson where drug cartels are battling for turf. What's worse according to Patterson and others Mexican police seem stand on the sidelines.
PATTERSON: That's why we're having an epidemic problem, because there is very little being done to resolve the problem on that side of the border. And that's what really has to be done.
GRIFFIN: At first the Slemakers say even American police weren't that concerned. But Maria knew her daughter, knew she would have come home. And knew the border police would be able to tell if her daughter's car made the crossing back.
MARIA SLEMAKER, MOTHER: I said, let me go and check the car because we have the system here when you go...
B. SLEMAKER: Into Mexico.
M. SLEMAKER: ... into Mexico, I mean, they captured your license plates.
B. SLEMAKER: Your license plate. They register your plates.
M. SLEMAKER: So then I we went over there and asked if the car returned. And then he said, no, the car never returned into the United States.
GRIFFIN: How did you feel then?
M. SLEMAKER: Wow, I almost collapsed there. I was thinking, you know, the worst.
GRIFFIN: No longer able to sit by and wait for Mexican police, Bill and Maria have joined forces with other families. The Gonzales', searching for two sons missing since December. Pablo Cisneros want to find his daughter, Brenda. The family of Sergio Cabara (ph), already know their son is dead, they want the killers caught. They have focused their frustrations, creating a Web site and are printing posters asking for anyone who knows anything to call.
B. SLEMAKER: God forbid that she's dead, we want her body anyway. We want her body. We want to give her a proper burial. We want to close this. We hope that's not the case. But if she's alive, we want her. We want her in any way. We want her back. This is one of the streets I've traveled looking for her car.
GRIFFIN: The fact is, say U.S. authorities, if these families want their children back, they will most likely have to go into Mexico and find them themselves. Two months ago, Bill Slemaker came as close as he may ever come when this train conductor turned detective found the car he was looking for.
B. SLEMAKER: That's it. That's the car right there. That's Yvette's car. Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: And there's more to the story. Why Yvette Martinez's stepfather was able to find his daughter's car, the car Mexican police either could not or would not look for. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: We've just heard some of the harrowing stories of Americans who go missing on the Mexican side of the Texas border and the desperate parents who go looking for them. So who goes looking for U.S. citizens when they disappear in Mexico? You might be surprised at the answer. Here again, CNN's Drew Griffin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: The crossing at Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Laredo, Texas, is the busiest inland port on the U.S. southern border. Forty percent of all U.S.-Mexico trade passes right through here. But the heavy traffic has attracted something else: drug cartels that are in a heated battle for control of this town and the drugs that flow north.
MICHAEL YODER, U.S. CONSUL: We're always living on the edge of violence here. That's part of the border.
GRIFFIN: Michael Yoder is the U.S. consul in Nuevo Laredo. For the past year he has watched the drug cartels fight it out. Yoder warns anyone traveling to Nuevo Laredo, if you are American, you may be a target. And if you're kidnapped here, don't rely on the U.S. or anyone else to find you.
YODER: We're in Mexico. And solving a crime that occurs in Mexico is up to the Mexican authorities. And we have this problem, that local police and state police are often out equipped, the narco traffickers, the criminals here have better guns, they have more money.
GRIFFIN: And money, the FBI says, has corrupted many police to look the other way.
Daniel Pena is Nuevo Laredo's new mayor. He's in charge of the police. He insists his city is safe.
DANIEL PENA, NUEVO LAREDO MAYOR (through translator): Yes, Nuevo Laredo is safe. And we're taking charge to guarantee that tranquility and peace.
GRIFFIN: But when the camera was turned off, he added that he believes most if not all people kidnapped are likely involved in drugs. The U.S. consul says that may have been true in the past but now insists the innocent civilians are the targets.
To the Slemakers, who know their daughter, knew she was just going to a concert, the Mexican government's lack of action has added to their pain.
MARIA SLEMAKER, MOTHER: Night after night, thinking where is she? where is her friend. It's not only them. Now, where is the other people, too?
BILL SLEMAKER, FATHER: There are so many missing.
M. SLEMAKER: So many missing persons.
GRIFFIN: Without help from the police, Bill Slemaker has spent endless days and nights trying to track down his daughter himself. He spent a month searching for her car. He finally found it in a place that made him very angry: a storage yard used by local police.
Walking through here, you'll find dozens of other cars with U.S. license plates just like Yvette's. Bill says he has asked how Yvette's car got here, who brought it and when. But no one can tell him. It has never been dusted for fingerprints or searched for evidence in any investigation.
B. SLEMAKER, FATHER: I hope she comes home. I hope she comes home.
GRIFFIN: Are you afraid, Bill, I hate to say it, that this is all you'll ever find of your daughter? B. SLEMAKER: I am afraid, yes.
GRIFFIN: And that you'll never know what happened.
B. SLEMAKER: God Almighty, I hope we find her. I hope we find her. Oh, my.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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