Americans killed in Mexico ID'd as Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown

LAKE CITY, S.C. The two Americans who were found dead in Mexico afterbeing kidnapped at gunpointduring a terrifying shootout between rival cartel gangswereidentifiedTuesdayasShaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown.

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LAKE CITY, S.C. —The two Americans who were found dead in Mexico after being kidnapped at gunpoint during a terrifying shootout between rival cartel gangs were identified Tuesday as Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown.

Woodard and Brown had traveled from South Carolina to Mexico with Latavia “Tay” McGee and Eric James Williams so McGee, a mother of six, could undergo a tummy tuck procedure, relatives said.

But shortly after the foursome crossed the border Friday into the crime-ridden city of Matamoros, located in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, realized they were lost.

The group couldn’t find the doctor’s office where McGee, 33, was due for surgery that Friday, CNN reported, and poor cell service in the region made it harder for them to communicate with the doctor’s office.

While trying to sort out their location, the four became caught in the middle of a violent cartel showdown.

Four US citizens from South Carolina were abducted in Matamoros

Harrowing video of the shootout shows the moment the group was forced into the back of a pickup truck in broad daylight after being shot at.

Tamaulipas state chief prosecutor Irving Barrios said he believes the deadly ambush was a result of “confusion, not a direct attack.”

Matamoros’ sinister reputation for ruthless organized crime had led to initial speculation that the abduction was drug-related, but a source close to the investigation told the Dallas Morning News on Monday that the Americans may have been mistaken for Haitian smugglers.

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McGee and Williams survived the attack and were rushed Tuesday to Brownsville, Texas, in a convoy of ambulances and SUVs escorted by Mexican military Humvees and national guard trucks with mounted .50-caliber machine guns.

Williams was shot in the left leg but the wound was not life-threatening, Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said. McGee survived the ordeal without physical injuries. 

Local authorities will examine the bodies of Woodard and Brown before they are repatriated to the US, the governor added.

The tourists were found in a shack in a rural area east of Matamoros called Ejido Tecolote, on the way to the Gulf coast known as “Bagdad Beach,” Barrios said.

A photo of McGee taken shortly after she was rescued shows her covered in dirt with no shoes, with a traumatized look on her face.

Villarreal said they were being guarded by a man who has been arrested.

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He added that the abducted Americans had been moved around by their captors, and at one point were taken to a medical clinic “to create confusion and avoid efforts to rescue them.”

McGee and Woodard were first cousins, their aunt Retha Darby told The Post from her home in South Carolina on Tuesday before news broke of Woodard’s death. 

She said her niece had told her about the medical procedure.

“She came by and visit me. She said, ‘I’m gonna be going to get surgery.’ I said, ‘Surgery on what?’ She said tummy tuck. She said, ‘My tummy getting too big.’ That was about a week ago,” Darby recalled of her last conversation with her 33-year-old niece.

“I didn’t know where she was going. I thought it was somewhere local.”

Darby, 72, is recovering from a stroke and is mostly confined to her Lake City home with a nurse. She said she shares a close bond with her niece, who regularly comes to visit her.

“She’s nice to me and everybody I know,” Darby said of McGee, noting that she is a good mom whose children adore her.

“She liked to dress well. Nice clothes. Hair fixed. Her face all done up,” she said.

Darby said she last spoke to her nephew, Woodard, “a couple weeks ago.”

“I try to keep him doing the right thing, but I can’t do so much because I can’t get around so much,” she explained tearfully. “I wish I could help them.”

Robert Williams said the news that his brother Eric survived the kidnapping was “quite a relief.”

“I look forward to seeing him again and actually being able to talk to him,” he said.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said he wants “to see accountability for the violence that has been inflicted on these Americans that tragically led to the death of two of them.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration is “working with Mexican officials to learn more and to have all Americans returned to the United States.”

“President Biden has been kept updated on this incident,” she said. “We extend our deepest condolences to their families and friends.”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, meanwhile, criticized the US media for its coverage of the ordeal.

“It’s not like that when they kill Mexicans in the United States,” he said of the press. “They go quiet like mummies.”

The kidnapping comes as Republican politicians have called for a more comprehensive response to cartel violence in northern Mexico that sometimes spills across the border.

US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Monday he wants to “put Mexico on notice,” and plans to introduce legislation that would classify some Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

The move would allow the US to use military force against cartels.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr said López Obrador is “being held hostage” by cartels.

“It’s pretty close at this stage to a failed narco-state. They can use violence and oceans of cash to corrupt the government. The government has no will, and it doesn’t have the ability to deal with the cartels,” he told Fox News.

Barr said Mexican authorities should “stand aside” and let US forces take over if they won’t tackle the cartels head-on. 

Additional reporting by Jesse O’Neill

With Post wires

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