Mexico Kidnapping Survivor’s Nightmare Ordeal: ‘She Watched Them Die’

A South Carolina woman who was kidnapped while in Mexico for a tummy tuck made it out alive without serious physical injury—but the psychological trauma from the terrifying ordeal may take considerably longer to heal.

Latavia McGee, 35, and three others were ambushed last Friday by gunmen 2.5 hours after driving across the U.S. border into Matamoros. The four were hit with a barrage of gunfire before being forced out of their white minivan at gunpoint and thrown into the bed of a white pickup truck, which was captured on video by a passerby. Over the next several days, the group’s captors shuttled them from place to place at least three times, in an attempt to create confusion, according to Américo Villarreal, the governor of Tamaulipas State.

On Tuesday morning, Mexican forces descended on a small farmhouse in a rural area east of Matamoros. There, they found a shaken but unharmed McGee, a mother of six, along with Eric James Williams, who had been shot three times in the legs. Williams’ wounds were not life-threatening, officials said. However, McGee’s first cousin, Shaeed Woodard, and friend Zindell Brown, were both dead.

Read more at The Daily Beast.