Two more arrests over Mexico Mormon massacre
Mexican prosecutors said they have arrested two more suspects in the 2019 killings of nine US-Mexican dual citizens from a prominent Mormon family.
Federal prosecutors identified the suspects only by their first names, "Wilbert" and "Tomás," in line with presumption-of-innocence rules. The first faces several counts of homicide and the second faces organised crime charges.
They bring to about 20 the number of suspects arrested in the case, and more warrants are outstanding. Both were arrested in the town of Nuevas Casa Grandes, near the border with the US.
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Nine members of the family were killed in the ambush. 9News
The three women and six children from the extended Langford, LeBarón and Miller families were ambushed and slain by suspected drug gang assassins on November 4, 2019.
Initial investigations suggested a squad of gunmen from a drug gang that originated in the border city of Ciudad Juarez set up the ambush to kill members of a rival cartel.
However, relatives of the victims say that at some point, the gunmen must have known who they were killing.
Last November a senior figure in Mexico's notorious La Linea cartel was arrested in connection to the massacre.
Federal police in Mexico detained Roberto González Montes and moved him to Mexico City to face a judge.
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Mexican authorities have arrested two more suspects over the massacre of nine members of a Mormon family. The victims included Rhonita Miller and her children. Supplied
Montes is known within the La Linea del Cártel de Juárez as El Mudo, or The Mute.
Police said Montes was arrested alongside Eulalio Domínguez Alanís and Santiago Casavantes Radovich.
Their alleged roles in the massacre have not been confirmed.
Weeks earlier, another man, identified as Alfredo L., was arrested in connection with the massacre.
Nine members of the LeBaron family were gunned down in the three-car caravan in the state of Sonora.
Three women and six children were killed in the massacre. Eight other children, some just infants, survived.
A burned car after the ambush at Bavispe, in the Sonora mountains, Mexico, on November 5, 2019. AFP via Getty Images
The November 2019 massacre left relatives and friends devastated. AP/AAP
While US citizens, the LeBaron family living in hamlets in Mexico, as part of a polygamist offshoot of the Mormonism.
Authorities in Mexico believe the family were victims of a turf war between the La Linea cartel and the Sinaloa cartel.
Rhonita Miller, 30, and her children Howard, 12, Krystal, 10, and Titus and Tiana, both eight months, were killed.
Also killed was Christina Langford-Johnson, 31.
Dawna Ray Langford, 43, and her sons Trevor, 3, and Rogan, 2, were killed.
Massacre victims Rhonita Miller, left, and Dawna Langford were Mormons and dual US-Mexican citizens. Facebook
Seven of Ms Langford's children were present at the massacre but survived, as did Ms Langford-Johnson's seven-month-old daughter.
Ms Langford's 13-year-old son Devin walked 23 kilometres back to their hometown of La Mora to seek help.
Members of Utah's Latter-Day Saints community emigrated to Mexico in the 1880s to follow their religious beliefs by living in polygamous families, which was illegal in the United States.
Polygamy was illegal in Mexico, too, but the government there offered a flexible definition of family and did not enforce its anti-polygamy laws.
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