MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WSPA) – According to a family member, one of the four Americans kidnapped while traveling through Mexico Friday is from Myrtle Beach.
The Associated Press said Zalandria Brown of Florence, South Carolina said she has been in contact with the FBI and local officials after learning that her younger brother, Zindell Brown, is one of the four victims.
“This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from,” she said in a phone interview. “To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable.”
Zalandria Brown said her brother, who lives in Myrtle Beach, and two friends had accompanied a third friend who was going to Mexico for a “tummy tuck” surgery. A doctor who advertises such surgeries in Matamoros did not answer calls seeking comment.
The group of four was traveling Friday in a white minivan with North Carolina plates.
They came under fire shortly after entering the city of Matamoros from Brownsville, at the southernmost tip of Texas near the Gulf coast, the FBI said in a statement Sunday.
Mexican authorities believe the Americans got caught in the crossfire of two armed groups and were captured.
“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the FBI said. The bureau is offering a $50,000 reward for the victims’ return and the arrest of the kidnappers.
