Still no answers 1 year after Hartley case broke

ZAPATA — Zapata has long been a sleepy outpost flanked by miles of sparkling waters. The loudest noises here typically come when bass boats rev up their motors searching for the next big catch on Falcon Lake.

That all changed one year ago, when a couple took their personal watercraft across the border and returned with a harrowing tale that some still say smells fishy.

By now, most residents along the Southwest border know their story.

Tiffany and David Hartley set off across Falcon Lake on Sept. 30, 2010, to check out the old church in the sunken city of Old Guerrero, which was abandoned five decades ago when engineers flooded the region.

Only Tiffany came back after she says drug cartel gunmen chased her across the lake, having shot David in the head. She said she was forced to leave her soul mate in the normally calm waters to save herself.

“When we were coming back to the U.S. side, the cartel members started to shoot at us when we passed them,” Tiffany Hartley said at a Sept. 20 congressional hearing in Brownsville. “David was hit in the head and was thrown off his Jet Ski. I went back to him to get him back to safety and unfortunately I was unable to so. I had to make that decision to leave him behind and run for my life and hopefully I make it across.”

Neither Tiffany nor the public have found any resolution in the case. The head of a Mexican police investigator was delivered by suspected members of the Zetas cartel in the days after international attention to the case grew. Tiffany’s pleas for justice and the recovery of her husband’s body could be seen on every national TV news outlet.

She has gone before Congress to lobby for the federal government to secure the border. But still, she has received no answers in the case.

“It’s only by the grace of God that I’m here today,” she said.

NATIONAL STAGE

Hildegardo Flores was born and raised in Zapata. About this time last year, he was on a trip halfway around the world — in Greece — when he saw his humble hometown on TV — for the wrong reason.

“We turn on CNN International, and who’s on the TV? Local sheriff talking about the Hartley case that had just happened,” Flores said. “Few days later, we were in Jerusalem, and darn, he went on TV again, talking about this incident and saying it’s unsafe, don’t come. So the fishermen stayed away.”

Tiffany Hartley wasn’t the only one gaining attention. Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez took the national stage, with his self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is mantra, saying drug cartels have taken over the border.

“Cartels control the border,” said Gonzalez, who most recently gave a similar declaration at a congressional hearing in May. “Our government does not control the border. Cartels control both sides of the border. They determine what goes through the border and when it goes through the border.

“There cannot be homeland security without border security.”

Gonzalez has said he doubts David’s body will ever be found. In February, he said he had identified four suspects in connection with the case, but their names were never disclosed.

The sheriff has been more forthcoming with information in the Hartley case than his federal counterparts.

That led Tiffany to file three lawsuits against the Justice Department on Sept. 20, having exhausted the appeals process from an information request under the Freedom of Information Act.

The government has not formally responded to the lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia.

“I hold the hope that we can have something done, but it’s going to take our government — with the permission of Mexico’s government — in order to get them to start solving, to go in and do an active investigation,” Hartley said after she testified at the congressional hearing Sept. 20 in Brownsville.

“Sheriff Sigi, he really seems to be the only one (who is) interested and cares. And, you know, we still have the hope and I believe in miracles and, you know we are a year out, but like Jaime Zapata, the (slain) ICE agent, they had people right away, within days of his incident.

“So what makes his more important than my husband or any of the other Americans that were killed?”

As the anniversary approached Thursday, Tiffany Hartley’s mother, Cynthia Young, told The Monitor they were “coping the best people can do, I guess.” 

“It’s difficult for her,” Young said.

Attempts for further comment from Tiffany Hartley and her family Thursday were unsuccessful.

‘WE USED TO CROSS’

Fishermen shied away from Zapata months after the reports of David Hartley’s slaying on the lake. But they have gradually returned.

Several trucks with their trailers were parked in the ramps to the lake Thursday. One belonged to Ryan Erskine, 31, of San Antonio, who drives to Falcon Lake once a week with friends or his brother for the “world-class fishing.”

Knowing the Hartley attack occurred on the Mexican side of the lake, he said he wouldn’t stop coming to chase the fish.

“In the past, we used to cross, sure did, but not now,” Erskine said.

People told Ralph Bailiff, 70, of Tennessee, not to come to Zapata.

But “I’ve got a great guide. That is what you do: You come down, you pick out a guide — someone with a great reputation and everything — and you go out with them,” said Bailiff, who was on his first fishing trip to Falcon Lake.

“He’s not going to let anything happen to me,” Bailiff said. “I hadn’t paid.

“I don’t pay him until we get back in.”

Robert Amaya of Zapata was his guide.

“We are only going to fish in the U.S. side,” said Amaya, who has seen more fishermen coming back.

Months before the Hartley incident, Falcon Lake hosted the Bass Master Fishing Tournament, a national event televised by ESPN. That didn’t happen again this year.

The local chamber of commerce has paid to hold four fishing tourneys this year. Each competition attracts about 700 anglers.

That has boosted hotel occupancies, said Paco Mendoza, who heads the Zapata County chamber.

Nevertheless, local coffers have been hurt by drops in tourism and the number of oil drilling workers who seek temporary shelter there, he said.

‘THEY WERE FULLY AWARE’

After 12 months, many Zapata locals said they find Tiffany Hartley’s account of that fateful day hard to swallow.

Some told The Monitor on Thursday that they doubted the couple were sightseeing or that they would have come across cartel members by accident.

They doubted she would have been able to ride back and evade the shots from cartel members.

“They did not leave her alive, I can assure you that,” Maria Gonzalez said in Spanish.

The 54-year-old has lived nearly three decades in Zapata. She said that cartel members finish their jobs and don’t leave survivors.

“Of the cases I have known of, families have been under attack because one family member was involved,” Maria Gonzalez said.

She said her cousin’s family was attacked in Mexico because one of her sons was involved with drug trafficking.

“Because of that boy, 20 members of that family were killed,” she said. “The rest were innocent — they just happened to be where the one involved was.”

“That is why I am telling you, I don’t believe her, they must’ve been involved,” she said.

Mendoza said he doubts Tiffany’s account of what happened that day.

“Her story does not add up, and she kept changing her story,” he said.

Like many other locals, Flores questions why Tiffany and David would have crossed into Mexico after they lived in Reynosa, a city that has seen its share of cartel-related street violence.

“They were fully aware. What will possess them to go to the Mexican side when they were aware?” Flores said, speculating that the Hartleys were on the lake for more than historical tourism.

“There was a connection that he had with the Gulf Cartel, and he was trying to negotiate something out here with the Zeta cartel and maybe they got cross-wised, or he owed something,” Flores said. “We don’t know, these questions need to be answered before they slam Falcon Lake and rule it an unsafe waterway.”

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Martha L. Hernandez covers health, business and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4846.

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Jared Taylor covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4439.