Mexico searches for killers of 9 family members

The Mexican government launched an air and land operation Tuesday in the northern part of the country where gunmen believed to be members of a drug cartel killed three mothers and six children from a prominent local Mormon family on Monday.

Members of the LeBarón family, dual Mexican and American citizens who have lived in a Mormon community in the border region for decades, were traveling in three separate vehicles on a remote road when the gunmen ambushed them in the northern town of Sonora, about 100 miles south of the Arizona border, family members said.

The victims all left the community at the same time, driving in three separate SUVs. Some were traveling back to the United States, while others were heading to a neighboring town to attend a wedding.

Family members said one child was gunned down while running away. Two of the children killed were less than a year old, they said. The car they were in with their mother was set ablaze.

"When you know there are babies tied in a car seat that are burning because of some twisted evil that's in this world, it's just hard to cope with that," a cousin of the women, Kenny LeBarón, told The New York Times.

David Langford, whose sister Christina died in the attack, said that eight children had survived, including his sister's 7-month-old infant. Several of the children survived after hiding by a tree, and one, about 12 years old, hiked several miles to get help, he said.

One of the children who got away had been shot in the leg and the face and was in critical condition, Langford said. He blamed drug cartels in the area for the attack, calling their members "some of the most wicked men on the face of the planet".

It was unclear whether the ambush was a case of mistaken identity – a drug cartel believing the group's caravan of three SUVs for rivals – or the attackers intentionally targeted the family, which has historically spoken out about the criminal groups that plague the northern border states of Sonora and Chihuahua.

The massacre came a decade after two other members of the LeBarón family were kidnapped and murdered after they confronted the drug gangs in the area.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during a Tuesday morning news conference that the region where the attack took place "has been a very violent area for many years".

Alfonso Durazo, Mexico's security minister, said Tuesday that "there were serious advances in the investigation" and that the women's SUVs "could have been confused by the criminal groups that are fighting in the region".

US President Donald Trump offered on Tuesday to help Mexico eradicate the cartels.

"This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth," he said on Twitter. "We merely await a call from your great new president! The cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!"

López Obrador said it was up to Mexico to deal with the matter.

"We appreciate and thank very much President Trump and any foreign government that wants to help, but in these cases we have to act with independence, according to our constitution and our tradition of independence and sovereignty," he said

Julian LeBarón, a cousin of the three women who were driving the vehicles, said in a telephone interview with The New York Times from Bavispe, Mexico, that the women and their children had been traveling from La Mora, in Sonora State, to Colonia LeBarón, in Chihuahua State.

His cousin Rhonita LeBarón was traveling to Phoenix to pick up her husband, who works in North Dakota and was returning to celebrate the couple's anniversary. Her car broke down, LeBarón said, and the gunmen "opened fire on Rhonita and torched her car''.

She was killed, along with her four children, he said: an 11-year-old boy, a 9-year-old girl and twins who were less than a year old.

About eight miles ahead, the two other cars also were attacked. The two other women, Christina Langford and Dawna Langford, were killed. A 4-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl also were killed, LeBarón said.

The children were taken to hospitals, and several or all of them were airlifted to the United States, David Langford said.

"They intentionally murdered those people," LeBarón said. "We don't know what their motives were."

One of the women even got out of her car, he said, and put up her hands. "They shot her point blank in the chest," he said.

The family's religious community isn't affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the mainstream church with 16 million adherents that is headquartered in Utah.

Their community began in the early 20th century, when members of the LeBarón family moved to Mexico and practiced polygamy, which was forbidden by the Latter-day Saints.

In 1924, Alma Dayer LeBarón, who was one of the Mormons excommunicated by the church for continuing to practice polygamy, founded Colonia LeBarón in the Mexican municipality of Galeana, Sonora.

Kenny LeBarón said much of the family now lives in North Dakota, working in the oil fields and running their own businesses, but they frequently travel to the border area for holidays, vacations and other special events.

"We're a huge family, but we're very close," he said.