Sister’s Heartache: Grieving for an American Killed in Mexico Kidnapping

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Zindell Brown, a 28-year-old from Lake City, South Carolina was about to go on his first trip outside the US with some of his friends to Mexico. He talked to his sister one last time before traveling and he said he was feeling a bit uneasy about it. His older sister, Zalandria Brown recalled that conversation to an Associated Press reporter over the phone.

Brown tried her best to keep her brother safe, so she asked him not to go on a road trip to Mexico with his group of friends earlier this month. However, he ignored her advice and still decided go anyway. One of the people in their group was going for cosmetic surgery and another one was celebrating his 34th birthday.

Brown was inside a rented white van, and it was the last place she saw her little brother alive. During the 22-hour drive from South Carolina to Texas, Brown watched a video her brother shared online where he was smiling into the camera.

But when they reached Mexico, their group ran into trouble; a vehicle crashed into theirs and several men wearing tactical vests and carrying assault rifles surrounded them according to Mexican police reports.

Two people – Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard – were fatally shot. Eric Williams was hit on the leg while Latavia McGee managed to escape without being hurt. The video of this tragedy showed them being put into a pickup truck. All of it was thought to be caused by the Gulf cartel, which is known for being involved in kidnappings and other scary activities in Matamoros city where a lot of the cartel members reside. Apparently, the group has offered an apology for the killings in a letter that was collected by the Associated Press from a Mexican law enforcement source.

Before Zalandria Brown even watched the ambush video that everyone on the internet was talking about, she already had a terrible feeling in her gut that her brother was no more. She called him “the male version of herself” and misses him being around as a buddy for hunting game and for being an awesome uncle to her two teenage sons.

She said, “He always brought happiness to others. He was always making people laugh and play with him”.

Before the trip, Zindell stayed home playing video games as a break from his other hobby: carpentry. His dad taught him how to work with wood and wanted him to continue this family tradition.

She said her father taught McGee lots of skills, like how to do carpentry, roofing, and all kinds of house building. All three of them were from a small town called Lake City with less than 6,000 people in it. Everyone there was really sad about the bad thing that happened.

At the library on Main Street, people were talking about something sad, and a few blocks away near the police station, someone gave Shaeed’s dad some purple flowers.

This month was supposed to be Shaeed Woodard’s 34th birthday, according to his dad James Woodard. His cousin Latavia McGee had planned a road trip as a way to celebrate it. Shaeed and Zindell used to be really close friends, while Brown thought of him like her own brother.

On the night of March 5th, a family friend called to tell Brown some bad news. McGee had been kidnapped and was late for a doctor’s appointment in Mexico. Everything that happened since then has seemed like a nightmare according to both families. They did not accept the apology from the cartel who had taken him away in a violent manner. Woodard said McGee was a sweetheart with a big heart so he didn’t deserve it at all.