Suspect details U.S. Consulate-related shootings, officials say
A suspect arrested in the slaying of a U.S. Consulate official and two other people in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez says the intended target was the diplomat’s husband, an El Paso corrections officer, Mexican authorities said late Tuesday.
The suspect, Ricardo Valles de la Rosa, is a member of the notorious Aztecs drug gang, which got its start in jailhouses in El Paso and operates on both sides of the border.
Valles was quoted by authorities as telling investigators that an Aztecs leader ordered him and several other gunmen to pursue “the white truck in which Arthur Hancock Redelfs was traveling.”
The gunmen trailed the vehicle as it left a children’s birthday party March 13.
Valles told investigators that others in the group carried out the shooting, in which Redelfs and his wife, diplomat Lesley Enriquez, were killed.
Jorge Alberto Salcido, who was married to a Mexican employee of the consulate, was killed in a similar vehicle as it left the party.
Valles’ attorney could not be reached Tuesday night to verify his purported confession.
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