Sanford Nowlin
Alamo City residents erected a makeshift memorial at the site where 53 migrants died of heat-related illness in the back of a tractor-trailer in June 2022.
Authorities accused Christian Martinez, 29, of serving as the middleman in the operation that transported migrants from Laredo to San Antonio between December 2021 and June 2022. He'll be sentenced in January for two counts of conspiracy to transport undocumented immigrants resulting in serious injury, according to the daily.
Martinez drove co-defendant Homero Zamorano to a gas station in San Antonio, where a tractor-trailer was waiting, on June 27, 2022, prosecutors allege. Zamorano then drove the tractor-trailer to Laredo to load at least 66 undocumented migrants, the Express-News reports.
Martinez provided Zamorano with the pickup location in Laredo, according to the paper.
However, on the way back to San Antonio, the truck's cooling system failed, prosecutors said. That equipment failure led to the heat-related deaths of 53 migrants, according to the allegations against the defendants.
"As temperatures inside the trailer rose, chaos ensued," a federal indictment in the case reads. "Some aliens screamed and banged on the walls for help. Some passed out, unconscious. Others clawed at the sides of the trailer trying to escape."
Once the trailer driven by Zamorano arrived in San Antonio, he abandoned the truck. Zamorano was arrested a few days after the incident, according to the Express-News.
Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter| Or sign up for our RSS Feed
