Francisco Javier Leyva, Mexico – Raul Gomez-Garcia returned to the town of his childhood early one morning in May and surprised his aunt, who hadn’t seen him since he was 7. A day later, without explanation, he quietly left as quickly as he had come, she and other relatives said.
“We were very happy to see him and that he had returned to see us. He spent the day with his brother and with us. We celebrated. But the next day he was gone,” said Lorenza Garcia Acevedo, 36.
He didn’t tell Garcia Acevedo that he was wanted by authorities in connection with the killing of a police officer in the United States. She says she was so glad to see him after 13 years that she didn’t ask questions.
What conversation Gomez-Garcia had with his older brother, 21-year-old Reyes Gomez Garcia, during his stay in this isolated mountain village of about 400 people in Durango state isn’t clear. Reyes remained silent when asked whether he knew why his brother showed up on May 11, whether he knew in advance that Gomez-Garcia was coming or whether he knew where the 20-year-old man was headed when he left.
Reyes Gomez Garcia called on U.S. officials to release his teenage sister, his father and his uncle, who were arrested on suspicion of harboring Raul Gomez- Garcia from police.
“If they’ve already caught him, they should let the others go,” he said. “Leave my family in peace.”
U.S. and Mexican authorities – who pursued Raul Gomez- Garcia through Mexico in a manhunt that ended Saturday with his capture in the western city of Culiacán – have said he stayed in Francisco Javier Leyva for up to two weeks. They also said family members in the town did not cooperate with them, possibly prolonging their search.
But Garcia Acevedo, whose sister is Raul Gomez-Garcia’s mother, and other family members said Thursday that they told police the truth. Agents descended on the city four or five times beginning about five days after Gomez-Garcia left, they said, taking several of them into a nearby town for interrogation.
The agents believed that Gomez-Garcia was still hiding in town long after he had left, said Enrique Carrasco Carrasco, Garcia Acevedo’s husband.
“We have nothing to hide,” he said.
Others interviewed in town on Thursday said either that they hadn’t seen Gomez-Garcia recently, they they didn’t know him or that they believed he was there for just a day.
They remember him as a 7-year-old boy running through town, playing soccer and riding horses like the children playing in the streets Thursday.
“He was like any other boy,” said Alicia Carrasco, a cousin. “He seemed to us very calm and friendly the day he was here. Who knows what he was thinking in that instant” when he allegedly killed the police officer.
During his day in Francisco Javier Leyva, his relatives said, Gomez-Garcia took a hike with his brother in the rugged, cactus-covered hills surrounding the town, ate meals with the family, played soccer on a dirt field, and sat and watched as Carrasco Carrasco worked on a house he is building.
“He didn’t know how to work. He just sat there while I was working,” Carrasco Carrasco said.
Raul Gomez-Garcia left the village with his family when he was 7. They made their way to the border and crossed at night in a seven-hour walk across the desert, Reyes Gomez Garcia said. Eventually they made it to Los Angeles, where four of six brothers and sisters remain.
The older brother returned to the village, where cows outnumber people, from Los Angeles on a vacation four years ago and met a local woman whom he married. He hopes to return to Los Angeles with his wife and children as soon as they can afford to make the journey.
“I feel very sad about what has happened because I care very much about my brother,” he said.
