PHOENIX — Authorities have located a relative of a 9-year-old boy rescued by an illegal immigrant after the boy’s mother died in a southern Arizona crash.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada says the brother of the dead woman was on his way from New Mexico to pick up the boy.
Estrada identified the woman as 45-year-old Dawn Alice Tomko of Rimrock.
Her son Christopher was found wandering in a remote canyon Thanksgiving evening by a Mexican man. The boy led the man back to his mother’s crashed van. She was alive but soon died.
Jesus Manuel Cordova stayed with Christopher overnight, lighting a fire and keeping him warm until they spotted a hunting party Friday.
He surrendered to arriving Border Patrol agents and agreed to be returned to Mexico.
