Three families massacred in the north of Mexico

Despite watching his mother and brothers being shot to death, a young boy saved eight others and walked for hours to get help.

A boy, who witnessed his mum’s murder by a Mexican cartel, managed to save the lives of other children and also walked kilometres to get help.

Mexican police and heartbroken relatives said three mums, all with dual US-Mexican citizenship and living in a Mormon community just south of the border, had been travelling in the north of Mexico in a convoy when they were targeted.

Police said the mums — Christina Langford Johnson, Dawna Ray Langford and Rhonita LeBaron — had been driving the three SUVs on a remote and unpaved mountain road at around 1pm on Monday local time when they were attacked.

The cars, filled with their children, had been travelling from the Mormon community of La Mora in the Mexican state of Sonora down to Pancho Villa in Chihuahua.

The three mums and six of their children — including infant twins — were murdered in the ambush.

But eight young children survived by hiding. Five of the surviving children were badly wounded including one child shot in the face.

Devin Blake Langford, 13, is being hailed a hero after he managed to help his siblings before walking 22kms back to La Mora to get help. Devin is the son of Dawna Ray Langford.

“After witnessing his mother and brothers being shot dead, Devin hid his six other siblings in the bushes and covered them with branches to keep them safe while he went for help,” a relative said.

“When he took too long to return, his 9-year-old sister left the remaining five to try again.”

His sister, McKenzie Rayne Langford, was eventually rescued after getting lost in the mountains.

McKenzie and Devin’s 14-year-old sister had been shot in the foot leaving her stuck to sit in the bushes.

A short distance away, their 43-year-old mum lay dead in the front seat of an SUV, along with the bullet-riddled bodies of her sons, ages 11 and two.

A group of male relatives set out to try to rescue the youngsters but turned back when they heard gunfire ahead.

Dawna Langford and her son Trevor. Both were killed in the massacre.

The three families had left the community together but a flat tyre delayed one of the families.

The car that fell behind was the first to be found by police shot up and burnt out with the bodies of one woman — identified as Rhonita LeBarón — with her twin babies and two other small children dead inside.

A relative of Ms LeBaron, who did not want his name used for fear of retaliation, said in an interview that when they finally made it to the scene where the ambush started they found a burnt-out Chevy Tahoe.

Inside, they saw the charred remains of Rhonita Miller, 30, her 10-year-old daughter, a son, 12, and her eight-month-old twins. They were “burnt to a crisp,” the relative said.

The gunmen had riddled the vehicle with dozens of bullets and apparently hit the gas tank, causing it to explode.

“When we were there, the cartels from Sonora, there were probably 50 or 60 of them, armed to the teeth, about a mile on this side,” said the relative.

The bloodshed took place in a remote, mountainous area in northern Mexico where the Sinaloa cartel has been engaged in a turf war.

Rhonita LeBaron died along with four of her children.

Ms Miller’s car after they were attacked by cartels. Picture: Herika Martinez/AFP

Less than 20km down the road, police found the other two mums and some of their dead children.

Christina Langford Johnson was found a few metres from her van after trying to leave her driver’s seat and wave her arms to show she wasn’t a threat.

She had been shot to death but her seven-month-old daughter, Faith Marie Johnson, was discovered uninjured in her car seat.

Kendra Miller, a relative, wrote that the baby’s car seat “seemed to be put on the floor by her mother to try and protect her. ... She gave her life to try and save the rest”.

Christina Langford had tried to show she wasn’t a threat.

Aaron Staddon, a relative living in Arizona, said the five wounded children were recovering at a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, and that the one who was shot in the jaw would require extensive plastic surgery.

‘THE WORST THING YOU CAN HAVE IS WAR’: Mexico’s gang conflicts

Mexican authorities said today they believe a drug cartel called “La Linea” was responsible for the murders, saying the massacre was committed with American-made ammunition.

The head of the Mexican military’s joint chiefs of staff, Homero Mendoza, said authorities now believe the massacre was perpetrated by La Linea (The Line), a drug cartel based in Chihuahua.

He said investigations indicated the group had sent a squadron to the lawless mountain region where the attack occurred to fend off potential incursions by a rival gang, Los Salazar, which is based in Sonora.

“It’s believed that in response to this threat... (La Linea) decided to send a cell to the area between (the villages of) Janos and Bavispe to detain any incursion or penetration by Los Salazar into Chihuahua, which is what we believe was responsible for this attack on the LeBaron family,” he told a news conference.

Authorities had initially blamed a different criminal group active in the region, Los Jaguares, but had moved beyond that theory by yesterday.

They had also said they were investigating whether a man was involved who was arrested in another part of Sonora with two bound and gagged hostages and an arsenal of firearms. However, Durazo ruled out a link between the two cases.

Earlier, Mexican Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo said the gunmen may have mistaken the group’s large SUVs for those of rival gangs.

While drug-related violence has been raging for years in Mexico, the attack underscored the way cartel gunmen have become increasingly unconcerned about killing children as collateral damage.

Around the ambush scene, which stretched for kilometres, investigators found over 200 shell casings, mostly from assault rifles.

“Lately it’s getting worse. This is a whole new level,” said Taylor Langford, a relative of the dead who splits his time between the Mexican community and his home in the Salt Lake City suburb of Herriman, Utah.

In a tweet, President Donald Trump offered to help Mexico “wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth”.

This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2019

But Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected that approach, saying his predecessors waged war, “and it didn’t work”.

“The worst thing you can have is war,” he said. “That is not an option.”

López Obrador has turned away from the militarised anti-narcotics tactics of his predecessors which failed to stop organised crime and led to widespread human rights abuses.

The President, widely known as Amlo, vowed to “pacify” the country by waging war on the social roots of crime, but his strategy has so far failed to rein in the violence, and in the first nine months of this year, Mexico suffered an average of close to 100 murders a day.

— With AP