KOLD News 13 live, local and late breaking-Killers May Be Rival Smugglers

Killers May Be Rival Smugglers

By Carol Scimone

Pinal County Sheriff's investigators spent a second day collecting evidence from the scene of a double murder. The attack happened Wednesday afternoon near Red Rock. Detectives say 12 undocumented immigrants were waiting for a smuggler to pick them up, when someone opened fire. Two entrants were killed and one escaped. The other nine are still missing, and investigators believe those nine may have been kidnapped by the gunmen. Today, the Border Patrol said an agent interviewed the man who escaped. He claimed the shooting happened between rival smugglers.

Sasco Road is the Main Street in Red Rock, but until recently, it was a road rarely traveled. Now, it's becoming crowded with smugglers transporting their illegal cargo into the United States. The scene of Wednesday's shooting is a popular transfer point; smugglers who picked up the entrants just this side of the border, drop them off in a place like the stock pond on Sasco Road, where they either continue on their own, or wait for another smuggler to take them further north. Sitting just a few yards from the increasingly busy Sasco Road, is a little red schoolhouse, built more than 40 years ago, but protected to handle the reality of the 21st century.

"Fortunately for us, school was not in session and people weren't coming to us telling horror stories." Mark Brauner is the principal at Red Rock Elementary School. He's also the director of special education and he teaches kindergarten. He says the 80 students at Red Rock Elementary haven't really talked about the killings, that happened in broad daylight, just down the road. "Even though the news has been covering it, it's been pretty low key around here. The kids really have not been involved and they have not really spoken about it, even the older students."

Residents here live in a remote area, popular among the coyotes; the two legged kind, who sell dreams to desperate people. Red Rock is in Pinal County, just across the Pima County Line. The town is at least a half hour from the nearest sheriff's deputy. So in 1999 when two boys opened fire on their classmates at a Colorado high school, the administrators and school board of Red Rock Elementary took notice. "It really focused our attention to the fact that we did, over the years, have different kinds of people come on to the campus who we didn't want on campus."

The school board hired a security company to put up a fence around the school; not to keep the kids in, but to keep trouble out. "Stray bullets could fly, but at least we have some protection, we have a first line of defense to secure the kids."

Double murders are not common in Red Rock. But police say on Wednesday, the shooters had targets; what they call UDA's or undocumented aliens. Michael Minter, spokesman for the Pinal County Sheriff's Department, says investigators do not believe residents of the area are in any danger. "At this point in time from the information I've got, I think the residents are okay. This is more of a UDA thing. It's really got nothing to do with the residents in the area." Principal Brauner says that's both good and bad. "On one hand, they probably feel relived, but on the other, it's kind of frightening because this kind of thing does go on and you never know where it's going to happen next."

Detectives investigating the double murder say they've had dozens of leads, but checking them out will take a long time. They finished collecting evidence from the crime scene today.