Family of Texas Hunters Takes Wrong Turn into Mexico, Gets Detained
OutdoorHub Reporters 12.04.15
A former Marine and his two children were detained in Mexico last Thursday after taking a wrong turn into Ciudad Acuna, Mexico. According to Click2Houston.com, 38-year-old Jeromie Slaughter of Texas City retired from the Marines just last year and had planned on making up for lost time with his 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. The trio were on their way to a deer lease in Rocksprings when Slaughter took the wrong road and crossed the border into Mexico. There, he claimed that Mexican authorities stopped him, searched his vehicle, and found three hunting rifles with several dozen rounds of ammunition. In a phone call with his mother, Beverly McKinney, Slaughter says he tried to explain to officials that he and his family was on a hunting trip, but was thrown into a jail cell regardless.
“I was beside myself,” McKinney said. “You know I waited for those kind of calls when he was in the military, not to go hunting.”
The children were released early Friday afternoon into the custody of their grandfather, who drove across the border from Del Rio. Slaughter himself was not released until much later in the day, and after Mexican authorities had allegedly asked for money.
“We’ve heard everything from $1,000 to $25,000, and we don’t get the same number twice,” McKinney told KHOU. “They want American money—cash.”
McKinney says that while officials may have called it bail, she thought it was a shakedown.
“He was not treated well,” she told Fox News Latino. “He wasn’t given anything to eat or drink. They strip searched him at least twice.”
The family was able to get in touch with a lawyer in Del Rio who secured Slaughter’s release. In the end, both the assistant secretary of state for Mexico and the US ambassador to Mexico were notified of the incident, which bore striking similarities to when US Marine reservist Andrew Tahmooressi was held in Mexican custody for five months in 2014. Tahmooressi entered Mexico through the San Ysidro border and was found with handguns in his possession.
Slaughter and his children are currently back in the United States, although it is not known if they face legal troubles for carrying the hunting firearms across the border. Slaughter has yet to recover his truck, which is still in the hands of Mexican officials.
