Ash Kelley

As someone with kids, no, I'm not either.

It's just not happening.

We can take a family vacation.

So while the police took the report seriously, they still were confident that he would show back up soon.

Yeah, they probably thought he was, like, drunk and, like, passed out somewhere.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But when Mark's friends mentioned Mexico, the detectives did become somewhat more concerned.

Author Jim Schutz, and we will link his book in the show notes, he said, No matter how casually the kids themselves took this business of crossing into Mexico to raise hell, no one in law enforcement in South Texas took Mexico cases lightly.

Hmm.

Because you're in a completely different jurisdiction.

Yeah, of course.

A completely different area.

Now, throughout the 1980s specifically, drug trafficking and organized crime had spiked in Mexico due mostly to a massive economic crisis that put a lot of people out of work and led to few options for legitimate employment.

Criminal gangs that were once very poorly organized and focused mostly on petty crime had become a lot more formal, and now there were lots of different networks for trafficking.

Guns, drugs, people, you name it.

Gang violence was a problem all over the country, but it was particularly challenging at the American border.

Oh, I'm sure.

Because large amounts of drugs and other illicit substances were flowing into the country there.

So it wasn't that uncommon for tourists or unlucky American workers to get kidnapped and ransomed back to their families.