Missing Texas Mother of 2 Found Dead With Signs of Torture in Mexico: Officials

A bundle of police crime scene tape in a file photo. Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images

A missing Texas mother of two was found dead in Mexico a week ago, according to officials and her mother, who added that she appeared to have been tortured.

Lizbeth Flores, 23, left her home in Brownsville, Texas, on Aug. 9 to visit her boyfriend in Matamoros, Mexico, her mother told Telemundo 40 in McAllen. According to Mexican authorities, she was found dead in Matamoros, and her cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma, reported KRGV.

After she went to visit her boyfriend, she didn’t return home that evening. It prompted her mother, Maria Rubio, to file a missing person report.

“Losing a child is like having your heart ripped out,” Flores’s mother said, according to People magazine. “I feel such sadness because of what they did to my daughter. The way they left her… The pain that my daughter went through there, in that moment. That’s what hurts.”

Lizbeth Flores, 23, in file photos. Facebook selfie

“She was young. She had many things in front of her, and more because she had two children,” Flores’s grieving mother continued. “I want that, what they did to my daughter, everyone that took part in her death, I want them to pay.”

Rubio said in the Telemundo report that she wants her daughter’s body to be returned back to the United States so she can identify her.

The FBI has not responded to a request for comment.

Increase in Crime

The U.S. Department of State has issued a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, according to the agency, people should “exercise increased caution in Mexico due to crime and kidnapping ... Some areas have increased risk.”

In May, homicides in Mexico hit record levels in the first four months of 2020, climbing by 2.4 percent from the same period last year, official data showed on Wednesday, dealing a setback to the government’s efforts to restore order.

A stock photo shows forensic experts are seen at the scene of the crime in Guadalajara, Jalisco state, on Jan. 18, 2019. Ulises Ruiz/ AFP/Getty Images

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pledged to bring down gang-fueled violence afflicting Mexico when he took office in December 2018, but homicides hit a record level in 2019 and have continued to climb even during the coronavirus lockdown.

In the first four months of this year, 11,535 murders were registered, up from 11,266 homicide in same period last year, preliminary data from the security ministry showed. Just over 34,600 murders were logged in Mexico in all of last year.

Reuters contributed to this report.