As darkness descended on a remote ranch in far West Texas, a migrant from Mexico sat bleeding from a shotgun blast to her stomach. She texted a farewell to her aunt: “I am dying. They shot me. Please don’t tell my mother. Everyone else is OK, except for one other guy that they shot. He’s dead, and I might be soon.”
Twin brothers Mike and Mark Sheppard, 60 years old and living in nearby Sierra Blanca, claimed in an affidavit to police they had been hunting out at a reservoir on the ranch on the evening of September 27 when Mike fired twice with a shotgun at what he said he thought was a javelina in the bushes. One migrant from Mexico, Jesús Sepúlveda Martinez, 22, was killed while another, Berenice Casias Carrillo, was hit in the stomach and hospitalized. The Sheppards were later arrested at their Sierra Blanca home 5 miles north for manslaughter, with additional charges later filed for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
