Two US citizens kidnapped in Mexico have been found dead while two more have been found alive, a governor has confirmed.
Américo Villarreal, the governor of Tamaulipas state, confirmed that officials had discovered two dead bodies, a wounded victim and another who is still alive.
In a press conference, the governor said the two survivors were Latavia 'Tay' McGee, and Eric James Williams, who had a gunshot in his leg, local media reported.
The two survivors were transported with Red Cross ambulances accompanied by FBI vehicles to the border near Brownsville, Texas.
The discovery came after an intelligence unit made up of the FBI and Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) and the Mexican Navy (Marina) was put together to track down the missing group and to find the kidnappers.
Villarreal confirmed the deaths by phone during a morning news conference by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, saying details about the four abducted Americans had been confirmed by prosecutors.
"Of the four, two of them are dead, one person is wounded and the other is alive and right now the ambulances and the rest of the security personnel are going for them for give the corresponding support," Villarreal said.
It comes after it emerged one of the four Americans was in the country for a stomach operation.
McGee headed to Mexico on Wednesday for the tummy tuck, according to her friends and family, who confirmed she was joined by her cousin Shaeed Woodard, and friends Zindell Brown and Eric James Williams.
The friends wanted to split the driving responsibilities as they travelled from their homes in South Carolina to Mexico for Latavia's surgery.
The four were travelling Friday in a white minivan with North Carolina licence plates when they came under fire shortly after entering the city of Matamoros from Brownsville, at the southernmost tip of Texas near the Gulf coast, the FBI said in a statement Sunday.
"All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men," the FBI said.
The bureau is offering a $50,000 (£41,000) reward for the victims' return and the arrest of the kidnappers.
The Mexican Secretary of Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, stated that one person has been detained in relation to the kidnapping case, El Universal reported.
The suspect was reportedly found at the location where the victims were, allegedly watching over them, and is being held in custody.
Zalandria Brown of Florence, South Carolina, said she has been in contact with the FBI and local officials after learning that her younger brother, Zindell Brown, is one of the four victims.
"This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from," she said in a phone interview.
"To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable."
Zalandria Brown said her brother, who lives in Myrtle Beach, and two friends had accompanied a third friend who was going to Mexico for a tummy tuck surgery.
A doctor who advertises such surgeries in Matamoros did not answer calls seeking comment.
Zalandria said the group was extremely close and they all made the trip in part to help split up the driving duties. They were aware of the dangers in Mexico, she added, and her brother had expressed some misgivings.
"Zindell kept saying, We shouldn't go down,"' Brown said.
A video posted to social media Friday showed men with assault rifles and tan body armour loading the four people into the bed of a white pickup in broad daylight.
One was alive and sitting up, but the others seemed either dead or wounded.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. is working with Mexican officials to learn more about the circumstances surrounding the killings.
“Attacks on U.S citizens are unacceptable, no matter where, under what circumstances they occur,” Kirby said.
Robert Williams said in a telephone interview that his brother, 38-year-old Eric Williams, was among the kidnapped Americans. The brothers are from South Carolina but now live in the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina, he said.
Williams described his brother as “easygoing” and “fun-spirited.”
He didn’t know his brother was travelling to Mexico until after the abduction hit the news. But from looking at his brother’s Facebook posts, he thinks his brother did not consider the trip dangerous.
“He thought it would be fun,” Williams said. He hadn’t heard anything about his brother’s whereabouts, he said.
The two US citizens who survived a violent kidnapping in Mexico have been "repatriated back to the United States," State Department Spokesperson Ned Price confirms.
"We are in the process of working to repatriate the remains of the two Americans who were killed," Price adds.
