John and Wanda Casias, two Texas missionaries, found murdered in Mexico
John and Wanda Casias, husband and wife, appear in this photograph on their website, casias.org. The couple were found murdered on Tuesday.
The bodies of murdered missionaries, a husband and wife from Texas, were discovered Tuesday in their home in the northern city of Monterrey, according to The Associated Press.
The US Embassy in Mexico City identified the pair today as John and Wanda Casias, according to the AP, and John's eldest child said from her home in Colorado that one of her brothers had found their parents' bodies in their home in Santiago, Nuevo Leon state.
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The family were originally from Amarillo, TX but had lived in Mexico since 1979, according to the AP, which said the daugher, Valerie Alirez had explained that John was a Baptist preacher and that the couple had run a church in Santiago.
The killings were the second of US missionaries in a year on the US border with Mexico, according to the news agency, which cited the example of a Texas couple who were attacked a year ago at an illegal roadblock set up by suspected drug cartel gunmen on the road between San Fernando and the border of or Reynosa in the State of Tamaulipas, near Nuevo Leon.
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ABC4 News in Salt Lake City, Utah reported that one of the couple’s activities in Mexico were partly funded by a church in Taylorsville.
The killings bore signs of a home invasion.
The son, who was not named by the television station, said his mother’s body had been found hanging in a kitchen yesterday afternoon and that his father’s body had been found later outside a riverside guesthouse. A safe and some electronics were missing. The couple had constructed at least four meetinghouses in Mexico, ABC4 reported, citing the son.