By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Sheriff’s office deputies recovered the body of a woman from the Rio Grande over the past week, just days after a man’s body was retrieved from the Mexico side of the river.
“We had one male who was recovered on the Mexico side, and then we had a woman we recovered Thursday. She is currently considered a ‘Jane Doe,’ as we have not been able to identify her,” Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Waylon Bullard told the 830 Times on Friday.
He said the woman, whose body was recovered on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, carried no identifying information.
Bullard said the sheriff’s office was notified about the woman’s body about 2 or 3 a.m. Thursday.
Bullard said the bulk of the illegal immigrant flow has moved from the shallow sandbars across from the former Bordelon house on Vega Verde Road along the river to an area where the river is deeper and more dangerous just downstream of the Del Rio International Bridge.
He said it was this area where both bodies were found and recovered over the past week.
“The woman’s body has been sent off to the coroner’s office to see if they can get any identification or anything. She had no identification on her, and there was not a soul there (on site) that would admit they knew her,” Bullard said.
Bullard said although very little is known about the woman, it is believed she was crossing the Rio Grande in an attempt to enter the U.S. illegally.
Bullard said sheriff’s office deputies have recovered a total of four bodies since Jan. 1.
“Three are believed to be drownings (in the Rio Grande) and one was on a ranch off U.S. 277 north of Del Rio,” Bullard said.
The body recovered from the ranch on March 5 was that of a Mexican national. Identification was found on the body, the chief deputy said.
Two of the four recovered bodies remain unidentified – the woman recovered Thursday and a body recovered on Jan. 13.
“We don’t have him identified yet, either,” Bullard said.
“The fourth body, which we recovered from the river and have identified, on March 18, was of a 23-month-old named Eloah Lenda Montenegro, of Brazil. The child was being carried by his father. The father was seen to have gone under the water, and we have not located the father yet,” Bullard said.
Last year, Bullard said, a total of 17 bodies from six different countries were recovered by the sheriff’s office.
“They came from Haiti, Cuba, Mexico, Senegal, Brazil, and six we’re still not sure what country they were from,” Bullard said.
If the numbers of immigrants crossing the Rio Grande illegally increases, the number of drownings and other deaths is likely to increase as well.
“They are crossing all day and all night, 24/7. They were crossing with flashlights while the deputies were recovering the (woman’s) body,” Bullard said.
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