Global Courant
An American doctoral student unknowingly walked “into a hornet’s nest” during a research trip to El Chapo’s former territory in Mexico, where he was shot seven times and left for dead in a black SUV.
Gabriel Trujillo, a 31-year-old botanist engaged to marry and raise a family, was on a mission to apply his research on the flowering shrub called the Buttonbush, which maintains water quality, wildlife habitat improves and prevents erosion. build a garden in Mexico and restore the area’s wetlands.
On June 22, authorities found the body of Trujillo in the Mexican state of Sonora, who has fallen into a trigger-happy frenzy following the arrest of Chapo Guzman, private investigator Jay Armes III told Fox News Digital.
Three cartels are at war in the northwestern state of the country, which has reported 518 murders through May, including two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Caborca Cartel, which El Chapo ran concurrently while in power said Armes III, who deals with kidnapping cases. around the world, but specializes in crime in Mexico.
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Gabriel Trujillo is doing field research for his PhD in Arizona (Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyas via AP)
“Now you have a situation where you have a minimum of three cartels fighting over the same area. You are also head of the Nuveo Genercion cartel from Jalisco, which is trying to take over the entire country of Mexico and is sticking their toe in the region,” Armes III said.
“So this guy went into a war zone at the worst possible time. Instead of just patrolling the Sinaloa cartel, you have three cartels patrolling the same space, fighting each other and looking for each other’s men and killing anyone who doesn’t belong to their group . .”
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He believes Trujillo, who was reported missing by his fiancée, Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyos, after she had not heard from him since the morning of June 18, was likely being pursued by cartel spotters since crossing the border into Arizona on June 17 .
The spotters, called “falcons” or “halcones” in Spanish, are kids, teens, adults, little old men on the payroll of the cartels who use coded walkie-talkies to report anything “extraordinary,” Armes III said.
Gabriel Trujillo with his fiancee, Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyos, who they wanted to announce they were getting married when he returned from his trip in August (Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyas via AP)
“If a spotter sees someone who doesn’t belong there, they send a patrol or a group of sicarios (hitmen) to kick people out,” he said. “If a group of sicarios comes at you, you’ll be categorized as a civilian, law enforcement officer, or a rival cartel member.
“If you are considered anything other than a commoner minding their own business, they will kill you. If you are a commoner, they may rob you for fun.”
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In Trujillo’s case, he believes sicarios thought he was an undercover DEA agent because they didn’t steal his SUV, which they use in their operations, and didn’t mutilate his body to display as a warning to rival cartels.
“Think about it. If you’re a hitman, and you’re patrolling an area in the middle of nowhere, 65 miles from the border, and you’ve got a guy messing around in the bushes because he’s investigating Buttonsbush with American license plates and if you tell them you do plant research, do you think they’re going to believe you?” said Armes III.
Gabriel Trujillo was shot in Mexico while on a research trip as part of his PhD program (GoFundMe)
“What I found strange was that they killed him and left him in his SUV, instead of pulling him out, killing him, dumping his body on the side of the road and stealing the vehicle,” he said.
“That tells me maybe they panicked or one of them in the car thought he was some sort of law enforcement officer, so they probably shot him and drove on.”
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The Sonora state attorney general’s office said in a statement Thursday that it is analyzing evidence “to determine the facts, circumstances and causes of death.” The statement gave no details about what happened and called Trujillo’s death not a murder.
There has been no official update since Saturday. Armes III said he called a few independent sources in the area, who told them it was one of the cartels, but who and why remains a mystery.
Gabriel Trujillo, a 31-year-old doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, was shot dead in Mexico during a plant field study. (Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyas via AP)
“YOUR LIFE AND WORK THAT YOU BUILT (WITH AND NEXT TO ROXY) INSPIRES ME”
While law enforcement officers work through a clouded investigation, his family, friends, acquaintances and teachers must pick things up.
“Gabriel had a passion for nature and culture and a relentless drive for science,” says his obituary. His deep appreciation for the natural world led him to explore the wonders of the outdoors.
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“He found solace in the beauty of nature, always eager to learn and protective of the environment that was so dear to him. Gabriel’s love of culture was contagious and he immersed himself in learning about different traditions and customs, always seeking a broader understanding of the world.”
A GoFundMe, which has raised nearly $60,000 (original goal was $35,000), as of Saturday afternoon, is filled with condolences and love from people who never met him or once took a class with him in grade school to educators to good friends.
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His fiancé’s best friend, who goes by Brijean on Facebook, posted a heartfelt tribute on his page (read in full below).
“Your gentleness and courtesy and presence illuminate and remind us to be calm and curious and kind to each other,” Brijean wrote. “The life and work you’ve built (with and alongside Roxy) inspires me to build a better world.”
Best Friend of Gabriel Trujillo’s Fiance Wrote This Tribute for Gabriel, Who Was Killed While on a Investigative Trip in Mexico (Brijean/Facebook)
Best Friend of Gabriel Trujillo’s Fiance Wrote This Tribute for Gabriel, Who Was Killed While on a Investigative Trip in Mexico (Brijean/Facebook)
He said in a Facebook post that it took Trujillo’s fiance “days to find him.”
Roxy, as she is known to family and friends, “stood by his side through thick and thin,” Trujillo’s obituary reads. “Their love was a testament to the power of commitment and partnership.”
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LOVE BLOSSOM
Trujillo was a PhD student at the University of California Berkeley as a fellow of the Ford Foundation and is on track to complete the program in 2025.
UC Berkeley is where he met Roxy, a postdoctoral researcher who studies widespread tree dieback and collected Buttonbush samples together.
Gabriel Trujillo conducts field research in Arizona (Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyas via AP)
Cruz-de Hoyos has been undergoing fertility treatments for the past two years, and this summer’s trip to Mexico would be Trujillo’s last before the couple began trying to conceive, the Associated Press reported.
They had bought a house together, ordered custom engagement rings, and proposed a wedding officiated by a native elder by the end of the year.
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They planned to announce their happy news in August, when Trujillo returned from his trip.
“We were committed to dedicating our lives to environmental conservation and environmental research,” she told the Associated Press. “We felt that indigenous hands have cared for these lands from time immemorial.”
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Trujillo was drawn to Sonora and hoped to connect with his native Opata roots through the group’s ancestral lands.
With shared ancestry in the indigenous Nahua group, which has ties to the Aztec civilization of central Mexico, the pair vowed to merge their identities and scientific studies as part of their future together.
GET TO KNOW GABRIEL TRUJILLO IN HIS OWN WORDS
Trujillo wrote about his interests and research on the UC Berkeley website.
Gabriel Trujillo’s photo on the UC Berkeley website (U.C. Berkeley)
“My broader interests include studying the forces driving evolution in tropical plants and insects,” he wrote on his information page.
“More specifically, the rare transition from tropical woody plants to the temperate zone. These types of transitions shape the diversity and structure of forests around the world.
“I am particularly interested in the genera Cephalanthus, a group of woody angiosperms with ranges from boreal to tropical zones.
My research focuses on how functional plant traits associated with frost tolerance are lost or gained, and how these traits enable the expansion of species range from their tropical origins to temperate regions.”
Global Courant
“Gabriel was and is more than words can express,” says his GoFundMe. “He was brilliant, sincere, talented, adventurous, courageous, generous and above all, unfailingly kind and loving to everyone.”
Armes III said “It’s a sad situation that someone with that kind of potential has been senselessly murdered”, and expressed his condolences to his family and friends.
Chris Eberhart is a crime and American news reporter for Fox News Digital. Email tips to [email protected] or on twitter @ChrisEberhart48
American PhD student killed during research in a warring Mexican state once ruled by El Chapo: ‘A wasp’s nest’
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