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<\/p>\nThe bodies of two Jesuit priests and a tour guide shot dead this week in a gang-ravaged area of northern Mexico were found on Wednesday after a major search, authorities said.
\nThe three were killed on Monday after a suspected run-in with a wanted drug trafficker in the border state of Chihuahua, a crime that drew swift condemnation from the Pope.
\n“We’ve found and recovered … the bodies of the Jesuit priests Javier Campos, Joaquin Mora and the tour guide Pedro Palma,” Chihuahua Governor Maria Eugenia Campos said in a video posted to social media.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis said he was shocked by the killings as authorities hunted for the murder suspect.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So many killings in Mexico,” Francis said at the end of his general audience for thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.<\/p>\n
The state prosecutor’s office in Chihuahua said the three were killed after Palma took refuge in a church in the town of Cerocahui to protect himself from an attack.<\/p>\n
The office named Jose Noriel Portillo Gil as a suspect in the murders, and offered a reward of five million pesos, or nearly $250,000, for information relating to his whereabouts.<\/p>\n
The state said in 2018 that Portillo, who is also the prime suspect in the murder of American teacher Patrick Braxton-Andrews, was involved in the drug trade.
\nThe three bodies were taken from the church by a group of men in the back of a pickup truck, Luis Gerardo Moro, head of the religious order in Mexico, said in a radio interview.<\/p>\n
Chihuahua Attorney General Roberto Fierro said authorities were also looking for two missing brothers believed kidnapped by Portillo on Monday, before the killings.<\/p>\n
Fierro said the men had recently played in a baseball game against a team sponsored by Portillo, which ended in an argument after Portillo’s team lost. Portillo on Monday shot at one of the brothers in a home, which he set on fire, Fierro said witnesses reported.
\nFierro also confirmed that a woman and child reported missing were safe.<\/p>\n
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The bodies of two Jesuit priests and a tour guide shot dead this week in a gang-ravaged area of northern Mexico were found on Wednesday after a major search, authorities said. The three were killed on Monday after a suspected run-in with a wanted drug trafficker in the border state of Chihuahua, a crime that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":23779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5304,9204,5517,9780,9214,6537,6083,11273,6159,2210,11493,10388,9515,10634,12309,1510,6831,5382,11973,5911,1565,12159,7296,1062,7295,2219,11259,5349,6790,10329,2485,8033,5273,594],"class_list":["post-23777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-attack","tag-border","tag-braxton","tag-chihuahua","tag-child","tag-church","tag-dead","tag-drug","tag-fire","tag-gil","tag-interview","tag-kidnapped","tag-killed","tag-lost","tag-men","tag-mexico","tag-missing","tag-murder","tag-one","tag-patrick","tag-pedro","tag-pesos","tag-pope","tag-pope-francis","tag-priest-murders","tag-roberto","tag-shot","tag-social-media","tag-teacher","tag-trade","tag-truck","tag-video","tag-woman","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}