WP: Three with links to U.S. Consulate in Juarez are slain

The Washington Post had more information today on the three who were slain in the drug-violence in Cuidad Juarez Saturday. Two American citizens, a Consulate employee and her husband, as well as the husband of another consulate employee, were killed. All were members of the consulate community and everyone in the Department mourns their loss.

WP: Three with links to U.S. Consulate in Juarez are slain

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State Department officials said authorities were still investigating whether the victims were targeted by drug gangs, but it did not appear that the slain consular employee was involved in counternarcotics work. Her in-laws identified her as Lesley A. Enriquez, 35, of El Paso, just across the border. She was a locally hired employee of the consulate whose job involved helping U.S. citizens, American officials said.

Her husband, Arthur Redelfs, 34, worked for the El Paso County Sheriff's Department, according to his brother, Reuben Redelfs.

"We do not have any indication at this point they were targeted" for their work or their links to the U.S. Consulate, said one State Department official. Another U.S. official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is underway, said the case "appears to be one of mistaken identity."

About the same time that Enriquez and her husband were killed, gunmen also fatally shot the third victim, a Mexican man married to a Mexican employee at the consulate. U.S. officials did not identify him.

Even the hard-bitten local police in Juarez were moved by the deaths of the American couple, according to the Juarez newspaper El Diario. When the officers arrived at the victims' bullet-riddled Toyota van, they discovered a baby girl crying disconsolately in the back seat, the newspaper reported. At first, the police thought the infant was wounded, but she was unharmed. The 7-month-old girl was the couple's first child, and they expected another in five months, family members said.

"This is shocking to everyone," Reuben Redelfs, the brother of the victim, told The Washington Post in a telephone interview from El Paso. "People need to know what's going on down here. It's become a war zone. . . . It's just horrible what's happening."

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