On November 4, 2019, about south of the Mexico–United States border, gunmen opened fire on a three-car convoy en route to a wedding carrying residents of the isolated La Mora community, which is predominantly composed of American Mexican "independent Mormons." Nine people were killed with some burned alive in a car (three women and six children, all of whom held dual US–Mexican citizenship). A drug cartel is believed to be behind the attack.
Background
Rancho La Mora
Some of Rancho La Mora families' ancestors include forebears surnamed Johnson who helped to settle Colonia Oaxaca (now "Rancho Oaxaca"), in the Bavispe Municipality, Sonora, Mexico), part of the historical Mormon colonies, in 1892. Rancho La Mora (also in the Bavispe Municipality) was founded by Langford family members immigrating there from other Sonoran Latter-day Saint colonias in the 1930s. Its proportion of fundamentalist Latter Day Saints swelled when some new residents left previous homes in Arizona after the 1953 "Short Creek raid." , rancho La Mora, Sonora, contained 30 to 40 homes on about a thousand acres, and with a full-time population of about 150 people. The victims' were all from this rancho, their also having intermarriage ties with the factions of the Church of the Firstborn (headquartered in Colonia Le Barón, Chihuahua), despite the fact that the Mormon beliefs of the dominant religion in the LeBarón community differs, especially with regard to its professed chain of ecclesiastical authority, with those of the independent Mormons dominant in the La Mora community. The LeBarón family's enclave in state of Chihuahua was founded by Alma LeBaron, who moved there in the 1920s. Among the hundreds of dual-national and bilingual residents within the pair of sibling communities are independent fundamentalist Mormons, members of the Church of the Firstborn, and members of the mainstream Latter-day Saints. In addition, perhaps a few thousand individuals remain aligned with these religious communities who reside in various places within the United States.
Narco smuggling routes
Reportedly the La Mora community had achieved a type of understanding with the area's currently dominant outlaw band, Los Salazar, (Sinaloa Cartel), who have enjoyed some history of influence with Mexico's federal government. In months leading up to the attack, Sinaloa instructed residents to refrain from buying fuel across state lines in Chihuahua. Newly arrived enforcers who were unfamiliar to area residents and now manned the smuggling route's usual checkpoints occasionally pointed weapons at residents using the road. Transpiring immediately preceding the massacre was a shootout between Los Salazar and rival drug-route enforcers La Línea, said to have been formed originally by municipal peace officers from Ciudad Juárez, who are dominant in Chihuahua and were an outgrowth of the Juárez Cartel, and which has been warring with Sinaloa over control of the smuggling routes toward San Diego. (According to the BBC's Will Grant, one possible explanation for the atrocity is that "La Línea were targeting the Mormons...for having a relationship with their rivals, Los Salazar..." A senior Mexican general told the Wall Street Journal he believed La Linea sent gunmen to curtail Los Salazar infiltration into Chihuahua and not with the intent to victimize the settlement's members.)
Incident
In a pair of attacks, gunmen opened fire on three SUVs, first upon a Chevrolet Tahoe and subsequently two Chevy Suburbans, that were carrying American Mexican independent fundamentalist Mormons of the extended LeBarón family, en route the paved highway near Galeana, Chihuahua (after which Christina Langford planned to drive her vehicle northward into the U.S. and Rhonita Miller-LeBarón and Dawna Langford planned to continue southward to the community of Le Barón for rendezvous with family and a wedding), from their hometown of La Mora, Bavispe, Sonora, about south of the Mexico–United States border. According to Alfonso Durazo, the federal secretary for security, the location of the attack was in the municipality of Bavispe. The first vehicle reportedly left carrying Rhonita Miller-LeBarón and her four children close to 10 AM. The other two vehicles left around 11 AM, with one being driven by Dawna Ray Langford with nine children as passengers and the other driven by Christina Marie Langford with her 7-month-old daughter as a passenger.