AUSTIN, Texas — One migrant is dead, another is wounded and at least seven others have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) three weeks after twin brothers allegedly opened fire on them in the Texas desert, saying they mistook the illegal migrants for wild hogs during a hunting trip.
60-year-old brothers Michael and Mark Sheppard were initially released on a $500,000 bail after being jailed on manslaughter charges.
Michael Sheppard, who was a warden at the West Texas Detention Facility and his brother, Mark, who worked for the Hudspeth County sheriff’s office, were recently again taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the Sept. 27 shooting.
The sheriff’s office did not say where they were being held or why they were initially released on bond. The case is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, an arm of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are often victims of crimes at the hands of the Mexican Drug Cartels and human traffickers.
Six of the illegal migrants are being held at the El Paso Processing Center while a seventh is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service and is expected to be transferred to the West Texas Detention Facility.
The migrants told authorities they were drinking water from a reservoir on county land in Sierra Blanca, south of El Paso when two men — identified in court documents as the Sheppard brothers — pulled over in a truck. The migrants said they ran to hide.
Mark Sheppard told investigators he and his brother were out hunting and thought they had spotted a javelina, a kind of wild hog, when they opened fire. “Mark Sheppard told us he used binoculars and saw a ‘black butt’ thinking it was a javelina,” court documents said.
But the migrants told authorities the men in the truck yelled and cursed at them in Spanish, taunting at them to come out, and revved their engine as they backed up. When the group emerged from hiding, the driver allegedly exited the vehicle and fired two shots at them.
Jesús Iván Sepúlveda was shot and killed. Brenda Berenice Casias Carrillo was struck in the stomach and seriously wounded.
When authorities arrived in response to a 911 call, placed by one of the illegal migrants, Casias was taken to a hospital and the other migrants were questioned by federal and immigration officials. Their testimonies led to the arrest of the Sheppard brothers, after which the illegal migrants were placed in ICE custody.
