Mexican mother choked to death hanging from border wall, autopsy finds – New York Daily News

A Mexican woman attempting to scale the U.S.-Mexico border wall was strangled to death by her climbing gear while hanging from the wall.

An autopsy released earlier this week confirmed 31-year-old Griselda Verduzco Armenta’s cause of death.

Armenta, a mother of two, was found hanging from the wall on April 11 outside the small border city of Douglas, Ariz. She was entangled in climbing gear including a cord, tie-down straps and a seat belt, police said.

A family member said Armenta had crossed the border multiple times before while trying to provide more for her two young daughters, the Guardian reported. The family member said Armenta had hired human smugglers, known as coyotes, to help with the latest journey.

“The coyotes tried and tried to get her down, but they couldn’t,” the relative told Telemundo. “They left her there for their own safety, also, I think, so that (border patrol) wouldn’t arrest them. And they left her there hanging — she was still alive.”

U.S. Border Patrol agents found Armenta hanging from the fence after a “significant amount of time,” authorities said. They managed to take her down from the wall and transported her to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to the Guardian.

More than 7,000 people have died at the U.S.-Mexico border since 1998, according to a Guardian investigation completed last year.

With News Wire Services