2 US missionaries slain at ransacked Mexico home

EL CERCADO, Mexico — The bodies of John and Wanda Casias came one last time to the Baptist church they founded in a violence-plagued region of northern Mexico as mourners paid homage Thursday to the Texas couple who were discovered strangled in their home.

More than a dozen mourners passed to view the open caskets, one an American who came from Texas because John Casias officiated at his wedding. He did not want to give his name for security reasons.

Shawn Casias said he discovered the body of his mother at about 4 p.m. Tuesday when he went to their home in the town of Santiago to pick up a trailer.

He said she was lying on the floor with an electrical cord around her neck and a gash from a blunt object on her head.

The house had been ransacked and was missing a couple of computers, a plasma television and a safe that had been chiseled out of the wall.

The couple's Chevrolet Suburban was also missing, and Casias said he initially thought his father had been kidnapped.

But about four or five hours later, he said, a forensic investigator informed him that the body of his father had been found in a storage room of a small building on the property. His father also had an electrical cord around his neck.

John and Wanda Casias were originally from Amarillo, Texas, but relatives said they moved to an area outside the city of Monterrey in the late 1970s or early 1980s and First Fundamentalist Independent Baptist Church.

Fighting between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels has brought a surge of violence and other crimes to Monterrey and the surrounding region since 2010. In poorer suburbs, entire blocks have been held up by gunmen and young people snatched off the streets.

Another son, John Casias, said his parents had devoted 29 years of their lives to their ministry in Mexico and spent each day in prayer and saving souls.

They were well aware of the violence around them and the risks, but were so secure in their faith that they did not fear it, he said.

They spent Christmas with him in San Diego, and Casias said he told them, "It's getting kind of rough there" and offered to let them stay at his home for awhile. They refused.

"We were called to Mexico," Casias said his mother told him. "These are our people."

Casias said he hoped the bodies would return to the U.S. later Thursday. He was organizing a service to be held at their home church in Lewisville, Texas.