Ten-year-old Michael Hartsell of Cleburne watched last week as Mexican robbers looting buses shot his mother in the head.
Then he saw his oldest sister, 18-year-old Karla Sanchez Hartsell, killed. Her body collapsed in a bus seat and her mouth jerked open when she was shot in the cheek, he told relatives and friends."Michael has just been telling us a lot of horrible stories," family friend Mary Bullock said Monday. "He's just a different person now, and he's only 10 years old."Relatives and friends expected Michael and his surviving sister, 15-year-old Angie, to arrive home early this morning. Their paternal aunt Sheraine Ramsey and her husband, David Ramsey, were driving the children home from the border.They are worried that Angie, who has Down syndrome, needs long-overdue medication for seizures, Bullock said.On Thursday, Maria Hartsell, 39, her four children and a nephew were on their way to visit her relatives in Mexico when their bus was attacked by five gunmen.In addition to Maria and Karla, Cristina, 13, and the 14-year-old nephew were killed, as were a young Mexican couple on the bus and the bus driver, Mexican authorities have said.The bus was in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz near the border with Tamaulipas state, which has been the scene of bloody battles between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels.The gunmen were later killed by soldiers, authorities reported."It's been going pretty good," Sheraine Ramsey said late Monday afternoon from the road before the family had reached San Antonio. "Little Michael has been sick. I guess his nerves were just tore up. But he's eaten since."The Ramseys expected to stop at a friend's house in San Antonio and to buy clothes for the children and let them shower, she said.When she arrived at U.S. immigration offices on the Texas-Mexico border, she rushed to hug her niece and nephew, she said."When I saw little Michael ... we were just running to him. I said, 'Michael, Michael, Michael!'" she said.Michael has told relatives and friends that one robber jumped on the bus and began to slap passengers. When the man slapped Angie, that enraged Cristina, who defended her sister, Bullock said.The man left the bus and came back with a weapon and started shooting, Michael told his family. He did not see Cristina killed. Bullock said that a cousin who was traveling with the family protected the boy.Maria Hartsell's husband, Mike Hartsell, is in Burnet and is "devastated," Bullock said. "They're trying to make arrangements possibly for the kids to go where he's at."Maria Hartsell and her two daughters were buried in a cemetery at La Capilla, Bullock said. It would have cost the family almost $7,000 to transport the bodies back to Cleburne, she said. Laws in Mexico require bodies to be disposed of within 48 hours, she said."The family was pressured on Friday or Saturday to make a decision," she said.The family expects to hold a memorial service at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Cleburne, but a date has not been set, Bullock said.Bullock, a member of the Kingdom Hall, said she has known the Hartsells for a decade. She attended a regular Bible study with Cristina, she said."We had been studying every week," Bullock said.Yamil Berard, 817-390-7705Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
