WELL-TRAINED TEAM BEHIND MASSACRE

But scene in Mexico of 18 bloody deaths has few clues

EL SAUZAL, Mexico -- The killers arrived in three light trucks before dawn,
dressed all in black and carrying automatic rifles.

They worked quickly, professionally. And when they were done, 18 men, women
and children from one extended family lay dead in bleeding mounds beside a
patio wall at the ranch by the sea in northern Mexico.

"The children said that it lasted an eternity -- an hour," said state Cmdr.
Felipe Perez Cruz, quoting testimony of a 12-year-old boy and 15-year-old
girl who survived the Thursday morning massacre linked to drugs. "It was
probably 15 or 20 minutes."

Statements by investigators and a tour of the blood-stained compound a day
after the killings provide signs of a well-organized team carrying out
orders to kill an alleged marijuana trafficker and his relatives for some
unknown crime against rivals in the drug trade.

After driving across a dusty plain, at least nine or 10 gunmen got out at
the ranch this suburb of the Baja California resort of Ensenada. The
killers broke into three teams, each assigned to one of the family's three
houses. "They must have known the family," Perez Cruz said.

First hit was the Tovar family household, headed by a sister of alleged
trafficker Fermin Castro -- apparently the main target. The Tovar family
was the only part of the Castro clan not believed to have been involved
with drugs, investigators say.

One team went through a downstairs window in the Tovar house, in the middle
of the compound. Micaria Jaime Tovar, eight months pregnant with her second
child, her 1-year-old son Cesar and four other family members were taken to
the patio, probably at gunpoint.

A second team entered the house of Francisco Flores Altamirano, Castro's
brother-in-law and alleged lieutenant in marijuana smuggling. The last team
went after Castro, who local media say was known as "The Iceman."

While the first and second teams gathered half-dressed couples and
pajama-clad children in a corner of the patio in the early morning chill,
the third team raced up an exterior staircase and battered or shot in a
third-story doorway in Castro's house.

Castro was caught in his second-story bedroom, where he was beaten and
possibly tortured. Two days later, Castro lay in a coma with gunshot wounds
to the head, barely alive.

It was unclear whether he was taken to the patio, where the victims were
closely packed together against a cinderblock wall. His wife and 2-year-old
son were among those killed there.

Normally, the story would have stopped with the gunmen issuing a warning
that would have been respected under a code of silence so strict that "you
can't get a word out of these people," federal investigator Jose Luis
Chavez says.

Traffickers' relatives -- and especially children -- are rarely targeted in
drug-related paybacks in Mexico.

But something was different this time.

Perez Cruz said the killers may have been in an "altered state" -- drugged
or emotionally upset. Or the killers may have been following little-used
rules about punishment for those who switch sides in drug gangs, local
media say.

Still closely huddled together, toddlers beside their mothers, they were
ordered to get down on the cold concrete. Neighbors woke when bursts of
automatic weapons fire shattered the early morning quiet at 4:15 a.m.

"There weren't finished off one by one. They simply sprayed them all with
bullets," Perez Cruz said. Eighty spent shells, an average of four bullets
per victim, were later found.

Mario Alberto Flores, 12, miraculously survived. Losing blood, he wandered
about Castro's home until he was found by his cousin, Viviana Flores, 15,
who was never discovered by the killers. The girl, six months pregnant, had
hidden between a table and an armoire.

There were no signs of struggle in the houses or on the patio. Apparently
no weapons were kept at the compound.

The crime scene offers no clues for the killers' motive.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan