Victim of Alleged Mexican Pirate Attack: Wake Up U.S.

Nov. 4, 2010 — -- Days before the memorial service for the man allegedly killed by Mexican pirates, his wife gave a dire warning to the United States.

"If America and our government doesn't wake up to see what's going on down there, we're going to be living the same fear that Mexico is living right now," Tiffany Hartley told "Good Morning America," apparently referring to the widespread drug-related violence in Mexico.

"That's why their citizens are coming over, because they're fearful for their lives. The cartels are already here in the U.S., and if we don't do something then we'll be living the same fear," she said.

Hartley claims that her husband, David, was killed more than a month ago as the couple was jet skiing on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake, a reservoir that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. Hartley says they rode several miles into Mexican waters largely controlled by drug cartels to take pictures of a historic church.

That's when she says that pirates appeared on another boat and shot her husband in the head. She raced back across the U.S. border and called 911.

"He was thrown off the jet ski and I couldn't pick him up to get him on mine," she told emergency dispatchers.

For weeks after that call, Tiffany Hartley pleaded with Mexican authorities to search for David's body. They finally agreed, but apparently only spent a few days on the water.

Mexican officials have indicated they are suspicious of her story and have subjected her to hours of questioning by Mexican police at FBI offices in the U.S.

She has refused requests to travel to Mexico for further questioning and told GMA last month that she feared she might be arrested if she went to Mexico.

Today, however, Hartley denied that her sessions with Mexican investigators were an interrogation.

"The meetings I had with them, it wasn't really interrogation. It was a witness statement of what happened," she said today. "When you have the language barrier, then you have hours and hours of translating back and forth…It was a long process just even in the translation."