Mexican Investigator Searching for Killers of American David Hartley Is Decapitated

Oct. 12, 2010 — -- The head of a murdered investigator who had been working on the case of missing Texan David Hartley was stuffed in a suitcase and delivered to the Mexican military earlier today.

The severed head of Rolando Flores, the head of state investigators in Ciudad Miguel Aleman, was murdered after spending weeks searching for Hartley. The American disappeared on Sept. 30 after he was shot on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake while Jet Skiing with his wife Tiffany.

Tiffany Hartley has said he was gunned down by pirates, and Hartley's family accused Mexican police of not looking for the body because they were afraid of Mexican drug gangs.

News of Flores' murder was first reported by Texas State Rep. Aaron Pena, who tweeted earlier today that the investigator had been decapitated.

Pena said on his Twitter account that he confirmed the decapitation through Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, the office in charge of the Hartley investigation. A called made to Gonzalez was not immediately returned.

Tamaulipas state prosecutor spokesman Ruben Rios told The Associated Press that Flores' murder was "unrelated to the investigation" into Hartley's death.

Earlier this week, Mexican authorities named two suspects in Hartley's murder, two Zeta drug cartel members known as Pedro Saldiva Farrias, 27, and his brother Jose Manuel Saldiva Farrias, whose age was not given.

Juan Carlos Ballesteros, an investigator with the state prosecutor's office of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, said both were said to be suspected members of the Zeta drug cartel from Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, near the abandoned town where David and Tiffany Hartley were sightseeing before they were ambushed.