MEXICO CITY — A man was arrested in northern Mexico in connection to the killings of nine members of a family with Utah ties a year ago, the office of Mexico’s Attorney General said in a statement on Thursday.
The man, identified only as Alfredo L, was arrested in Ciudad Juarez in the northwestern Mexican state of Chihuahua on charges of homicide and organized crime, the statement said.
“The individual is a member of a criminal organization with a presence in the north of the country, and is likely a participant in the events that occurred on November 4 last year in Bavispe, Sonora, when nine people lost their lives,” the Attorney General’s Office said.
Suspected gang members killed six children and three women belonging to a family from La Mora in the attack last year. The victims were both Mexican and U.S. nationals.
La Mora is a decades-old settlement in the state of Sonora founded by early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, about 70 miles south of Douglas, Arizona. At the time of the massacre, a family member in Utah said those killed were members of a “fundamentalist” group that practices polygamy. The church disavowed polygamy in 1890.