It was early July when Fred Davis found the drug smuggler dead on his southern Arizona ranch, situated on about 10,000 acres of border land embattled residents say acts a sieve for narcotics entering the United States.
The dead man was lying on the ground about a mile from a county road. He was wearing brand-new Nikes, and had been carrying a duffel bag - a sign of someone packing drugs to a drop-off point, or returning to Mexico with cash.
"He had to have dope in him," Davis said. "The coyotes had nibbled on his hip a little bit and didn't eat him, the birds hadn't pecked his eyes out."
Finding bodies has become grotesquely common for the men and women who live and ranch on the rural swaths of land along the U.S. - Mexico border. Even more common is smugglers and their truckloads of methamphetamine, heroin, and other drugs slipping through the cracks into the U.S., where the network of highway systems allows them to spread their product to Idaho and across the country.
KTVB sent a crew to Cochise County, Arizona to get a first-hand look at how Mexican cartels are getting narcotics across the border and into Gem State schools, homes and communities.
The dead man was lying on the ground about a mile from a county road. He was wearing brand-new Nikes, and had been carrying a duffel bag - a sign of someone packing drugs to a drop-off point, or returning to Mexico with cash.
"He had to have dope in him," Davis said. "The coyotes had nibbled on his hip a little bit and didn't eat him, the birds hadn't pecked his eyes out."
Finding bodies has become grotesquely common for the men and women who live and ranch on the rural swaths of land along the U.S. - Mexico border. Even more common is smugglers and their truckloads of methamphetamine, heroin, and other drugs slipping through the cracks into the U.S., where the network of highway systems allows them to spread their product to Idaho and across the country.
KTVB sent a crew to Cochise County, Arizona to get a first-hand look at how Mexican cartels are getting narcotics across the border and into Gem State schools, homes and communities.
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