US Couple and their Dog Murdered in BOLA, Baja Ca

Posted by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: sqnoticias

June 5, 2018
additional info: bdoutdoors and El Sol de Tijuana

The bad news is true. Ray Ball and Jo Butler were murdered in their home at the south end of town, Bahia de Los Angeles, while trying to stop the theft of their fishing boat in the middle of the day. Their bodies were found inside their home, along with that of their pet dog, but a baseball bat was found outside the house indicating the couple was marched back into the house and murdered. 

This does not bode well for the town. Violence against Americans has been escalating in the last few years with little or no response from authorities. The town elders and governing officials must do something quickly to solve this crime or dire consequences will follow.

There is also no information yet on the type of boat. Reports state that it got stuck in the sand and the thieves made a run for it into the desert after murdering the couple and being unable to launch the boat.  Speculation is that the 2 assailants took off in two cars and were not from the small village at Bahia de Los Angeles, although it is possible that a lookout is. 

   The rugged landscape and azure water dotted with islands where the desert meet the Sea at BOLA

No real facts yet and no suspects, although it seems to me that more than two men had to be involved unless they just planned to ditch to cars at the heinous murder scene and make off with the couples boat.

According to unofficial reports, the couple of American citizens were shot and killed to strip them of their belongings, specifically their yacht. ( be careful of what press sources refers to as a yacht, we do not know yet what type of boat is being referred to )

In the preliminary version of the events, the event  transpired that at 2:10 pm  Saturday June 2 when a violent incident was reported to local authorities by means of the telephone.

It was reported that an attempted robbery had occurred of a boat in the town's number 5 field, which  agents of the Municipal Police responded to, although on arrival they were informed by inhabitants of the area that inside a home a man and a woman had been found shot to death.

The couple also reportedly showed signs of being beaten and  percussed caps were located. The PGJE

confirmed that Ray Ball and Jo Butler, approximately 67 and 55 years of age, were murdered by gunshots.

              Ray and Jo will be cremated and their ashes scattered at a place they loved the most

The American couple  had spent more than 15 years of living in southern Baja California, but they joined the long list of victims of violence that plague the state. 

The violence and insecurity reached has Bahía de Los Ángeles, a small town of less than a thousand inhabitants, located nine hours from Tijuana.   This small paradise, home to dozens of retired Americans, was reputed to be a quiet place, ideal to spend the last years of his life.

According to the witnesses, the couple were fond of fishing and when they were surprised by the criminals they were waiting for some friends on their yacht, when the criminals asked them to give them the yacht they resisted and received several impacts of bullet.

This incident comes in the wake of another murdered US citizen in January of this year. An elderly man who had lived there for years in an RV was beaten to death. No motive was determined and one of several assailants was ultimately arrested.

Baja California law enforcement authorities have caught a suspect in the killing of a 75-year-old U.S. citizen who was found beaten to death in January in the community of Bahía de Los Angeles.

The victim, Charles Lewis Crabtree, had been a part-time resident of the picturesque fishing town on the Gulf of California. Members of the tight-knit U.S. expatriate community were shocked by his death.

According to authorities, Crabtree’s body was found on the ground outside a trailer on the afternoon of January 8 at Campos Amigo, a camping and RV park north of town where the victim had been living for years.

In a statement Saturday, the Baja California Attorney General’s Office announced the arrest of a 28-year-old suspect identified only as “Gabriel N.” The statement said that he had been captured by ministerial police in Bahía de los Angeles about 1:30 p.m. Friday.

JUNE 5 UPDATE :

A retired American couple was found fatally shot inside their Mexico home after a botched robbery Saturday, authorities said.

Jo Anne Butler, 69, and Ray Ball, 72, of Prescott, Ariz., were killed in their Bahia de los Angeles home, about 380 miles south of the U.S. border on the Gulf of California, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Like their fellow Americans in Bahía de los Angeles, Jo Anne Butler and Ray Ball kept returning, year after year, drawn by the small-town feel, the area’s stark natural beauty, the warm Gulf of California waters that lapped almost at their door, friends said.

But the shooting deaths of the two U.S. retirees together with their dog early Saturday at their waterfront house south of town has shattered the tranquility of this community some 380 miles from the U.S. border. Sustained largely by tourism and fishing, Bahía has a year-round population of 1,000, but is also a part-time residence for more than 100 Americans, according to local authorities.

“We have no memory of having a shooting here,” said Tom Mitchell, a San Diego resident who has had a home in Bahía de los Angeles for four decades. “This has taken it to a level that no one here has experienced.”

A U.S. couple was found shot to death this weekend at their home in Bahia de Los Angeles
“It was an attempted robbery, and an individual went to defend his property, and that’s when they shot him,” Octavio Lopez, a top local government official, told the Union-Tribune. “This is the first time we’ve had something like this happen.”

You can see my Post about Charles Crabtree from March by using the search engine on top left.