Ray Whitehouse
The driver of a tractor-trailer found crammed with immigrants told police he wasn’t aware he was transporting people until he stopped the vehicle in San Antonio. Ten people died as a result of the journey inside the window-less, suffocatingly hot trailer. The driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., was charged in the case Monday and could face the death penalty. One man who survived told authorities that the group screamed and banged on walls trying to get someone’s attention but “nobody ever came.” In a criminal complaint, Bradley told investigators he wasn’t aware of the truck’s cargo until he opened the door and was “run over by ‘Spanish’ people and knocked to the ground” as they fled. When he stopped the truck in San Antonio and opened the doors, he “noticed bodies just lying on the floor like meat” in the trailer but did not call 911, he said.