Drug gang murders frighten U.S. Mormons in Mexico (Reuters)

[Yahoo! News]

Reuters - Hundreds of mourners attended a funeral on Thursday for two American Mormons murdered in a northern Mexican community by drug hitmen for denouncing cartel kidnappings, and the FBI offered to aid a police probe.

Guarded by Mexican soldiers, more than a thousand people, including family members, wept over the coffin of Benjamin LeBaron, a breakaway Mormon leader and anti-crime activist who was abducted and killed by around 20 armed men in revenge for helping track and arrest a group of drug gang members.

Gunmen broke into LeBaron's house on Tuesday night and tortured him in front of his family before dragging him off along with his brother-in-law, Luis Carlos Widmar, shooting them dead and dumping their bodies in nearby countryside.

The outcry over the killing was the latest blow to President Felipe Calderon and his army-led quest to curb rampant drug gang violence that has killed more than 12,300 people across Mexico since he took office in December 2006.

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