A medical school graduate from Arkansas who went missing in Mexico for five days held a press conference that raised more questions than provided answers on Sunday, after his safe return to the U.S.
Jesse Pacheco, 29, said he ‘blacked out’ and didn’t remember anything between leaving a nightclub in Providencia, Mexico after midnight on June 15 and getting on a plane to return to the US, but also that he ‘thought his life was over.’
Pacheco was out celebrating his graduation from Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara’s medical school and was due to return home to Van Buren, Arkansas this week, before he went missing.
Carlos Alejandro Delgadillo Romero, Pacheco’s close friend and another medical student who was with him, was found dead in a nearby street and had been shot.
After having gone missing in Mexico for five days, Jesse Pacheco, 29 (pictured), held a press conference that raised more questions than provided answers on Sunday, after his safe return to the U.S.
‘All my family, friends were there. We were just celebrating and next thing you know [I] blacked out,’ Pacheco said on Sunday, with his cousin and mother by his side. ‘I didn’t think I was going to be back home. I thought my life was over.’
Romero, however, was not so lucky.
‘I just want to say I would have taken his place,’ Pacheco said of his friend. ‘He didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve it, either. He was a great guy. Carlos was a close friend of mine. I’m sorry that it happened to him. We prayed a lot for his family.’
Pacheco had studied at Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara’s medical school for two and a half years, and had finished his residency in the US. He was in Mexico to celebrate graduating when he said he ‘blacked out’ after leaving a night club and didn’t remember anything until he got on a plane back to the US late last week. He is pictured (center) with his cousin (left) and mother (right) during a press conference on Sunday
Regarding the events surrounding Romero’s death and his own disappearance, Pacheco said, ‘There are things that we don’t know, and that’s what they [authorities] are trying to figure out because we just don’t know.
His mother, Vilma Franco, added, ‘We don’t know who he was with, who had him. We don’t know nothing.’
When asked if the family could share anything about how Pacheco was found, the mother said she’d like to keep that private.
Pacheco’s friend, medical student Carlos Alejandro Delgadillo Romero, (left), was found dead in a street near a nightclub where they had been celebrating and was shot
‘I just want to say I would have taken his place,’ Pacheco said of his friend. ‘He didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve it, either. He was a great guy. Carlos was a close friend of mine. I’m sorry that it happened to him. We prayed a lot for his family’
Mexican authorities feared that Pacheco might have been kidnapped prior to being located.
Witnesses said a group traveling in a red car had assaulted Romero, shot him and then drove away, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Authorities discovered a black cellphone, one tennis shoe, two cigarette butts and five shell casings, according to local news reports.
Police in Mexico said there was no known motive for the attack against the friends, who are both American citizens.
There have been no arrests in Romero’s death or Pacheco’s alleged kidnapping.
However investigators interviewed at least nine witnesses and gathered the names of over 100 people who work in the area, said Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez, the state prosecutor of Jalisco.
Witnesses said a group traveling in a red car had assaulted Romero (right), shot him and then drove away. Romero had also studied with Pacheco (left) at Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara’s medical school. NBC reported that his aunt identified his body after it was sent home to the family
Romero ‘was taken by a group that beat him and shot him with a pistol, which killed him,’ Gomez is reported as saying by NBC News.
‘The businesses nearby evacuated all their clients and closed down, to not get involved with this incident.’
Workers at a nearby convenience stpre reportedly told police that Romero had bought cigarettes shortly before his death.
As he waited for an Uber that was due to arrive shortly, the occupants of a red car shot him and then fled the scene, witnesses said.
Pacheco had studied at Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara’s medical school for two and a half years, and had finished his residency in the US. He was in Mexico to celebrate graduating.
Romero had also studied with Pacheco at Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara’s medical school. NBC reported that his aunt identified his body after it was sent home to the family.
The U.S. State Department confirmed Romero’s death, adding: ‘Out of respect for the privacy of the family, we have no further comment at this time.’
There have been no arrests in Romero’s death or Pacheco’s (pictured) alleged kidnapping