A United States couple missing for a week in Tijuana were found Friday buried on the property of one of their homes in this border city, Mexican authorities said.
Baja California state prosecutor Hirn Snchez said the bodies of Mara Teresa Lpez, 65, and 70-year-old husband, Jess Rubn Lpez, were discovered with the help of cadaver dogs.
Authorities said that they arrested the couple's son-in-law and that the preliminary investigation suggested the motive was a monetary dispute over rent payments.
The couple, who were naturalized US citizens living in Garden Grove, California, had crossed the border to Tijuana on January 10 to collect some USD 6,400 (120,000 pesos) in rent from apartments they owned in the city, Snchez said.
Their daughter, Norma Lpez, who lived with them in California, reported them missing the following day.
Her husband, identified only as Santiago, lives in Tijuana and told investigators he had met the couple at the border and returned them there several hours later, but there were inconsistencies in his story, Snchez said.
On Friday morning, investigators from the prosecutor's office found the bodies buried in back of one of their properties. They showed signs of violence, the prosecutor said.
Snchez said the son-in-law had already been charged with disappearance of people and would now be charged with murder. He said the man had a criminal record in the US and was deported in 2012.
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