Police: Matamoros teen died trying to save friends from drowning

The death of a 13 year-old Matamoros girl who was found floating in the Rio Grande last month has been ruled a homicide after marks on her neck showed signs of strangulation, police said today.

However, authorities believe the marks were caused by two others girls who Yadira Jazmine Hernandez was trying to save from drowning in the river on May 26.

"Two of them were trying to hang onto her....in the process two of them drowned and in the meantime they caused the death of Yadira Jazmine Hernandez by trying to save themselves by bending or choking her," Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia said at a morning press conference. 

Dr. Norma Jean Farley performed an autopsy on Hernandez who ruled her death a homicide. Her ruling is preliminary and could be amended at a later date when provided with additional information from law enforcement officials, her report said.

Hernandez's body was found May 27 in the river near the B&M Bridge by U.S. Border Patrol agents. She was pronounced dead by Justice of the Peace Tony Torres who ordered the autopsy.

Hernandez along with Marlene Garcia Perez and Nalley Martinez Flores, both from Matamoros, were playing in the Rio Grande when Garcia and Martinez had problems getting out of the water, a witness told police.

Garcia and Martinez's bodies were found a couple days later in the Rio Grande near Mexico. Officials there have ruled their deaths as accidental, according the Mexican media reports.

For more on this story, read Saturday's Brownsville Herald.