'Thanks to God': Aurora man finally returns home after kidnapping and shooting in Mexico
Jose Luis Gutierrez's blood ran cold when he heard one of his kidnappers tell another one to kill him inside a car on the side of a Mexican roadway, two days before Christmas.
"I said, 'Why? No! I haven't done anything to you,'" the 52-year-old Aurora man and father of three recalled.
When the driver said he didn't want the car to get stained with blood, Gutierrez took his chance to fight for his life, and what could have ended in horrifying tragedy became a story of near escape and resilience.
Gutierrez, a U.S. citizen, returned Thursday to Illinois after spending time in a Mexican hospital, followed by a hospital in Texas, after the Dec. 23 attack that left him wounded by two gunshots and grazed by another. A full recovery will take another two or three months, but what matters is that he's alive and his family is OK, Gutierrez said.
"I want, first of all, to give thanks to God. That's the most important thing," said Gutierrez, who has a landscaping business with his son. "And then, to keep going."
Gutierrez took a 24-hour Greyhound bus ride from Texas with his daughters Danyela, 27, and Sofia, 19, and was picked up Thursday morning by his son Luis, 22, at the bus station in downtown Chicago. They drove straight to the Chicago office of attorney Manuel Cardenas and his assistant Marlene Acosta, who were instrumental in working with the U.S. and Mexican governments and local authorities to arrange transport for Gutierrez to Texas earlier this month.
Acosta is a volunteer for the nonprofit League of United Latin American Citizens and Cardenas took on the case pro bono.
"I want to give thanks to everyone for the help that you guys have brought us. If not, we couldn't make it to bring him back," Danyela Gutierrez said. "It means a lot to us."
The kidnapping happened while Gutierrez was traveling in his truck through the Mexican state of Zacatecas with Sofia and his 81-year-old father, whom they had picked up in Texas. They were on their way to visit family for Christmas in Jalisco, Mexico. Gutierrez's wife and two other children stayed home.
They pulled over at about 9 p.m., knowing that Mexican authorities advise not traveling at night, Gutierrez said.
He woke up at about midnight when a car pulled up behind them and a man rapped on the window, asking for a ride. When Gutierrez said he couldn't do that, the man opened the door, dragged him out and pointed a gun at him, telling him to walk toward the car. "I asked him, 'What do you want? I'm not a bad guy, I'm just here visiting.'"
Inside the kidnappers' car were two other men in their 20s. The car drove off and pulled over about 100 feet down the road, he said. When one of the men started talking about killing him, Gutierrez said, he smacked the gun away from him and managed to get out of the car, using the man as a shield. One of the kidnappers started shooting, grazing Gutierrez on his side and striking his abdomen and upper leg. Gutierrez said he thinks a shot might have wounded the man he struggled with.
After Gutierrez fell to the ground, the kidnappers took a look at him, assumed he was mortally wounded and left. They circled back to Gutierrez's car and robbed his daughter and his father, stealing their cellphones, belongings and car full of Christmas gifts.
His daughter Sofia said Thursday she didn't want to talk about the ordeal, but she and her grandfather were both OK.
Gutierrez ended up spending hours lying on the ground in the dark, bleeding, losing sensation, and unable to get up or dial his cellphone, he said. When dawn finally broke, passing cars noticed him and eventually the authorities were contacted. Guiterrez was airlifted by a helicopter to a hospital in Zacatecas, where he stayed until early January.
The Mexican authorities released a photo showing a law enforcement officer crouching by Gutierrez on the ground. Seeing that image was especially awful, his daughter Danyela said. Family members were told they could not join him in Mexico because authorities feared retaliation by the kidnappers, but Danyela said she couldn't stand to stay home.
She got on a plane - her first flight alone - the day after Christmas and made her way to the hospital in Zacatecas to join her father.
His son Luis said the first 48 hours, before he knew for sure his father was going to be OK, were the worst. Initially, the family was told he was shot three times.
"I am hoping we can take a little family vacation in June or July, maybe in Florida, to make up for that time we lost," Luis said.
No one has been arrested by Mexican authorities but the investigation is ongoing, Acosta said. The state of Zacatecas shouldered the Mexican portion of medical and transport expenses for Gutierrez because he is a U.S. citizen, she said. The family has yet to receive a bill for medical expenses in Texas but hope people will contribute via a GoFundMe.
Gutierrez said his advice for travelers in Mexico is not to drive at night and to pull over in safe areas, like well-lit, 24-hour gas stations with plenty of people.
"Don't take a risk and say, 'It's getting dark ... but I'm still going to keep going,' which is what happened to me," he said. "If I stayed maybe by a business, where there are more people, nothing would have happened."
U.S. citizens, even if they have dual citizenship, should always use their U.S. passports to enter Mexico because the Mexican government is willing to cover expenses in case of emergency for U.S. citizens, Acosta said.