Body of Washington State boy found dead in Juarez heading back home

James Martin Camacho arrived in the borderland exactly six weeks ago. Now, he’s on his way back home after disappearing for a month and being found dead in a Juarez cotton field.

Camacho, a 7-year-old boy from Washington state, was brought to Juarez by his father, went missing on January 21, 2018 and turned up dead in a deserted cotton field 29 days later.

His mother, Teraisa Mower, was flown down from Washington state Wednesday to identify and sign over the body before being able to take it back home. The US Consulate in Juarez helped guide Mower as she worked to bring her son’s body home.

“The state attorney’s office is paying for most of the repatriation process,” said Carlos Narvaez, the Perches Funeral Homes general manager for Juarez.

Friday morning, James’ body was finally ready to be transported back into the US. A small white coffin sat alone in the funeral home, before being loaded into a van and driven to El Paso. After being inspected at the bridge, James being cleared from a missing person’s database, Perches drivers took the boy’s coffin to be packaged before taking it to the airport.

With the body already being turned over to air crews, and flown out of El Paso International, the only thing that’s left is for James’ own mother to receive him in Seattle, this the final step in getting the body of young James Martin Camacho home.

Questions remain.

Forensic evidence points to the boy being alive for the first 20 days of the search, and it’s unclear how he ended up in a cotton field that had been cleared just a week earlier. The State’s attorney said Wednesday the investigation will continue to uncover the events of those first 20 days.

The state attorney also mentioned evidence found in searches for the boy, evidence, he says that still needs to be processed before answers are found.

The body is set to arrive in Seattle Saturday night.