Massacre of American family in Durango sparks debate on safety for foreign travelers in Mexico

On December 27, Jason Peña was enjoying his Christmas vacation in Mexico with his father and uncle. The Chicago-based family had driven from Illinois to the north-central Mexican state of Durango, where the grandfather lives, to celebrate the teenager’s birthday: he was turning 14 on December 29. But the celebration quickly turned to tragedy: the bodies of three family members were found in Las Palmas, in the municipality of Santiago Papasquiaro. Jason Peña was also there, with a gunshot wound to the head. The young man was later transferred to a hospital in Texas amid a wave of criticism over the state of security for tourists in Mexico.

The Durango Prosecutor’s Office has reported that the teen is in “delicate health.” No details have emerged about the motive for the attack. Martín Saúl Ceniceros Cerda, head of communications, said by phone that no line of investigation has been ruled out yet, “but it was probably a robbery.” Mexican investigators are working together with U.S. authorities on the case.

The Peña family had traveled more than 1860 miles by road so that Jason could celebrate his birthday with his grandfather in Durango. On the night of December 27, they left in a black pickup truck with U.S. license plates, and did not return. Authorities estimate that around 10:00 p.m. that night they were assaulted and riddled with bullets. Jason’s father, Vicente, along with his uncle Eduardo and another relative named Antonio, died on the spot. Jason was seriously injured by a gunshot to the head.

Julie Contreras, a Chicago lawyer and spokesperson for the family, has called on the community to ask for prayers for the boy’s health. “He is fighting for his life, we have to get him home,” she stressed in a video on her social media. Contreras underscored the difficulty of repatriating the victim from Mexico. “His father is dead, his uncle is dead. It is Jason today but tomorrow it could be any one of us,” she said. The teenager has since been transferred to a hospital in Texas.

The massacre has triggered a new wave of criticism over safety for travelers in Mexico. The United States maintains a Level 2 travel advisory for Durango due to the presence of criminal groups. U.S. government employees may not travel south and west of Federal Highway 45. That area, where the Peña family was killed, is a restricted zone.

This latest crime adds to a list of murders of U.S. citizens on Mexican territory. On June 21, Gabriel Trujillo, an American botanist who was a PhD student at the University of Berkeley, was murdered in Sonora. In May, the triple homicide in Baja California of the Australian brothers Callum and Jake Robinson and the American citizen Jack Carter Road once again set off alarm bells. By then, an earlier attack in 2023 on four friends who had traveled to Tamaulipas from the United States was still fresh in the collective memory. That case, involving a mistake made by the Gulf Cartel, again strained diplomatic relations between Mexico and the U.S.

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