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Crime6 people found dead inside cargo train boxcar in Texas - The six were discovered near a Union Pacific rail yard Sunday afternoon. What caused their deaths wasn’t immediately clear.
A Union Pacific freight train in Hutto, Texas last year. A spokesperson said the company was “saddened" after six people were found dead in a cargo train boxcar in Laredo.Brandon Bell / Getty Images file
Six people were found dead in a cargo train boxcar near a Laredo, Texas, rail yard Sunday, officials said.
Police responded after a Union Pacific employee called to report a “trailer box car with the discovery of multiple casualties in the car” around 3 p.m. local time, police said.
The ages of the victims and the origin of the train were not immediately released. Jose Baeza, an investigator with the Laredo Police Department, said those questions are “at the crux of the ongoing fluid investigation.”
The Webb County medical examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death, police said.
Baeza said the rail yard is miles long.
“Imagine a loading dock at a seaport, but for trains,” he said in a phone interview. “This is where they load and unload a lot of rail cars.”
A Union Pacific spokesperson said in a statement that the company is “saddened by this incident” and is “working closely with law enforcement to investigate.”
Laredo, which borders Mexico, has one of Texas’s largest ports of entry facilitating commercial trade. As of 2024, Port Laredo accounted for 62% of the state’s land port trade, valued at nearly $340 billion, according to data collected by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.
Temperatures in Laredo on Sunday hit a high of 97 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. L|A
The medical examiner’s office identified two of the victims Monday as a 29-year-old woman from Mexico and a 24-year-old man from Honduras. An initial examination indicates the woman died of hyperthermia, the office said, noting temperatures reached as high as 105 degrees Sunday.
“While formal examinations for the remaining five individuals are still pending, it is highly probable that hyperthermia was the cause of death for the entire group,” it said.
The person found in San Antonio may also have died from heat-related illness. Salazar said a relative in another state called San Antonio police Saturday after getting a message from the victim saying he was in a boxcar and feeling ill because “it was getting very, very hot.”
Police were dispatched “several miles up the road” from where the person’s body was eventually found, Salazar said. After they learned of the bodies in Laredo, he said, officers returned and started patrolling up and down the train tracks until they found him.
Rail kids know better than to get in a boxcar and not keep the door cracked. It's better for air circulation and ease of quick exit, because you should not make it all the way to the yard. You're far more likely to get caught.
Agreed, cramming illegals into closed metal containers and then baking them isn't uncommon in South Texas. There have been at least three transport trucks found with dead Mexicans in San Antonio alone since 2000. 53 in 2025, 10 in 2017, and 19 in 2003.
Agreed, cramming illegals into closed metal containers and then baking them isn't uncommon in South Texas. There have been at least three transport trucks found with dead Mexicans in San Antonio alone since 2000. 53 in 2025, 10 in 2017, and 19 in 2003.
