Man charged for deadly Edcouch smuggling event during severe weather

This screenshot from a criminal complaint shows a Border Patrol agent rescuing a person in the country illegally who was swept away in flood waters during a smuggling attempt in Edcouch on Thursday, March 28, 2025. (The Monitor)

Federal authorities have charged a Mexican man in the country illegally for the deadly Edcouch smuggling event last Thursday that left a woman and a child dead.

Jose Alexis Baeza-Combaluzier, who was born in 1998, was charged with transporting people in the country illegally with a vehicle resulting in death.

He was arrested after Border Patrol agents rescued him and four other people in the country illegally as torrential rain pounded the Rio Grande Valley resulting in widespread flooding throughout the region.

A criminal complaint said the smuggling event began at 8:45 a.m. as Border Patrol agents were conducting surveillance in McAllen at the intersection of Expressway 83 and Showers Road.

Authorities spotted a known white Ford F-150 involved in smuggling and followed it to an apartment complex located on South 10th Street behind a McDonalds.

Agents also recognized that vehicle’s driver, whose name remains redacted in the partially unsealed criminal complaint.

While conducting surveillance, agents observed a black Ford Explorer arrive and park along the Ford F-150 where there was “a body swap” of people in the country illegally between the vehicles, according to the complaint.

The Ford Explorer then left and began to travel north toward Edinburg before it turned east on Ramseyer and headed toward Elsa.

“The vehicle eventually turned south on Engelman Gardens Road, where it stopped at a low spot in a flooded road,” the complaint stated.

This is when Border Patrol agents announced themselves and approached.

“The vehicle then accelerated and drove through the flooded area and continued south,” the complaint stated. “Agents then drove south approximately half a mile, and discovered the vehicle had driven into the canal.”

This screenshot from a criminal complaint shows an aerial view of a flooded canal where two people in the country illegally drowned during a smuggling attempt in Edcouch on Thursday, March 28, 2025. (The Monitor)

Border Patrol agents immediately jumped in the canal and rescued Baeza-Combaluzier and four others.

After the rescue, one of the individuals told agents that her juvenile son and her friend Elena Cataria Morale were missing. Morale was found floating further east in the canal and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the complaint.

Authorities were unable to recover the vehicle last Thursday, but did recover it on Friday where they found a body presumed to be the juvenile.

After his arrest, Baeza-Combaluzier told agents he was being held at a stash house where he was recruited to be a driver. He could not find the location he was supposed to deliver the people in the country illegally to that day and stated he got lost and ended up near a flooded road and had to stop.

The man said he got scared when he saw Border Patrol and decided to drive away when he lost control of the vehicle and rolled into the flooded canal, according to the complaint.

Baeza-Combaluzier made a first appearance Monday in McAllen federal court in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Scott Hacker, court records show.

He is being held without bond.

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