Truck-Tragedy Driver Changed Story

Panicking at the sight of dead and dying illegal immigrants who had been packed into his trailer, a New York trucker unhooked his semi-tractor and fled the scene, according to an affidavit by a federal agent.

Seventeen people were found dead in the trailer parked at a truck stop near Victoria early Wednesday. One person later died at a hospital.

Tyrone Williams at first claimed he was hauling an empty trailer but later changed his story, telling authorities he was paid $2,500 to transport 16 immigrants from South Texas, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Steven Greenwell said in an affidavit released Thursday.

The trailer ended up being packed with between 70 and 100 men, women and children.

Williams made his initial court appearance in Houston on Thursday.

Wearing glasses and dressed in a green prison jumpsuit, he told the judge he was trying to hire an attorney. Williams was scheduled to appear in court Friday afternoon to set a date for a bond hearing. Federal prosecutors want him held without bond.

In his affidavit, Greenwell said Williams at first told authorities he felt "shock, fear and confusion" when he discovered the dead and dying immigrants in the trailer. He said he didn't check the trailer until another motorist flagged him down.

Greenwell said Williams, who was accompanied by a woman, "panicked," detached the trailer and drove to a southwest Houston hospital, where he was first interviewed. It's not clear why he went to the hospital.

Greenwell said Williams changed his story after authorities interviewed survivor Oscar Estrada, who told them the immigrants had been picked up by a man and a woman in a rural area near Harlingen.

When confronted with Estrada's account, Williams told authorities he met two men on Tuesday who paid him $2,500 to transport the immigrants to Robstown, near Corpus Christi, according to the affidavit.

Williams, 32, told authorities he picked up the immigrants on Tuesday, and was later told by one of the men that he would be paid an additional $2,500 if he delivered the immigrants to Houston.

Williams pulled over his truck as he approached Victoria because he saw a light dangling from his trailer, Greenwell said, and then "he heard banging and screaming coming from the trailer."

"He heard a female voice screaming over and over, 'El nino!"' according to the affidavit.

Authorities say Williams and a woman who was with him bought 20 bottles of water for the immigrants. Greenwell said Williams told authorities he saw the dead immigrants when he opened the trailer's doors to give them the water.

Estrada told Greenwell that after the two saw the bodies, they left the trailer doors open and disconnected the trailer from the semi-tractor.

Interviews conducted with survivors by Mexico's consul general in Houston, Eduardo Ibarrola, backed up Estrada's account, said Marco Nunez, a spokesman for Ibarrola.

"In desperation, the people said they broke out the truck's taillights, to try and attract someone's attention and perhaps get some air," Nunez said.

Most of the immigrants are from Mexico, but some are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, Nunez said.

Forty-five survivors remain at a makeshift shelter in Victoria, while six others remain hospitalized, including two in intensive care, Nunez said.

Authorities are searching for the woman who was accompanying Williams, and the two men who paid him.

All four could face up to life in prison if convicted of all the counts in the criminal complaint, which alleges conspiracy to "smuggle, transport and conceal illegal aliens," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle said.

DeGabrielle said the death penalty also could be considered.

The immigrant-smuggling attempt was the deadliest in the United States since 1987, when the Border Patrol found 18 Mexican immigrants dead in a boxcar left on a rail siding in the West Texas town of Sierra Blanca.