Saturday, Jan. 10, 1998 | 3:56 a.m.
RENO, Nev. - Two northern Nevada men, who hadn't been heard from since the second day of a planned two-week fishing trip to Mexico in November, have turned up dead in Baja California.
The bodies of Alan Swan, 37, of Gardnerville, and Herb Dohr, 42, of Reno, were identified by a family member Friday in San Quintin, a small coastal town about 200 miles south of Tijuana.
The two were killed by blows to the head and a homicide investigation is under way in Mexico. Funeral arrangements were pending and family members were making arrangements to return their bodies to the United States.
"You kind of prepare for the worst, but you don't prepare for anybody getting murdered," said Mary Tumbusch, Swan's girlfriend. "It's shocking for everybody.
"We were hoping for the best - that they were in a jail down there instead - but it didn't turn out that way."
The bodies were found Dec. 9 in a dry gulch outside San Quintin, but a police mix-up prevented a positive identification of them until Friday, a month later, Tumbusch said.
Mexican police initially thought the bodies were that of a man and woman, so family members didn't pursue the lead.
Swan's sister, Elisabeth Swan, learned only Thursday that the bodies were of two men. She identified the bodies Friday as those of her brother and Dohr.
Elisabeth Swan went Wednesday to Ensenada with a videotape of the pair, hoping to generate new leads by contacting the local news media.
"We could have resolved this a long time ago without the mixup," Tumbusch said, adding no explanation has been provided for it.
The two men left Nov. 16 for a Baja fishing trip in Dohr's new pickup, and called a day later from Ensenada to say they were headed south from there.
The men weren't due back until Nov. 30, and family members contacted Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., for help when they didn't show up.
Reid, who was praised by family members for his assistance in dealing with Mexican authorities, said the men were asleep on a beach in sleeping bags when they were attacked. Their decomposed bodies were found in the bags.
The men each carried nearly $1,000, but the truck is their only known possession recovered to date, Reid said. The men owned rental property in Nevada and California.
"I'm only speculating, but it appears to me two people were asleep and someone worked them over and took their money," Reid said.
Tumbusch said the murders point out the potential dangers of travel to Mexico.
"I know the Mexican people are wonderful, but I've heard a lot of horror stories (about Mexican travel) since I've been involved in this," she said. "I want to pursue the angle that it's dangerous to go down there. I'll never go there."
Reid agreed the murders serve as a reminder of the dangers of Mexican travel.
"But it also can be dangerous to visit Florida," he said. "I don't think we can trash the tourism industry of Mexico for this one incident."
archive
