Pyle Transportation vehicle photo courtesy of Google search
A semi where eight illegal immigrant were found dead in a San Antonio parking lot has ties to an Iowa trucking company.
San Antonio police were called to a Wal Mart parking lot early Sunday morning when one of the passengers inside the trailer came inside the store asking for water. Police found at least 38 people inside the trailer, which had no air conditioning. Eight were dead and a ninth died later at the hospital.
The remaining number were either taken to area hospitals with extreme heat illnesses or fled into the nearby woods.
The truck was licensed by Pyle Transportation of Shaller, Iowa. President Brian Pyle told the Washington Post that the semi was owned by the driver, but Pyle had paid for the license and the insurance.
Authorities have identified the driver as 60 year old James Bradley, Junior of Clearwater, Florida. He's been arrested and the semi truck and tractor have been towed.
The San Antonio police chief early Sunday told reporters that surveillance video found several trucks pulling up to the one in question and unloading passengers onto the semi. It's believed the passengers walked into the US on foot from Mexico and were transported there.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department is investigating. They call it a human smuggling case "gone terribly wrong".