How an American mom died at the hands of a Mexican cartel

On the day of her murder, Rhonita Miller packed for a trip to Phoenix and a reunion with her husband.

She brought an overnight bag, snacks for the preteens and car seats for the twins.

Rhonita was in many ways a typical American mom. She drove a Chevy Suburban. She had a Pinterest page. Her husband worked in the North Dakota oil fields.

But the Millers also had roots in Mexico, and earlier this year they moved to La Mora, 60 miles south of the Arizona border.

Rhonita, 30, knew about drug cartel violence but believed she would be safe.

“She thought her innocence would protect her,” said Adriana Jones, 35, one of Rhonita’s sisters. “Who’s going to mess with a woman and her kids? Nobody is that evil.”

Breakaway colonies

Rhonita grew up across the Sierra Madre mountain range from La Mora, in Colonia LeBaron, which was founded by one of her ancestors.

In the late 1800s, after the U.S. government outlawed polygamy, some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints migrated to Mexico.

In the 1900s, after the church prohibited “plural marriage,” Mormon fundamentalists broke away, founding new colonies and forming their own churches.

Colonia LeBaron, which in the 20th century grew to about 1,000 people, and La Mora, with around 100 residents, were two breakaway colonies that thrived.

Rhonita’s father, Adrian LeBaron, lived in Colonia LeBaron. He married three women, including Rhonita’s mother, Shalom Tucker.

Shalom, 54, lived apart from Adrian’s other wives. “We got to keep our own identities, be our own selves,” she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Nowadays polygamy is waning, and people of various faiths live in the colonies.

“Now what unites us is our shared history,” said Adriana, who lives in Utah.

‘Tall, dark and handsome’

Rhonita was the sixth of Shalom’s 12 children. Born Maria Rhonita LeBaron on Sept. 15, 1989, her life began with a shout.

Sept. 16 is Mexican Independence Day. The night before, people celebrate El Grito, the cry for freedom.

“Nita was very proud that every September 15th there was a party,” said Shalom.

When Rhonita was a teenager, a friend introduced her to a boy named Howard Miller, from a Mormon family that didn’t practice polygamy.

Howard, a year older than Rhonita, personified the phrase “tall, dark and handsome.” He began to woo the beautiful LeBaron girl.

In rural Mexico, it’s common for teenagers to wed. In August 2006, a month shy of her 17th birthday, Rhonita married Howard before hundreds of guests.

A year later, Rhonita gave birth to Howard Jr. (Howie). “Her greatest joy and dream was to become a mother,” said Shalom.

Rhonita wasn’t a fundamentalist or member of the church, but she identified as Mormon and wrote notes about her spiritual journey.

“She was sweet and a bit naive,” said Adriana. “You couldn’t tell a dirty joke around her because she wouldn’t get it.”

Howard worked in construction, framing buildings. He and Rhonita lived in the U.S. for most of their marriage.

In 2009, Rhonita gave birth to her second child, Krystal. Over the next few years she bore three more children.

By the end of 2018, Rhonita was pregnant again but didn’t realize she was carrying twins. Then a midwife ordered her to get a sonogram.

“She was a home birther,” said Adriana. “Hippie water birth, that’s how Nita was.”

‘Flower power girl’

In January 2019, tragedy struck. One of Howard’s brothers, Alvin Miller, 28, along with an uncle, died in an ultralight crash outside La Mora.

By this time, Howard and some of his brothers had launched a business in North Dakota, delivering water for fracking, a process for extracting oil and gas from rock.

But with Alvin gone, Howard’s parents, Kenny and Loretta Miller, needed help managing their pecan orchards.

Rhonita loved moving to La Mora, situated in a river valley in the Mexican state of Sonora.

“It’s like summer all year round,” said Adriana. “Also, with the twins coming, she had a huge support network.”

After Tiana and Titus were born in March 2019, Rhonita often journeyed over the Sierra Madre and across the state line into Chihuahua to visit family in Colonia LeBaron.

“Nita was a flower-power girl,” said Adriana. “Going over that mountain range was no big deal.”

On Nov. 3, Rhonita attended a going-away party in La Mora for Christina Langford Johnson, 31, who was moving to North Dakota. Dawna Ray Langford, 43, was also there.

The women traded stories about encounters with sicarios — cartel gunmen — who sometimes set up checkpoints on local roads.

“We’d been a little more nervous the last couple of months,” Howard’s sister Kendra Miller, 27, told the Review-Journal. “But we still felt like we were OK.”

‘Do you think it’s a sign?’

On the morning of Nov. 4, Rhonita drove away from La Mora. Howard was flying down from North Dakota, and she planned to pick him up at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.

Rhonita brought along Howie, 12, and Krystal, 10. Taking a trip was a treat, and they could help manage the twins.

Dawna and Christina, who were heading to Colonia LeBaron, thought they would be safer traveling as a caravan. Dawna had a car full with nine kids. Christina brought her infant daughter, Faith.

But about five miles outside La Mora, Rhonita’s car broke a ball joint.

She and her kids loaded into the other SUVs and drove back to Kenny and Loretta Miller’s house.

Rhonita asked her mother-in-law, “Do you think it’s a sign?”

“I’m like, ‘Well you decide, but if you want to borrow my car, you’re welcome to,’ and she jumped at it,” Loretta told the Review-Journal. “She was all happy and smiling and excited about life.”

Dawna and Christina, anxious to make up for lost time, headed off again.

Rhonita and her kids got into Loretta’s Suburban and returned to the broken-down vehicle. After transferring car seats and luggage, they continued up the dirt road.

Howie was sitting on the passenger side. Behind him, the 8-month-old twins were belted into their car seats. Krystal was by herself in the third row.

A couple of minutes later, they faced unimaginable terror. A hail of bullets struck the Suburban, piercing the doors and shattering the windows.

‘Burnt and shot up’

Back at the site where Rhonita’s SUV broke down, Kenny and Loretta’s 18-year-old son, Andre Miller, arrived with a car-trailer.

Andre noticed smoke in the distance. Then he saw a fireball.

He raced up the road and found the Suburban engulfed in flames. The inferno was so intense he couldn’t tell if anyone was inside.

Andre unhitched the trailer and sped home. “He came in yelling,” said Kendra.

By the time Kenny got to the scene, the flames had subsided, and he could see smoldering human remains.

His voice breaking, Kenny narrated a video that later went viral: “Nita and four of my grandchildren are burnt and shot up!”

In Colonia LeBaron, Shalom was riding with Adrian when she got the bad news. Right away they started organizing a caravan to La Mora.

By sundown, Shalom, Adrian and several other men were descending the Sonora side of the Sierra Madre. Ahead they saw Dawna and Christina’s bullet-riddled SUVs.

“We never dreamed that we’d see Christina’s body still lying in the road,” said Shalom. “Her baby Faith was strapped in the car seat, alive, all day.”

Shalom gave Faith capfuls of Pedialyte until the infant became hydrated enough to start crying again.

Dawna died along with two of her children. But seven of Dawna’s children, some shot and bleeding, managed to get away.

Laid to rest

Night had fallen by the time Shalom reached the site where Rhonita died. She returned before dawn and stood vigil — crying, praying, struggling to comprehend.

Rhonita’s seat was reclined, as if she had been reaching into the back seat for the twins. Her upper body was reduced to ash.

“Howie’s body was hanging out the passenger door,” said Shalom. “I imagine he was trying to escape.”

In the third row, Krystal died in fetal position, curled up so tightly that a fragment of pink leather – a remnant of her purse — didn’t burn.

Shalom found Rhonita’s checkbook, along with postage stamps and loose change, lying by the road, suggesting that the gunmen looted the SUV before setting it on fire.

Rhonita was laid to rest in Colonia LeBaron in a wooden casket with Tiana and Titus at her side. Howie and Krystal were buried close by.

‘We’re done waiting’

General Homero Mendoza of the Mexican Defense Ministry said the attack happened because La Linea, a gang from Chihuahua, wanted to send a message to Los Salazar, a rival gang in Sonora.

In northern Mexico, rural roads are used for drug trafficking, and cartels battle for control.

Authorities suggested that La Linea’s gunmen saw the SUVs and thought they belonged to Los Salazar.

But Dawna’s surviving children said Christina got out and waved her arms, and the gunmen shot her anyway.

A month after the attack, family members met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City.

In 2018, López Obrador campaigned on a slogan of “hugs, not bullets,” as a progressive approach to cartel violence.

But on Dec. 1, the first anniversary of his inauguration, Mexico recorded 127 homicides, one of the worst days on record.

Bryan LeBaron, 42, a dual American-Mexican citizen who lives in California, wants the U.S. State Department to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

In mid-December, Bryan and other LeBaron family members met with officials in Washington.

“This is an international crisis that requires an international solution,” Bryan told the Review-Journal. “We’re done waiting for the Mexican government to handle this.”

Doug Kari is an attorney and writer based in Lone Pine, California.