stlpublicradio An Overland couple who had recently returned to Guatemala was found bound and shot dead in a sugarcane field. Nixon Giovanni Pérez Paz and Glendy Marisol González de la Cruz were killed just weeks after González de la Cruz self-deported to be with her husband, who was deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year. Their 14-month-old daughter, Giovanni, was found crying beside her mother’s body in southern Guatemala. Guatemala’s National Civil Police told local news outlets that Pérez Paz, 43, and González de la Cruz, 25, had been gagged and had their hands and feet bound. Prosecutors are investigating the killings, including a possible motive and who was responsible. In the early hours one morning last March, Pérez Paz was driving his 51-year-old brother, Rolando Pérez Paz, to their roofing job when they were stopped near their home by ICE. A large group of agents exited an unmarked vehicle and swarmed them, taking them out of their white work van and later putting them in handcuffs and shackles before taking them to the Phelps County Jail, Rolando Pérez Paz told St. Louis Public Radio on Monday from his home in Guatemala. The agents didn’t explain much other than telling him there wasn’t a warrant out for their arrests but that they were being arrested for entering the county illegally and they would be deported. The two men were in the country without legal status, fleeing violence and poverty from the Central American country, said Rolando Perez Paz. Glendy González de la Cruz had recently left the U.S. to be with her husband Nixon Pérez Paz. She González de la Cruz had an active asylum case, but feared being detained away from her three young daughters. “I think this is indicative of the problem and the broken process,” said Zachary Mueller, a Kansas City-based strategist at States at the Core, a nonprofit helping local communities fight authoritarianism and political violence. "Now two people are dead and three young girls are without parents for the rest of their lives." ✍️: Brian Munoz | @brianmmunoz 📸: Provided by the Pérez Paz Family View all 596 comments