A husband and wife went jet skiing on a lake between the U.S. and Mexico border. She returned. He didn’t. Now authorities are asking her to take a lie detector test to support the story of his death.
Tiffany Hartley and her husband David went Jet skiing recently on the humongous Falcon Lake between McAllen, Texas and the coast of Mexico. But when Tiffany returned to shore alone, she told a sobering story of pirates in three boats who approached them in the dangerous waters while they were on the Mexico side, shot and killed David Hartley, then allowed her to escape safely without proof of the attack or the remains of her husband. Although officials originally comforted Tiffany Hartley in her loss, some are now questioning the validity of her story.
According to Hartley, armed gunmen opened fire on the two of them, hitting her husband in the head. Hartley said she saw him fly over his jet ski, and although she tried to pull him onto her watercraft, she couldn’t because he was too heavy. So she fled for her own safety. But Mexican authorities, who have found neither the husband’s body nor his Jet Ski, doubt the details of Hartley’s story. A police official said that fishermen and ranchers in the area did not hear gunfire or the sound of Jet Skis. And since the alleged incident, several news crew have traveled with police protection out onto the lake to investigate, but have all discovered the lake to be totally still, without boats, jet ski’s, fishermen, or pirates.
Originally, most treated Tiffany Hartley delicately and respectfully following details of the death of her husband and her lucky escape. But now that officials are beginning to question her tale, everyone is not so delicate or respectful. When asked point blank if she had anything to do with the death of her husband, Hartley replied “No, not at all,” during an appearance last Friday on NBC’s “Today” show. “I loved him very much and I went back for him to help him and I did what I could.” Hartley went on to say she doesn’t believe Mexican authorities are doing enough to find his body, and that she believes pirates are hiding the body and the watercraft. “We were in Mexico and U.S. authorities can’t go over there,” she said. “I have no proof. I have no cameras. I have nothing. I don’t have the photos that we were taking. I don’t have anything except for my word.”
During the interview, Hartley said that after her husband was shot, a gunman approached her by boat, aimed a gun at her, then inexplicably left. But when asked to describe the gunmen, she couldn’t. “Looking at the barrel of the gun is all I saw,” she said on NBC. “I was pretty focused there. I couldn’t tell you what they look like. They were within the length of my Jet Ski of me, which is about 10 feet.”
Hartley says she doesn’t know why she was spared and her husband was killed. But that is exactly the question authorities are eager to figure out.
