Elisabeth Mandala, High School Student Who Wanted to Smuggle Illegals, Ends Up Dead

​UPDATE: Whoever killed Elisabeth tried to make it look as if she’d been in a car accident. But Mexican police believe she and two men had been beaten to death at least 10 hours before the crash was staged. See update after the jump…

Elisabeth was secretly working as a stripper. She also wanted to learn how to smuggle illegals.

​Elisabeth Mandala was a popular senior at Kempner High School in Sugarland, Texas. But she also had a private side that showed a jones for both money and adventure. Unbeknownst to her mother, she was working as a stripper. Then she disappeared late last month.
Her mom believed she was headed to Mexico to learn how to be a coyote, shuttling illegal immigrants across the border into the Good Old USA. While police were searching for the girl, she posted a note on her Facebook page saying she was in Mexico and would be back soon.

But the country isn’t a place for little high school girls these days. With the non-stop slaughter between smuggling cartels, it’s come to resemble Fallujah on Free Liquor & Ammo Night. And it seems Elisabeth got in way over her head.

She was found dead in a truck along with two older men carrying fake IDs. Whoever was responsible tried to make it look like an accident, but Mexican police say all three were beaten to death. And since most of Mexico’s murders go unsolved, there’s little chance we’ll ever know what happened to her.

On her Facebook page last month, she wrote that “fame is looking for me.” It has found her, at least in her tiny world of Sugarland, Texas. But it won’t be the kind she can enjoy.

Elisabeth, left, was beaten to death along with two other men who were carrying multiple fake IDs.

UPDATE: Elisabeth is believed to have been murdered 10 hours before her body was found in a staged accident.
So say Mexican police, who found Elisabeth and two men — Dante Ruiz Siller, 38, and Luis Angel Estrella Mondragon, 44 — in a crashed truck near the village of Mina. Whoever killed them tried to make it look like an accident. But they weren’t the brightest murderers.
A large rock was found on the truck floor, believed to have been used to hold the accelerator down to fake an accident.
But police still don’t know why Elisabeth was with the two men. Siller, a merchant, and Mondragon, a cab driver, were from the outskirts of Mexico City. Their relatives don’t know why they were with Elisabeth, or why they decided to travel toward the U.S. border. Both men were carrying multiple fake identifications.
See our last story from a high school: Teacher Poisons His Own Coffee to Get Attention After Break Up with Girlfriend.