Missing for 10 Days, Mexican Field Worker Found Dead Under a Tree
ENFIELD, N.C. (AP) -- Urbano Ramirez Miranda died in the earth-scented shade temple of a majestic magnolia tree his second day picking tobacco.
That late-June afternoon was a typically humid 87 degrees in this corner of North Carolina's verdant coastal plain. Ramirez was built sturdy, but the wet heat here was nothing like his native Mexico.
When Ramirez complained of a nosebleed, the field supervisor instructed his new hire to quit early.
That was the last anyone saw of Ramirez for 10 days, when another worker found his body propped against the tree.
One clue to its identity: the 22 orange tags that recorded how many buckets of pickling cucumbers Ramirez picked starting at 6 a.m. the day he died. Between cucumber and tobacco work, he would have been paid about $50 that day.
The disappearance wasn't reported, the tobacco farmer told state investigators, because he figured it wasn't work related.
One medical examiner concluded Ramirez died of natural causes, but state officials ruled the cause "undetermined." His body was too decomposed to establish whether heat played a role.
Ramirez was one of 11 Mexican-born workers who died in 2001 in North Carolina, which helped make the South the nation's most dangerous region for these immigrant laborers, according to an Associated Press investigation. Deaths rose along with the Mexican-born population; in cities such as Charlotte and Raleigh, Hispanic populations grew approximately sevenfold during the 1990s.
"We're working really hard to communicate to folks in their language that ... people deserve a safe workplace," says Regina Luginbuhl, the state official in charge of agricultural safety and health.
Urbano Ramirez's brother Luis stands under the solitary magnolia where his hermano died. Its branches arc out 20 feet until they touch the sodden ground.
"At least he died in a place where there was shade," Luis Ramirez says, rubbing his eyes with construction-callused hands. "A good place."
The brothers arrived in North Carolina four months before Urbano Ramirez died, riding faith and a 1995 Ford Escort. After crossing the Rio Grande River, they had walked about 150 miles over five days to the Texas town of Mathis, where they pooled $3,500 for the car.
They took turns driving, the talk often turning to what work here would be like, how much money they might wire home. Urbano Ramirez had a pregnant wife, three boys and a girl.
It was a slow start. With no construction jobs open, Urbano Ramirez turned to the fields. The work bored him, but it was familiar. Growing up, he had tended subsistence plots of corn, beans and squash.
Someone mentioned that Jake Taylor Farms was hiring. Ramirez showed up June 24, 2001 at the farm's migrant worker housing outside Durham. He gave a fake name and was hired, state accident investigators found.
Two days later, Ramirez was one in a 45-man crew handpicking tobacco. When Ramirez started bleeding, the field supervisor prescribed shade rest.
The supervisor did not offer to take him to a doctor, investigators found. "He ignored him," Luis Ramirez says.
The state later cited Jake Taylor Farms for failing to supply water cups. The field supervisor said he sold beers on the side. Both were "substantial violations that may have contributed to the fatal event," investigators said.
Taylor declined comment for this story through the lawyer who represented him before a state worker's compensation panel that determined he owed $86,000 to Ramirez's family.
Luis Ramirez helped raise $3,800 to fly his brother's body from Raleigh to Guadalajara. Because he too was undocumented, he didn't return for the funeral.