EXCLUSIVE 17 Dead Bodies, RAPE TREES and Migrants Crawling On His Land: Arizona rancher armed with a Glock describes life on the frontlines of the border crisis as Republicans push bill to Allow Landowners To Shoot Trespassers
John Ladd's phone is an archive of life on a ranch beside the
Arizona border with
Mexico.
He scrolls past photographs of handsome Red Angus and cross-bred Hereford-Brahman cattle, picture after picture of
Donald Trump's 30ft border wall that spans about six-and-a-half miles of his land. Then he stops at an image of a tree.
'That's a
rape tree,' he said, pointing out the women's clothes thrown into the thorny branches.
'Almost all the women who come across get raped by their guides, who then they throw their underwear in the trees.'
The trees have been spotted up and down the border. Academics talk of them as warnings or trophies in the brutal symbolism of violent gangs.
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Ladd has learned the telltale signs of human smuggling on his land, like this 'Rape Tree' where guides toss women's clothes en route to the highway that cuts through his ranch
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John Ladd's phone is an archive of life on a ranch beside the Arizona border with Mexico. His 16,000 acres lie in the busiest part of the entire border.
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