Alabama law enforcement officials say that an illegal immigrant and an immigrant in the United States on a green card are responsible for the brutal murders of a grandmother and her 13-year-old special needs granddaughter in what investigators say is violence related to Mexican drug cartels.

Investigator Stacy Rutherford told a court on Thursday that Mendoza traveled to Georgia in early June to pick up a batch of methamphetamine with Israel Palomino, 34, Yoni Aguilar, 26, and Leticia Garcia.

Rutherford testified that Mendoza and Garcia were both connected to the Sinaloa Cartel and Palomino suspected that something went wrong during the drug pick up when he discovered after the alleged drug pick up that Mendoza removed the SIM card from her phone. ABC 31 reports:

He also found a text message sent to an unknown woman during the Georgia drug run, investigators said. In that text, Mendoza asked the woman to pick up her granddaughter from Palomino’s wife because she was afraid for their lives, they said.

The two men then reportedly took her to a cemetery where she began to argue with Palomino who then stabbed her and left her there to die. The two men then took the granddaughter to a separate location where they allegedly decapitated her.

READ MORE: