The last time anybody in Nerio García’s family heard his voice was on a crackly call from jail outside Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second city. He called from a borrowed cell phone, pleading to his brother for help.

“Tell Mother to bring me some food,” García, 29, said in the 2 a.m. call, relatives later recounted.

Another call from a fellow inmate said García had stolen a gun and escaped, drawing his mother, Juana Castillo, to the overcrowded jail in Cabimas. She was desperate for answers, but was instead told to go looking on the shoreline of nearby Lake Maracaibo. There, she found him shot between the eyes and floating in the water.