SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- Three Mexican nationals who died after the boat they were on capsized off Point Loma on Sunday were identified by the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The Medical Examiner’s Office identified the deceased boat occupants as Maria Eugenia Chavez-Segovia, 41; Victor Perez Degollado, 29; and Maricela Hernandez Sanchez, 35.
According to the ME’s Office, Chavez-Segovia died upon arrival at UC San Diego Medical Center. Perez Degollado and Hernandez Sanchez were pronounced dead at the scene.
All three drowned, with “blunt force injury of head” listed as a contributing condition, according to the ME’s Office.
Meanwhile, the captain of the suspected smuggling boat was identified by Customs and Border Protection officials as a U.S. citizen.
The incident near the tidepools at Cabrillo National Monument was reported at around 10 a.m. on May 2. The 40-foot boat, which CBP officials said was part of a human smuggling operation, struck rocks and broke apart in the waters off Point Loma.
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Twenty-nine people survived, with five of those survivors hospitalized.
CBP officials said 28 of the boat’s occupants were “Mexican nationals with no legal status to enter the U.S.” Officials added one person was from Guatemala that had “no legal status in the U.S.”
CBP confirmed the boat’s captain was a male U.S. citizen, and he was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
According to CBP officials: “Of the 28 undocumented non-citizens taken into U.S. Border Patrol custody for processing, one was identified as an unaccompanied 15-year-old boy. The others were ages 18-39, 21 men and 6 women.”
