Maryland
Maryland man visiting Mexico for a wedding mysteriously found dead
The search for answers is underway after a Maryland man visiting Mexico for a destination wedding was mysteriously found dead at a popular resort in Cancun.
A week after the death, the family of Chez Johnson, 31, said his body still has not been sent to the United States.
Yulanda Williams, Johnson’s mother, told WJZ on Wednesday the last time she spoke with her son was before he left on Jan. 15 for a co-worker’s destination wedding.
The next day, she said she received a call from a family friend stating that he had been found dead.
“I got a call around 12-1 o’clock that Chez had died, that he had fallen off a balcony in Mexico,” Yulanda Williams said.
Williams describes her son as a “character” who loved fashion, traveling, and his family. He was looking to further his education after graduating from Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) two years ago.
“He was my partner in crime,” Williams said. “He went to every function I ever wanted to go to. He was pescatarian. We always seemed to be eating seafood.”
Now, Williams is demanding for the official police and autopsy report from Mexican authorities and wants answers as to how her son died less than a month after his 31st birthday.
“They just would not talk to me”
Williams shared Johnson’s last known location with WJZ. He was at the all-inclusive Riu Caribe hotel in Cancun, Mexico, for his co-worker’s wedding.
The only way Willaims got any information regarding her son’s death was by FaceTiming a family friend who was also on the trip.
“The young lady Tierra, who is my uncle’s daughter, had confirmed it,” Williams said. “So I needed her to call me, so she FaceTimed me, and I wanted to see Chez’s body. But they wouldn’t let me see. So, she had to confirm that it was him.”
Williams said, “Tierra was telling them, ‘This is his mom. You know, this is his mom. Y’all have to talk to her,’ and they just would not talk to me.”
“He is a gay male so it’s no telling how they treat people over there,” said Shantia Smith, Johnson’s sister-in-law.
“Who was the last person to see him?”
Nearly a week after the incident, Williams says no local law enforcement agency in Mexico has yet to reach out to her directly about the circumstances surrounding her son’s death. She only knows what friends on the trip have been told.
The only video and pictures she had received are of the now empty stairwell and balcony the alleged incident happened.
“They said he had no defensive wounds on him, his body was the impact on his body from the fall,” Williams said. “He told me it wasn’t from him falling down the steps. It was from him falling from a height. They first told me that his leg was broken. Then they told the young lady, Tierra, told me that his ankle was broken. So, like, what is it? So that’s why I was like, ‘I need to get the police report, because it’s conflicting stories.’”
Williams said, “She said they were like big boulders about ‘this big,’ like eight of them when they showed her. And she said when she went back, everything was gone and everything was cleaned up.”
Williams continued, “Cameras didn’t point into the stairwell. They pointed outside. When she asked about the camera, I asked ‘Well, do they have audio? No audio.’”
“We called the police station, we were on hold, they hung up,” Smith said. “We called again and said they do not speak English and they hung up. The hotel has not answered the phone.”
Smith and Williams also expressed difficulty working with a funeral director in Cancun.
“They changed the price twice, because at first it was like 174,000 pesos,” Smith said. “Then we had our funeral home here contact them. She said that she would discount it to like $7,000. But then, when she found out that we had an insurance policy that can cover some of the expenses, she took the price back up.”
Smith added, “Y’all dangling him in front of us, like, ‘hey, look, you can have this property when you pay the money, we’ll send the property.’ It’s the same thing.”
“I am in mommy mode trying to get things done, I am on the phone all day, trying to, you know, try to maneuver some things,” Williams said. “So, it’s heartbreaking. And my family is really suffering because Chez was loved by my family and so many people.”
WJZ reached out to the U.S. Consulate General Merida and received an automated voicemail and email.
Riu Resorts has yet to respond to our inquiries.
“Maybe somebody can investigate this place, I know it is all inclusive but you have, it has to, it has to be a limit,” Williams said. “He was my youngest, my youngest son. I just needed confirmation. I don’t want them there, I really want him home. So that I can put him in his resting place. That’s what I want.”
Johnson’s sister-in-law said as of Thursday morning, the family has set up an online fundraiser and they are working with the Mexican embassy on a potential investigation. But still a lot of questions remain, including how they’re going to get his body home.
Other recent reports of deaths in Cancun
In 2024, a 12-year-old boy was killed after gunmen on jet skis opened fire at a beach in Cancun, authorities said, marking another incident of deadly violence at a Mexican resort in recent years.
Mexican prosecutors said in a statement, that the gunmen were targeting a rival drug dealer on the beach and fled after the barrage of bullets.
The boy, a local resident, was apparently lying on a lounge chair on the beach with his family when he was hit by stray bullets. The boy was taken to a local hospital where he later died, according to authorities.
In February 2024, three people were shot dead by gunmen – one who arrived and fled aboard a boat – in Acapulco.
In 2022, two Canadians were killed in Playa del Carmen, south of Cancun, apparently because of debts between international drug and weapons trafficking gangs.
In 2021, further south in Tulum, two tourists — one a California travel blogger born in India and a German national — were killed when they apparently were caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between rival drug dea.
The U.S. State Department has issued a Level 2 travel alert in Quintana Roo, the state where Cancun is located. The alert warns travelers to “exercise increased caution” in Mexico due to terrorism, crime, and kidnapping.
Online, the advisory summary notifies tourists of the violent crimes that can take place, and can include homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery.
One of the most unique ships featured in Sail250 Maryland and Airshow Baltimore can be found docked at the Baltimore Peninsula.
USS Marinette LCS25 is one of the most functional ships in the Navy fleet. At 370 feet long with 80 crew members, the ship has a helicopter landing pad and hangar, two rib boats in the belly of the vessel, and heavy artillery, including a cannon.
The ship has four engines, two of which are like jet engines, meaning it can sprint ahead of other vessels to intercept watercraft. It can also truck side to side and spin 360 degrees with controllable reversing and steering deflector buckets attached to the stern of the jet propulsion system. It can also traverse the littoral zones, water close to shore, and navigate waters as low as 15 feet deep.
“Where we shine is our ability to operate where other ships can’t,” said Cdr. Brian Sims, the ship’s executive officer. “For a 370-foot ship, one of the smallest in the fleet, it packs a punch. We can go 40 plus knots.”
The ship is used in counternarcotics missions primarily on the East Coast and in the Caribbean.
It is based in Jacksonville, Florida, but was built in Marinette, Wisconsin, which is where the ship gets its name. It began operating in 2023 and has yet to deploy. The ship can be out on the water for weeks or even months.
“We go out and find drug trafficking individuals and intercept, and the Coast Guard then takes over and arrests,” Sims said.
The pilot house is where the ship truly shines. An officer and junior officer monitor the radar and navigation, while another sailor sits at the helm and oversees steering the vessel and monitoring the engines.
“This is a very unique design for Navy ships,” Sims added.
The ship also hosts several heavy artillery pieces, including a cannon on the bow with different types of rounds to combat different threats. It can fire 220 rounds in a minute.
With its rich Naval history, Baltimore is playing host to some of the Navy’s finest, and the crews are equally as excited to be here in Maryland, the backbone of the Navy, celebrating 250 years of American history.
“Baltimore is a fantastic city, steeped in maritime tradition. Of course, we have Fort McHenry that we sailed past and rendered honors to when we arrived,” Sims said. “Having the ability to be in this role in this position on board this ship to celebrate the nation’s 250th, it’s an absolute honor, and one that, one that gives us all pause, and lets us reflect on where we’ve come as a nation.”
As Maryland families head into another hot summer, many are about to receive an unpleasant reminder of just how badly some state leaders failed to address Maryland’s growing energy problems this year.
Higher energy bills are not coming by accident. They are the predictable result of years of poor planning and a continued refusal by Democratic leadership in Annapolis to confront the real issue facing our state: Maryland does not produce enough electricity to meet its own growing energy needs.
Instead of seriously addressing that challenge during this year’s legislative session, Democratic leaders celebrated passage of the so-called Utility Relief Act (House Bill 1532), which offers Marylanders roughly $12 in savings per month. At a time when families are facing soaring energy costs driven by a massive shortage of reliable in-state power generation, that is not meaningful relief. It is a political talking point designed to avoid the larger conversation Maryland desperately needs to have.
Our state imports nearly half of the electricity it uses. Nearly half of the power keeping homes cool, businesses operating and communities functioning every day comes from outside our borders. Yet even as demand for electricity continues to rise, Maryland continues falling behind on building the reliable generation capacity needed to support our future.
That is not a serious long-term strategy.
Families across Maryland are already struggling with inflation, rising housing costs and economic uncertainty. Energy bills are becoming another major financial burden for working families, seniors and small businesses. But instead of focusing on increasing reliable power supply, meaning fully lowering consumer costs, and strengthening Maryland’s long-term energy security, Annapolis continues offering temporary fixes that fail to address the underlying problem.
The reality is simple: Maryland needs more power generation, and every responsible energy source should be part of the conversation. Natural gas, nuclear, renewables, battery storage, clean coal and emerging technologies all have a role to play in creating a more reliable and affordable energy future for our state.
Maryland also needs a broader conversation about the role experienced infrastructure providers and utilities can play in strengthening reliability and supporting future generation needs. These are organizations that already manage the systems Marylanders depend on every day and understand the long-term planning required to maintain dependable service.
Reliable and affordable energy is not a partisan issue. It is a basic requirement for economic growth, business investment and everyday quality of life.
As summer begins and air conditioners start running around the clock, Maryland families will once again be reminded that energy policy decisions made in Annapolis have real world consequences.
Unfortunately, they are paying for those consequences every month.
Del. Jason Buckel is the Minority Leader of the Maryland House of Delegates and represents Allegany County in the Maryland General Assembly.
MARYLAND (WBFF) — A group of Republican candidates, a voter, and an election-integrity organization are asking an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge to stop the state from certifying primary election results until election officials contact every voter whose original ballot was rejected and allow them to correct the problem.
The lawsuit, filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court against the Maryland State Board of Elections, comes a month after state election officials acknowledged that some Maryland voters were mistakenly mailed ballots for the wrong political party and sent replacement ballots to affected voters.
The ballot error affected voters who requested physical mail-in ballots for the June 23 primaries.
The Maryland State Board of Elections said its vendor, Taylor Print and Visual Impressions Inc. (TPVI), mailed some of the voters’ ballots for the wrong political party, but the administrator said the board’s vendor couldn’t identify which voters received erroneous ballots. Over 500,000 Maryland voters had requested mail-in ballots, most of them in Montgomery, Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, and Baltimore City.
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