Pregnant mother found brutally raped and murdered in Mexico after fleeing the US with 7 children, police say

A Mexican prosecutor said authorities discovered the naked body of an Indiana woman abandoned in a ditch in the state of Chiapas over the weekend.

Maurica Lambert said 30-year-old Makala Pendley was raped and beaten to death, according to local authorities who informed the family of the woman's death.

'It just never would have crossed my mind that it would have been him. I've never gotten, like, that type of, like, feeling from him or anything.'

Lambert says her sister was over six months pregnant.

"It just still does not feel freaking real," Lambert said to WXIN-TV. "It just doesn't feel real at all."

A local prosecutor said in an online broadcast that she had been dead between eight and 12 hours before her body was found in the ditch in a small village in the municipality of Zinacantán.

"The deceased woman's death was caused by traumatic brain injury secondary to blunt force trauma," the prosecutor said.

Pendley's death led to a frantic search for her seven children. By Tuesday, Mexican officials said they had located the children and arrested the children's father.

WXIN said it was unable to confirm the arrest with the local prosecutor, but other online reports also reported the arrest.

"I thought it was somebody else. I still feel like it's someone else," Lambert said. "It just never would have crossed my mind that it would have been him. I've never gotten, like, that type of, like, feeling from him or anything."

Lambert said her sister had fled from Indianapolis to Mexico with the children and their father out of fear that the children would be taken away.

In February 2026, Pendley and the children were reported missing to Indianapolis authorities. Mexican officials reportedly found the children and returned them to Pendley.

The Mexican prosecutor said the children's father previously had been detained for numerous crimes that included rape, assault, robbery, fraud, illegal possession of weapons, and intimidation to cause bodily harm.

Lambert admitted her sister had a "toxic, on-and-off relationship" with the father.

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"We will seek the maximum sentence of 100 years for this perpetrator of femicide," the local prosecutor said about the father of the children.

The prosecutor said the children were in good health and that authorities were working with the State Department to return them to the U.S.

Lambert confirmed the children were returning to Indianapolis along with the remains of their mother.

"She was a good mom," she added. "As moms, you know, we have our bad days, you know what I mean? And she was a good mom, though. She put her kids before she put anything."

Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico and includes a large indigenous population that maintains the Mayan language and culture. Indigenous activists accuse Mexican officials of discriminating against them.

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