CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The nine women and children killed by drug cartel gunmen in northern Mexico lived in a remote farming community where residents with dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship consider themselves Mormon — and many are descended from former members of The Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints who fled the U.S. to escape the church's 19th century ban on polygamy.
La Mora, population less than 1,000, lies in a desert valley ringed by rugged mountains about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of the border towns of Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta in Mexico's Sonora state.
While many La Mora residents identify as Mormon, they also consider themselves independent from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Cristina Rosetti, a Mormon
