Mexico ( Two Arrested for Slaughtering 8 Family members in Northern Mexico )

MEXICO CITY – Two suspects are in custody in connection with the slaughter of eight members of a family inside a home in the northern Mexican metropolis of Ciudad Juarez, the Chihuahua state government said Wednesday.

Edgar Uriel Lujan Guevara, 31, and Jesus Daniel Mendoza Hernandez, 21, were arrested Tuesday night in Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Police are still searching for a third suspect, state authorities said.

Statements from the men in custody indicate the motive for the bloodshed was an unpaid gambling debt, one source said.

Chihuahua’s deputy attorney general for the northern part of the state, Enrique Villarreal, said Monday that investigators thought it likely the massacre was carried out by relatives or acquaintances of the family.

The eight victims, including three children under 10, were stabbed to death in the wee hours of Sunday.

The bodies of the children and two young women were left in the bedrooms of the residence on Ciudad Juarez’s south side. Police found the adult male victims tied to chairs.

Chihuahua is one of Mexico’s most dangerous states, thanks largely to a climate of violence generating by conflict among rival drug cartels.