Chapter 10
The Aftermath
One question asked by many who knew Carlos, was how such an excellent swimmer could drown. Some think he was murdered, but the usual answer to that ever since Sotomayor wrote has been to picture him bravely trying to save Marco, but being dragged down by him. This is believable and has been the standard tale, despite the apparent lack of an eyewitness. It also is probably part of the truth.
Certainly, their bodies were found close together, and it makes some sense, since Frey was a rather heroic figure. Who could doubt that Carlos would risk his life to save a comrade? — no one who knew him — that is for sure.
Gomez could not swim and when they brought up his body, he had a valise chained to his wrist, which, among other heavy items, included a 38 revolver and a good supply of cartridges. Expedition members had to break the bond to get it off his wrist, so certainly the drowning Franco could not have gotten it off in time. Whether able to swim or not, he might have been unable to tread water because of that weight.
One issue that Frey’s brother, Gilbert, made a point of was that Carlos always paddled a canoe barefoot. The fact that he was found dead wearing shoes indicated to him that Carlos died ashore.
Because the group was coming up to a small waterfall, which was one of a good number on that river, it would have been logical to have shoes on for whatever happened, rather than risk losing them in capsizing. It is also a real advantage to have footwear on for pulling a canoe upstream through rough areas or carrying it around, and it seems likely that Carlos just kept the shoes on.
Another problem was how Carlos managed to go the entire time of the expedition, while leaving only a brief diary behind. He was trying to write a book, which he claimed to have half written before the trip, and hoped to have the rest done while on the expedition. Even if the little he wrote in the diary was all he had time for, what happened to what he had written before the trip?
Although there are several short chapters among the papers his brother kept, Carlos indicated that he had a lot more written. This was never found, either in his hotel room in Mexico City, nor among his effects that survived the trip.
Surely, Frey was very busy, but it seems odd that all he left from this significant period of his life was a thin, wet journal that was taken from his body.
Unfortunately, that booklet disappeared at some point since then. When a writer wrote his post-mortem article he alluded to the diary, but it is not among the surviving papers.
What does still exist is Gilbert Frey’s analysis and lengthy quotes from that trip diary. What he quotes is troubling for its lack of lucidity. For example, Carlos wrote:
"A number of people have told me it sounds poetic and where did I think of so original a name? [Bonampak?] So I says: I give all the credit to Morley, [who named Bonampak] who never saw it but smelled it. Of course, I ran through a few Mexican scientists who couldn’t smell the same. I guess its (sic) because they use too spiced foods. Painted Walls [what Bonampak is supposed to mean] I am romantic as Latins. How wonderful this new zone to be named after dead pioneers. The heroes slept."
The confused writing is as if Carlos had been using something such as an amphetamine to stay awake. This would coincide with Sotomayor’s description of him as being always in motion.
Most of the rest of the diary could only be a lengthy letter to Giles Healey. In it, he wrote to someone, and refers to the five ruin sites that Carlos had taken him to. Carlos referred to not being paid and stating that the person could not be trusted. The letter itself stops very abruptly and the rest of the notes are illegible.
It seems unlikely that Carlos would have taken any manuscripts on such a river as the Lacanhá, so probably we cannot blame the current for that. Still, very little of his written record survives from this period.
It is noteworthy that in early 1972, writer Jonathan Cassel lived among the Northern Lacandons to research a book. He made friends with them, and before he left, he was told quietly that Carlos did not die from drowning, but that he was shot in the head by a Lacandón over a woman.
While Cassel has the year of death wrong, and the damage to the skull, which was kept by his son until 1995, does not look at all like a bullet hole, the idea of a fuss over Carlos’s interest in a woman certainly does sound plausible. Perhaps the significant point here is that before the exhumation, we find reference to a head injury as the cause of death.
Let us assume for the sake of argument that Carlos was murdered by a Lacandón over a woman. According to missionary, Phillip Baer, who lived later among these more violent Lacanhá Lacandons, most of the many murders were over women. In that scenario, the woman could only be Nah K’in Margarita, by all accounts, his paramour during the journey.
In a couple of versions she had a husband, who had a surprisingly young age of eight. Carlos previously nicknamed the child "El Cubano" for his love of cigars, and it stuck. With a habit then common even to young Lacandons, the little fellow was addicted to tobacco.
Among the Lacandons, polygamy was common, and this involved the payment of a bride price. Normally, one obtained a bride in later, rather than earlier, years.
To do so earlier would normally require a payment by someone else. In the event of failure of the marriage, the payee would have to make good on the money. Since Nah K’in’s parents were deceased, and one quite recently, it is logical that her brother, Obregon, would have been responsible for repayment.
Obregon has an interesting history. It is clear by at least one account that he may have murdered one of his wives during an argument. Also according to Phillip Baer and others, he appears to have physically abused relatives living with him.
Obregon was also the major suspect in the unsolved 1952 murder of the Lacandón, Carranza, who was another of Carlos’s friends. Obregon and Carranza were on bad terms at the time of the killing and this was the major reason for the suspicion. The victim was strangled by someone stronger than he and Obregon was by far the stronger.
The Lacandons themselves are no strangers to homicide. In a 1971 book documenting the deaths of 138 Lacandons from the late 1800’s through that year, 65 had unknown or undiagnosed causes and 27 of the known ones were murder. Even if we presume that all the unknowns as well as four others getting "lost" were natural, 27 out of 138 is a rather high murder rate, nearly 20 percent.
On a number of occasions throughout the trip, including the burial, Obregon showed himself as no friend to Carlos, or to any of the expeditioners. In fact, he only grudgingly helped bury the bodies.
It could be noteworthy that following the deaths, the Lacandons became reticent and would not discuss the matter. Some observers said it was because of respect for Carlos. Perhaps, it also could have been fear.
The most noteworthy statement was from Nah K’in to Morales. She told him to his face that she wished he had died instead of him.
It is not plausible to think that the United Fruit Company would have taken Carlos seriously enough to kill him, or that he posed much threat to it. Mexico is not a major banana country and such efforts there can be seen as merely public relations. Still, Carlos must have been very irritating when he called them pirates and questioned their claim that Healey discovered Bonampak and he certainly had the attention of the Mexican public in a way that was harmful to its interests.
For a successful murder, given the facts in that scenario, though, a conspiracy would have had to be involved. At the very least, Puig and Morales would have had to be in on it and once we include in all the people who became reticent later, they would either have been knowledgeable or have feared something. While doubts are natural, there could be an economic connection. For example, a major company would only have to pay what to them was pin money to eliminate what they might have seen as a nuisance in a Chiapas jungle.
A related possibility is that there was more animosity toward Carlos among the expeditionaries than their writings showed. Certainly the lack of food did not endear Carlos to anyone, since it was ultimately his responsibility. If Obregon or someone else took action, they might have chosen to look the other way, rather than risk the same punishment.
Another far less complicated possibility is that an impetuous Luis Morales, in arguing with Carlos about turning back, caused the canoe to capsize. It does not take much effort to cause an accident in such a craft and he could very easily have done so while only intending to stop its progress.
It is interesting that the only account of a pre-accident argument is mentioned only by Alberto Arai, who was on the scene when Morales gave his first story to those who found him on the pathway back to camp. No one else at this first encounter recorded anything and of those later ones who left a story, none refer at all to the argument. At the first meeting with trip members, Morales may have been merely grateful when he realized that they did not know what he had done; in later ones, he may have merely covered his tracks.
In looking over the incident, it is very unlikely that Morales would not have seen exactly what initially happened to the others who were in the canoe with him. In a canoe it is hard to not know what is happening in another portion, even being in the front and having to turn one’s head very quickly. He may have been partly truthful, because once they all landed in the water, he would not have seen their ultimate fate.
Certainly, Morales should have suspected their end when they did not come up after the accident he caused. With an unknown gunman so soon on the scene that he saw a floating paddle and hat, Luis must have feared that the unseen visitor had seen him causing the deaths, so he would have had to hide out after Pedro’s gun blast.
Because Luis did not come out when gunshots echoed so soon after the tragedy, he probably realized that any observer would have seen him as its instigator. Of course, in this situation he would have hidden from the anonymous unseen gunman. Perhaps more accurately, he merely did not reveal himself, because they were apparently on the same side of the river, and were most likely separated by enough jungle to be invisible to each other.
Morales would have been seen as guilty of manslaughter or worse and who knows what the unknown shooter’s intentions were? Certainly, Carlos had friends - and they were good friends.
If this scenario is accurate, it is no wonder why Morales spent the night in the jungle. This explanation does much to explain Luis’ otherwise odd statement on at least one version that during that long night, he wanted to kill himself. He must have felt like a fugitive, alone in the rain in a jungle he did not know. He would have felt that his life was over.
Within a few days of Carlos’s death, his brother Gilbert Frey, received a letter from the U.S. State Department advising him of the tragedy. While he had put off this trip to Mexico year after year when his brother was still alive, now Gilbert was actually on his way down there. Unfortunately, he was only going to settle Carlos’s affairs.
Gilbert put in for time off from his federal job. A friend from work, Dave Price, heard about the tragedy and offered to drive his new and just broken in car to Mexico City. Thus, the younger Frey and his wife Katie, along with Price and his wife headed south together for two weeks in Mexico.
In Mexico City, Gilbert got in to see Gamboa, the man who had authorized the ill-fated expedition. Through an interpreter, the man appeared to be very honest and open in his assessment of Carlos’s death. However, he added nothing to what the younger Frey already had heard, essentially, that it was an inexplicable accident.
Later, in talking with another Mexican, he found out that Gamboa could speak fluent English. Gilbert made another appointment to see the fellow. He felt that he had been hoodwinked. Arriving back at Gamboa’s office, the receptionist kept him waiting. Gilbert became more and more angry and finally demanded to see the man immediately. Claiming the need for a translator, the receptionist made him wait a bit longer, until finally Gamboa’s American born wife arrived to translate.
The story was essentially the same, but now, Gilbert had more than enough reason to doubt Gamboa’s honesty. He was also able to visit with Luis Morales at his place of work, but came up with no more information than he had before. He was unable to meet up with any of Carlos’s friends and acquaintances, except for Jorge Olvera. He and his wife also got to meet Frans Blom and Trudy Duby. Nonetheless, it seemed that there were so few of Carlos’s friends available and whether real or imagined, Gilbert saw this as a wall of silence.
Gilbert went to Carlos’s old room at the Hotel Casa Blanca in Mexico City, but did not find much. There was no portion of the book he had supposedly been working on. Carlos had planned to take it with him on the trip and probably did.
Among his few effects were a couple of safe deposit keys, only one of which was traced to a bank and 3000 pesos, which was the amount of his stipend for the trip. Gilbert found a small amount of money in the room and made sure that Carlos’s widow got that, too.
A mere month after the deaths, an exhumation group trekked in, disinterred and sealed the remains into metal coffins to take them back to Tuxtla Gutierrez for reburial. One bothersome fact is that this group riveted the coffins shut immediately after disinterment. It could have seemed as if some people knew ahead of time that they did not want the skeletons to be seen at all.
On the other hand, the rivets and metal caskets could have been some bureaucrat’s brilliant idea of how to handle an exhumation in a jungle. While drownings have never been considered contagious, one cannot be sure what bacteria the corpses might have come into contact with in the jungle.
Although it is possible that the holes found later in the skull may be significant, no serious forensic tests were done and it is possible that the damage could have taken place when the first group exhumed what were already mere skeletons a month after the deaths. A tined digging tool digging into a barely marked grave could have done the damage, or two tentative taps from a shovel also could have.
At this point, Gilbert Frey continued the task of dealing with Carlos’s story. He wrote to numerous magazines to keep his brother’s adventures alive. It was through a well reasoned argument in a major American magazine in 1952 that this author was able to track Gilbert down and correspond.
Just before Carlos’ death, Gilbert had interested a writer, William Bradford Huie, in the story as a book. This was a writer who, during his life, (1910-1986), wrote many books and screenplays including The Americanization of Emily and The Execution of Private Slovik.
Getting Huie involved should have been a major coup. However, after the tragedy, he opted instead to merely write a magazine article, which dwelled heavily on the fact that Carlos’s mother sent him money during his sojourn in Mexico. The title, "The Misfit Who Became A Hero," emphasized his financial help from his mother and relied heavily on the theory that Carlos died trying to save the drowning Marco. The label "misfit" did nothing to please his family.
To the loving mother who never stopped using his given name, "Herman had the wanderlust," and was no sort of misfit. While both parents were irate over the article, as usual, Mrs. Frey was the one to put words to paper. To her, the whole slant of the article was wrong. Yes, she had helped out financially when needed, but there were long periods when Herman got by on his own resources. She made no apologies for helping either of her children, "because that is what mothers do."
One former friend of Carlos, a Muriel Reger with Time-Life in Mexico City, corresponded with Gilbert Frey for a while. She apparently was also an acquaintance of Frans Blom and was intrigued by the old man’s animosity to the now deceased. She had plans to write a book about Carlos, but it seems that nothing came of this.
In late 1950, Dana and Ginger Lamb finally completed their book, Quest for the Lost City. They sent Gilbert their draft of sections dealing with Carlos, asking for feedback. He took issue with their depiction of Carlos as trying to emulate them and suggested other changes and improvements. They dutifully agreed to his requests, but the book, nonetheless, gives the strong impression that Frey was just a greenhorn who greatly respected their advice.
For what it is worth, in the book the duo describe their return to Chiapas and they cast doubt on the motives of Obregon and imply that there was skullduggery involved, although they give him the name of "Ceron." They communicated their thoughts to Gilbert and while he probably had had similar ideas, his answer to them and to others even decades later, was noncommittal.
However, time passed as it must and very little else took place. One still sees the occasional account showing Healey as the discoverer of Bonampak. Nonetheless, some works that are pressed for space, but big on accuracy, often merely state that Healey was the first to publicize the murals, which is literally true. Other longer articles usually mention Carlos, often going into a number of fanciful versions of how he came to be shown the site.
Gilbert Frey held onto his brother’s letters, as well as maps, a few portions of his planned book and pictures and news articles. There are presently two suitcases full of such memorabilia, now held by Gilbert’s daughter.
It is unfortunate that there does not seem to be any way to ever be sure of the complete truth and certainly, no way to prove anything. Carlos’s son, Carlos Kayum Frey in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, buried the skull with his mother when she died in 1995. The most logical explanation of his demise is to presume that Luis Morales angrily caused the canoe to tip over, but that no one was intended to die. Any other explanation requires so many enabling circumstances, that it would be unlikely.
It is doubtful that any person or company could secure the perpetual silence of so many co-conspirators, including everyone who saw the bodies, even the camp doctor. Fear in the jungle does not necessarily translate into a lifetime of cowardice and it seems unlikely that no one would have come forward at some point.
The "wall of silence" Gilbert Frey spoke of may have come from the private doubts of trip members about Morales’s story. Would Gamboa or the others wanted to sacrifice the future of a young Mexican with a promising career over what can easily seen as an accidental death? Probably not.
Nevertheless, Carlos’s body was exhumed for the second and last time, as a hero of Mexico in its battles against foreign domination. After a ceremony in which his remains — with the exception of the skull — were cremated, the ashes were spread by his sons (the younger born after his parent’s final separation) by air over the ruins at Bonampak. It is hard to think of a more fitting burial site for the man who searched so hard and long for lost cities in that jungle.
It is true that there have been many lost cities that have been found and are even being found. No doubt, more of them will be found in the future, but it is unlikely that any will have the aura of controversy that dogged the story of Bonampak.
While Herman "Carlos" Frey did not change the world, nor its awareness of the Maya, he did manage to live an often rugged and always interesting life. Today there is a small park and a bust in Tuxtla Gutierrez in honor of Carlos, an American who adopted Mexico as his native land and who also discovered Bonampak. There, in his beloved Mexico, he will be remembered.