LUKE TURF

A woman found by passers-by on the Tohono O'odham Nation is the 81st suspected illegal immigrant found dead by Border Patrol agents in the agency's Tucson sector since Oct. 1.

Motorists on O'odham Route 19 spotted a woman's body about five miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border and called authorities, Border Patrol spokesman Charles Griffin said.

It won't be known what killed the woman, whose identity is unknown, until an autopsy is done, he said. Her age could not be determined, he said.

By this date last year, the Border Patrol had documented 90 deaths in the sector, Griffin said.

Fifty of those were heat-related compared to 32 heat-related deaths so far this year, he said.

But medical examiners in Pima and Cochise counties report at least 130 immigrant deaths since the fiscal year began Oct. 1. Forty-three of those deaths documented by medical examiners were heat-related.

One person not included in the tally is Luis Cisneros, 63, who is believed to have died in April while crossing the border illegally near Arivaca.

Cisneros' daughter, Isela, said she was told by a smuggler her father hired that her father couldn't keep up with the group. She never heard from her father or the smuggler again, she said.

"We're trying to get in touch with the people who crossed with my papa," she said in Spanish.

Cisneros said her father wanted to visit his grandchildren in California, where she lives, but couldn't get a visa.