‘Have you ever smelled a cadaver?’ Family recounts horror after Costa Rican man deported in vegetative state

Much of what happened to Randall Gamboa Esquivel, 52, over his last weeks in federal custody in Texas remains a mystery to his family

• Family seeks answers after ICE deports man to Costa Rica in vegetative state

A few days before Christmas in Pérez Zeledón, a city in Costa Rica, Greidy Mata stared at two photographs of her late brother. In one image, Randall Gamboa Esquivel flashed a smile prior to his immigration to the United States a year before. In the second, he was lying in a hospital bed in a vegetative state, after being deported back home.

Dinner was served, but Mata seemed indifferent. She kept switching between one photograph and the other until she suddenly recounted that a year ago, in what would become the last family reunion, Gamboa announced he would be leaving for New Jersey.