There’s an Iowa connection to the weekend deaths of 10 people in a human trafficking case in Texas. The victims were found dead in a tractor-trailer in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Sunday. The tractor-trailer had Iowa license plates which are registered to Pyle Transportation, a trucking company based in Schaller.

A federal complaint says the  immigrants packed into a tractor-trailer discovered outside a Texas Wal-Mart were taking turns breathing through a hole in the trailer and pounding on the walls to get the driver’s attention. According to a complaint filed today (Monday), a passenger in the trailer told investigators that he and others who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally were guided into the trailer to be taken north to San Antonio.

The complaint says passengers appeared fine during the first hour of their journey, but people later began to struggle to breathe. They were trying to get the driver’s attention, but to no avail. Federal prosecutors today (Monday) charged James Matthew Bradley with illegally transporting the immigrants for commercial or financial gain, resulting in the deaths of 10 people inside.

Authorities fear the death toll could rise because many of those rescued from the sweltering truck were hospitalized, suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke. The truck reportedly didn’t have a functioning air conditioning system and temperatures were over 100 degrees.

(Information from Radio Iowa and the Associated Press)