(CNN) — An Arkansas man who was missing for days after his buddy was found dead outside a bar is back home with his family and says he doesn’t remember anything that happened that night.
Jessy Pacheco, 29, of Van Buren, Arkansas, had been celebrating his graduation from medical school in Mexico on June 15. He went with his friend Carlos Alejandro Delgadillo Romero to a club in the city of Guadalajara.
Hours later, Delgadillo was found dead, shot in the head about a block from the club, Strana, and Pacheco was nowhere to be found, his cousin Jeffrey Solis told CNN affiliate KARK. His family feared he had been kidnapped.
Pacheco had been supposed to return home from Mexico on June 18 and take the next steps on his career path to becoming a pediatrician, his family told another Arkansas station, KSFM.
Solis said his brother and Pacheco’s mother went back to Mexico to search for Pacheco. “They’ve been going to the police stations, hospitals, morgues — you know, everywhere — and mainly the place he was last seen to see if there’s any clues or anybody that’s seen anything,” Solis said.
They started a GoFundMe, which raised more than $7,000 to finance the search.
On Friday, June 21, the family announced that Pacheco had been found and would be returning home to Arkansas with relatives. They gave no details of the circumstances.
Authorities saw Pacheco on airport surveillance cameras Friday leaving Mexico with his mother, the TV station reported.
“I can’t recall anything,” Pacheco told reporters Sunday in Arkansas, with his mother and Solis by his side. “I mean, it was just a complete blackout.
“Graduation was amazing, all my family and friends were there. Next thing you know (I) blacked out and then ended up showing up back home. … I thought my life was over, but I’m home.”
Of Delgadillo’s death, he said only, “Carlos was a close friend of mine and I’m sorry it happened to him. I would have taken his place. He didn’t deserve it.”
Sunday, his family would not discuss how he was found.
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