10 dead, 28 hospitalized after discovered in tractor trailer at Walmart in San Antonio, Texas

Authorities are investigating after 8 people were found dead inside a tractor-trailer in a South West side Wal-Mart parking lot.The San Antonio Fire Department arrived on scene at the Wal-Mart located on Interstate 35 and Poteet Jourdanton Highway after 12:30 a.m.

Twenty other people in extremely critical or serious condition and eight more with lesser injuries including heat stroke and dehydration were found inside the truck, which didn’t have a working air conditioning system despite blistering temperatures that topped 100 degrees (37 Celsius), authorities said. All were taken to several hospitals.

The employee told authorities the trailer was parked at a Walmart lot in San Antonio. A man who was in it asked the employee for water, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said.

The employee brought water for the man, then called police and asked them to conduct a welfare check, McManus said.  

"They were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water," he said. "It was a mass casualty situation for us."

Authorities were called to the parking lot late Saturday night or early Sunday and found eight dead inside the 18-wheeler. Two more victims died at the hospital, Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told The Associated Press.   

James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, has been taken into custody and will be charged in federal court on Monday, prosecutors said. The U.S. Attorney's Office wouldn't say whether Bradley was the alleged driver of the truck.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, was taken into custody and would be charged on Monday in federal court.