Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday that Mexico needs to use every resource available to find the body and have it returned to US soil. He has asked Mexican President Felipe Calderon to call him, but no phone call had been scheduled Wednesday evening.

Tiffany Hartley says her husband, David, was shot by Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake last week as they were returning to the United States on Jet Skis. Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande that has been plagued by pirates who rob boaters and fisherman who wander into Mexican waters. Hartley’s death would be the first killing on the lake.

The Mexican Foreign Relations Ministry responded Wednesday with a statement that noted Mexico’s “condemnation of any act that endangers the lives of innocent citizens,” saying that the country “is committed to the investigation of those acts.” The statement said Mexico has “from the first moment” been in contact with the US to coordinate the search and recovery of Hartley’s body, and noted that Mexican authorities have “stepped up their actions with the support of specialized personnel, boats and helicopters.” The Hartley family says Mexican authorities are not doing enough to find their relative’s body. US authorities are unable to investigate Hartley’s disappearance because it happened in Mexico.

Tiffany Hartley has said that her husband was shot in the head by three men chasing them in speedboats and that he fell off his Jet Ski and into the lake. She and several relatives took boats out onto the water of the US side Wednesday to lay a wreath for him.

Perry’s office said it expects to talk to Calderon on Thursday, and Perry said earlier that he hopes the body has been retrieved by the time he gets the call.

The state officials in Tamaulipas have cast doubt on Tiffany Hartley’s story. The district attorney there, Marco Antonio Guerrero Carrixales told the McAllen Monitor authorities “are not certain that incident happened the way that they are telling us.” Tiffany Hartley said she was disheartened by such comments. “I know what I know. I know what I saw,” she said.

Perry also used the incident to renew his demand that the federal government do more to secure the US-Mexico border as northern Mexico sinks deeper into drug-gang violence.

The violence has spread in the last few months from Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of Mexico’s drug war across from El Paso, Texas, to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande Valley, including Tamaulipas state where Hartley reportedly disappeared. Two drug gangs, the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, are battling for supremacy there and fighting the Mexican military.