American's body found in 2 bags

• Mexican authorities say remains found in shallow grave are those of missing American


• Harry Devert was on a motorcycle ride through Mexico


• Family and friends in New York had not heard from him in months


• His last message mentions getting an "escort out of some area"

(CNN) -- Human remains found in two plastic bags near a beach in southwestern Mexico have been identified as those of Harry Devert, a New Yorker who left his job as a trader in finance for a transcontinental motorcycle journey from the United States to Latin America, Mexican authorities said.

Devert, 32, vanished six months ago after sending his girlfriend an ominous text message from a troubled region in Mexico, describing how he was being escorted from "an area too dangerous for me to be."

Mexican authorities, acting on tips, last week located his green Kawasaki motorcycle in a shallow grave in the state of Guerrero, along with the badly decomposed remains of a man in two bags.

On Thursday, DNA tests confirmed the remains were those of Devert, a representative of the Guerrero state attorney general's office not authorized to speak to the media told CNN.

The investigation was turned over to federal prosecutor because of the nature of the crime and the fact that it involved an American tourist, he said.

Harry Devert had not been in touch with his mother or girlfriend in New York since January 25.

American adventurer missing in Mexico

Mother has been looking for information

Devert's mother, Ann, traveled to Mexico last weekend after identifying the VIN number on the motorcycle found in the shallow grave. A day earlier she provided a DNA sample to police in New York to match against the remains, said Darren Del Sardo, an attorney for Devert's mother.

Del Sardo said Mexican authorities informed Ann Devert of the findings late Thursday. She is considering having a private lab conduct DNA tests, he said.

"This is horrible," he said. "The major component now is to try to find out who is responsible for this and hope that the Mexican authorities bring them to justice as soon as possible."

The discovery of the remains and the motorcycle was made nearly 300 miles southwest of where Devert was last heard from in January.

Del Sardo said Ann Devert spent time in Mexico after her son's disappearance, meeting local authorities and residents in the western Mexican state of Michoacan in an attempt to find him. There was hope with unconfirmed tips that he was being held at a ranch. Last week, she learned of the remains and the bike in the shallow grave.

Mexican authorities said the motorcycle was found along a road leading to La Majahua beach in Guerrero. The statement said "10 packages of what appeared to be narcotics (marijuana and cocaine)" were found near the motorbike and body.

Del Sardo said Ann Devert was told that the remains may have been moved to the shallow grave.

Devert, 32, had not been in touch with his mother or girlfriend in New York since January 25. That day he sent girlfriend Sarah Ashley Schiear an ominous text via the WhatsApp messenger app.

"Just got an hour and a half long escort out of some area it was too dangerous for me to be," the message said. "Stopping for lunch and ... voila Internet. ... Gonna get back on the road soon. Apparently there's another military escort waiting for me in some other town... I'm running way late because of the crazy military stuff...hopefully get a chance to talk to you tonight when I (hopefully) finally arrive."

He had checked out of a bed and breakfast in Michoacan and planned to travel to a beach in Zihuatanejo, on the Pacific Ocean, that was in the final scene of the film "The Shawshank Redemption," according to friends and family.

Friends had hoped Harry Devert would surface

Ann Devert last heard from her son January 23. The phone connection was poor. He told her he'd be out of cell phone and Internet range for a few days.

She told CNN earlier this year that he would call every January 29, his late father's birthday, "and when he didn't, I felt a misgiving but I thought maybe it would take a couple of days," she said. "He didn't call."

Then, Ann Devert heard from a friend who recently returned from Michoacan, where vigilante self-defense groups in numerous communities have engaged in deadly confrontations with the Knights Templar drug cartel.

After vigilantes threatened to descend on a key cartel area last month, the Mexican government sent in thousands of troops and police to try to keep the peace. The government has even joined forces with the vigilantes as the Knights Templar become further entrenched in the agricultural state.

Ann Devert had been in touch with both the American and French embassies in Mexico. Her son, born in France, has dual citizenship.

Devert's friends and family were hopeful that his disappearance was only temporary, another story to recount from his wild travels around the world -- from Pamplona, Spain, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and beyond.

"I've been chased with a gun in Colombia, chipped my tooth on a gun that was shoved in my mouth in Venezuela and shot everything from a bazooka to a machine gun, an M16 to a Colt .45," Devert wrote in his travel blog, A New Yorker Travels. "I've been in some of the poorest and some of the most dangerous parts of the world and to many of the finest, and I still can't tell which I liked more. I think that life is a pilgrimage."

In an October 19 post, Devert described his latest journey on a type of vehicle he had no experience using.

"I've never ridden a motorcycle," he wrote. "Mostly, naturally, because I don't know how. So tomorrow I'm going to go to the DMV, get my motorcycle permit, buy a bike and hopefully figure out how to ride it home without crashing. Which I'm sure will be an adventure in itself."

He added, "Then in the next 2 or 3 weeks I'm going to drive it across America, through Central America, down to Brazil for the World Cup, and eventually south to Ushuaia, which as far as I can tell from a map is about as far south as one can get on the continent."

He purchased a green 2002 Kawasaki. Ann Devert said her son took a safety course and spent hours studying YouTube videos on how to survive falls from bikes.

But the fact that he had never driven a motorcycle concerned her, she said. He promised not to travel faster than 55 mph, yet he took a nasty spill while speeding in Florida, Ann Devert said. He emerged unscathed.

Friends and family created the Help Find Harry page in Facebook, with more than 25,000 likes.

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Police: Boy, 7, weighed 25 pounds

• An unidentified boy, 7, was nearly starved and sometimes resorted to eating bugs


• His mother and grandparents are arrested on numerous charges


• Doctor: "The most important medicine used to treat him at the hospital was food"

(CNN) -- A 7-year-old Pennsylvania boy beaten for sneaking food was nearly starved and weighed only 25 pounds when he arrived at a hospital, authorities said. The boy sometimes ate insects he caught on his porch.

The boy's mother, Mary Rader, 28, and his grandparents, Dennis and Deana Beighley, turned themselves in at the Mercer County District Attorney's office Wednesday and were charged with aggravated assault, unlawful restraint of a minor, false imprisonment, endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy, according to court documents.

The Sharon Herald reported Saturday that child welfare authorities took the Greenville boy to a hospital last month after he was found looking like a human skeleton.

"The child was starved," Dr. Jennifer Wolford of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh's Child Advocacy Center was quoted as saying in a criminal complaint. She described the boy as "the worst case of medical neglect that I have ever seen in my seven years as a pediatrician."

The unidentified boy lived with his mother and grandparents and three siblings -- two sisters, ages 4 and 11, and a 9-year-old brother, the paper reported.

The two girls appeared healthy, the criminal complaint said. The brother was underweight though not as severely as the victim.

Since June 6, hospital officials said the boy has gained 20 pounds, The Herald reported.

"The most important medicine used to treat him at the hospital was food," Wolford said in the complaint. "He was within a month of having a major cardiac event that he probably would not have recovered from . ... It is impossible to me that this severe neglect and active abuse was not visible. He was being starved in his own home around others of normal weight."

Rader and the Beighleys turned themselves into authorities with attorney James Stranahan, who did not immediately return calls seeking comment on Saturday.

According the complaint, Rader was home-schooling the victim. The only time he was allowed outside was to be on the back porch, where he sometimes fed on bugs. The boy was only given small portions of tuna fish and eggs.

The victim was often beaten with a belt, sometimes for sneaking bread and peanut butter without permission, the complaint said. He also was punished with ice-cold showers.

The mother and grandparents -- who were released on bond -- will appear before District Judge Brian Arthur on July 30.

The children have been placed in the care of child welfare authorities.

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Facing death from ISIS, Christians flee

A house in Mosul, Iraq, has the words "property of ISIS" painted on a wall.

• Families were told to leave their valuables and "go out with only the clothes on you"


• ISIS had decreed that Christians had to convert, pay extra taxes or "face death by the sword"


• On Friday, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gave Christians in Mosul one day to leave

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Just days after the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said they killed hundreds of Syrians, dozens of Iraqi Christian families are now fleeing the ISIS-controlled city of Mosul, hoping to avoid a similar fate.

On Friday, the al Qaeda splinter group issued an ultimatum to Iraqi Christians living in Mosul -- by Saturday at noon (5 a.m. ET), they must convert to Islam, pay a fine or face "death by the sword."

A total of 52 Christian families left the city of Mosul early Saturday morning, with an armed group prohibiting some of them from taking anything but the clothes on their backs.

"They told us, 'You to leave all of your money, gold, jewelry and go out with only the clothes on you,'" Wadie Salim told CNN.

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Images obtained exclusively by CNN show that the phrase "property of ISIS" scrawled in black paint on a number of the homes that were abandoned.

Some of the families headed for Irbil -- which is currently controlled by Kurdish forces -- and others toward the Dohuk province. The majority went to Dohuk, which is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Mosul.

"We did not know how to act," said another Mosul resident, Um Nazik. "Are we going to get killed?"

ISIS was able to take over large swaths of land due to the lack of centralized authority in both Iraq and war-torn Syria. The Sunni militants hope to establish an Islamic state throughout the region it currently controls.

Salman al-Farisi, the ISIS-appointed governor of Mosul, declared that any family that planned to on staying in Mosul and not to converting to Islam would be required to pay 550,000 Iraqi dinar (about $470).

Letters distributed to Christians in Mosul in recent days said ISIS's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, agreed to allow those who didn't embrace Islam or pay a special jizya tax to leave.

ISIS is notorious for its brutality -- the group is so violent that al Qaeda has attempted to distance itself from its former affiliate.

On Thursday in Syria's Homs province, the militant Sunni group killed 270 people after storming and seizing the Shaer gas field, the group said.

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CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali reported from Baghdad and Joshua Berlinger wrote this article from Atlanta.