The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada  The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (also known as Three Burials) is a 2005 French-American neo-Western film directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones and written by Guillermo Arriaga. It also stars Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, and January Jones. The film was inspired by the real-life killing in Texas of a teenager, Esequiel Hernandez Jr, by United States Marines during a military operation near the United States–Mexico border as well as the novel "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner which contains the same plot premise and challenges encountered in the film. The film has many flashbacks and sometimes the same event is shown from different perspectives. Melquiades Estrada , a Mexican undocumented worker working in Texas as a cowboy, shoots at a coyote which is menacing his small flock of goats. A nearby United States Border Patrol officer, Norton, thinks he is being attacked and shoots back, killing Melquiades. Norton quickly buries Melquiades and does not report anything. Melquiades' body is found and is reburied in a local cemetery by the sheriff's office. Evidence that he may have been killed by the U.S. Border Patrol is ignored by the local sheriff, Belmont, who would prefer to avoid trouble with the Border Patrol. Pete Perkins, a rancher and Melquiades' best friend, finds out from a waitress, Rachel, that the killer was Norton. Perkins kidnaps Norton after tying up his wife, Lou Ann, (January Jones), gags her mouth with duct tape and forces him to dig up Melquiades' body. Perkins had promised Melquiades that he would bury him in his home town of Jiménez in Mexico if he died in Texas. Perkins undertakes a journey on horseback into Mexico with the body tied to a mule and his captive Norton in tow. It is clear to Sheriff Belmont that Perkins has kidnapped Norton, and so police officers and the Border Patrol begin to search for them. Belmont sees them heading towards the Mexico border, but as he takes aim at Perkins, he can't bring himself to shoot and returns to town, leaving the pursuit to the border patrol. On their way across the harsh countryside, the pair experience a series of surrealistic encounters. They spend an afternoon with an elderly blind American man (Levon Helm), who listens to Mexican radio for company.