|
|
|
 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2008 
Another Folk Musician Murdered in Mexico
 Reuters/Nielsen
go to original
| | Local police patrol near a puddle of blood where Roberto del Fierro Lugo, the former manager of Mexican musician Jesus 'El Flaco' Elizalde, was shot on Tuesday in Guadalajara, Mexico, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008. Del Fierro Lugo, 47, died early Wednesday from a single shot to his head, the newest in a string of attacks that have driven fear into the heart of Mexico's music industry. Jesus 'El Flaco' Elizalde's brother, Mexico's singer Valentin Elizalde, was killed last year in Reynosa. (AP/Guillermo Arias) | | |
Mexico City - A Mexican singer has been shot dead in the northern state of Sinaloa, the latest in what appeared to be a growing list of folk musician slayings by organized crime gangs, local government officials said.
Sinaloa's justice department said Jorge Antonio Sepulveda, 20, was found dead in the early hours of Tuesday on a road near the city of Guasave, 102 miles northwest of the state capital Culiacan.
Sepulveda, who was not well-known nationally, had been shot at least a dozen times with high-caliber guns. A nearby car that authorities believe belonged to him was burnt to a shell.
Authorities could not immediately comment on the motive for the killing, which bore the trademarks of the dozens of gangland-style murders that take place in Mexico each week.
President Felipe Calderon launched a nationwide war a year ago on the drug cartels which control most of Mexico's organized crime. Drug-related killings surpassed 2,500 last year and this year began with a spate of shootings.
Around half a dozen Mexican musicians have been killed over the past two years as hitmen who once targeted performers of "narcocorridos," or ballads about drug kingpins, broadened their aim to include more mainstream folk singers.
Valentin Elizalde was killed by drug hitmen in 2006. Last month, Sergio Gomez, front man of the popular band K-Paz de la Sierra, was abducted and strangled to death in the western state of Michoacan.
Two other who died last month were Jose Luis Aquino, a trumpet player found beaten to death with a plastic bag over his head, and Zayda Pena, who was shot in a motel room. The killers followed her to the hospital and finished her off with two more bullets as she lay in bed.
Suspected drug gunmen killed eight people including three senior policemen and a 3-year-old boy in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, a week after the government beefed up security against drug gangs, police said on Tuesday.
Calderon has deployed more than 25,000 troops and federal police in his crackdown on organized crime. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us