raza is wildin'

K-Paz de la Sierra

The discovery of Jose Luis Aquino's lifeless body last Wednesday marked the end of a bloody week in México. The trumpet player for Los Conde had been bound and badly beaten, his head covered with a plastic bag. Aquino was the third regional music star murdered last week.

Zayda Peña, the 28-year-old leader of Zayda y Los Culpables, was killed in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Known as "La Dama del Sentimiento," Peña was shot in the back and survived only to be shot again – this time, mortally – while recovering in a hospital room.

Hours later that same day, Sergio Gómez of duranguense band K-Paz de la Sierra, was kidnapped in Morelia, Michoacán. He was later found tortured and strangled to death.

The three killings come a little over a year after banda singer Valentín Elizalde, "El Gallo de Oro," was shot to death leaving a concert hall in Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The motives for all four murders have not been confirmed, but some speculate that at least two are the handiwork of drug cartels.

But unlike Elizalde, last week's victims did not perform narcocorridos, but up-tempo romantic songs, prompting Mexican authorities to speculate that organized crime is now targeting mainstream acts. Political analyst Sergio Sarmiento sees a trend: "The murdered artists are no different than the rest of the victims of crime in our country...Their deaths however, have the advantage of getting the people's attention."

This year, over one thousand men, women and children have been murdered in México by crime syndicates involved in drug trafficking, according to Mexican law enforcement officials.