MEXICO:Sergio Gomez, lead singer for the group K-Paz de la Sierra, was kidnapped in the southern state of Michoacan late on Saturday and had been missing for two days.
Zayda Peña was killed in her hospital bed in the border city of Matamoros on Saturday, hours after surviving an assault. At least seven other performers of the grupera genre, a form of folk music that blends norteño and tropical rhythms, have been killed over the past 18 months.
Some groups in the genre sing songs associated with drug trafficking, but Gomez and Peña are better known as singers of romantic ballads.
Peña (28) headed the group Zayda y Los Culpables (Zayda and the Guilty Ones). She was first shot on Friday night in a Matamoros hotel, along with two others, a friend and the hotel manager. The others died at the scene.
With a gunshot wound to the back, Peña was taken to a local hospital. She was operated on, then taken to a room in the intensive care unit. An assailant then entered the room and shot her twice in the face, killing her.
Gomez had just performed in Morelia, the capital of Michocan, when he disappeared. The day before, he had received phone calls warning him not to appear at the concert, according to reports. Gomez redoubled his security and performed anyway.
After leaving the concert, Gomez was kidnapped along with two businessmen who were later released. According to news reports, he was tortured and strangled to death.
Mexico's business, political and cultural elite have long been targeted by kidnappers, mainly for financial gain. Among the most notable were the 2002 kidnappings of two sisters of the actress Thalia; both were released after a ransom was paid.
And just last month, several Mexican federal senators received phone calls saying their relatives had been kidnapped.
Mexican authorities said they had not yet determined a motive for Peña's killing. And there were apparently no ransom requests in the Gomez case before his body was recovered.
One of Peña's biggest hits was Coup de Grace (Tiro de Gracia in Spanish). Some media outlets have suggested the song referred to an execution, although its lyrics describe nothing more violent than a failed relationship.
Still, the public manner of Peña's death - reminiscent of many other assassinations in recent years - suggested to many observers that organised crime might be involved.
The most notable killing of a musician attributed to organised crime was the November 2006 assassination in Reynosa of Valentin Elizalde, known as the Golden Rooster. Elizalde sang narcocorrido ballads that often were taken up as anthems to the so-called Sinaloa Cartel of drug traffickers and its leader, Joaquín (Shorty) Guzmán.
Trigo Figueroa, a singer, was killed after a concert in Reynosa in August 2006.
In December 2006, Javier Morales Gomez of the band Los Implacables del Norte was shot dead in a Michoacan park. And in February, gunmen shot dead four members of the musical group Banda Fugaz after they performed in Michoacan.