Jose Luis Aquino, trumpet player for Los Conde (a popular group from Oaxaca), was found dead last Thursday with his hands and feet bound and a bag over his head, marking the third murder of a Mexican musician in less than a week. The other victims were Sergio Gomez, former resident of Chicago and lead singer of K-Paz de la Sierra and Zayda Pena of Zayda and the Guilty Ones — both popular mainstream singers who received posthumous Grammy nominations for "Best Banda Album" on the same day as the discovery of Aquino’s body.

Violence against Mexican musicians has been a problem in the recent past, but most victims have been performers of "narcocorridos," or drug ballads, and have thus had ties to organized crime and drug-trafficking. None of the latest victims appear to have any of the same connections, which is leaving authorities puzzled as to possible motives — though in Aquino’s case, a "crime of passion" is suspected.