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.
