The Mexican influencer, which was shot during Tikok Livestream, seemed to be killed by HIT Man: Prosecutors

Mexico city – The social media influencer, which was shot in the Mexican state of Jalalco during a live stream on Tiktok, seemed to be murdered by a camera man and expressed fear before he was killed, the prosecutors said on Thursday.

The gruesome murder of 23-year-old Valeria Márquez on Tuesday shocked the Latin American nation and inflamed rumors about the motif for her killing in a region that has been shadowed by cartel violence in recent years. The Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her administration worked with local investigators to track down the killer and extended her condolences to Márquez 'family.

Denis Rodríguez, a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office in Jalisco, stated new details about the murder on Thursday, but said that the prosecutors were still investigating the death of the model and beauty influencers with more than 113,000 supporters in the social media app.

Rodríguez said that in the early Tuesday afternoon, hours before the shootout, a masked man who pretends to be a delivery driver arrived in the beauty salon on the outskirts of Guadalajara, accompanied by another man on a motorcycle. According to a woman in the salon, the men said that they had a “very expensive” gift for Márquez that they had to deliver personally. When Márquez arrived and heard that people were looking for her, she expressed fear in her live stream.

“Maybe they wanted to kill me,” she said minutes before she was killed. “They wanted to come and take me with them or what? I am worried.”

When the men returned, they asked if it was Márquez, who was now in the salon, which caused the prosecutors to assume that the men were hired, said Rodríguez.

“The attacker came and asked if the victim (Márquez) was there. So it seems that he didn't know her,” said Rodríguez. “With this, they can – without jumping – to depart that this was a person who was paid. It was obviously someone who came with a purpose.”

Márquez received a stuffed animal and a bag of Starbucks coffee while she was on the livestream and was shot in the head and breast, collapsing in front of the camera. TIIKTOK has decreased the influencer account since then.

While it was still unclear who was behind the murder, the region is firmly checked by one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, the Jalalco New Generation Cartel, and Rodríguez noticed murders by hired weapons on motorcycles, which are often known as “Sicarios”, a common occurrence.

Rodríguez said that the authorities also investigate whether death was associated with the murder of a former congress member in the same area of ​​Guadalajara just a few hours earlier and was also carried out by two men on a motorcycle.

____

Follow APS reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean