According to the Latin newswire La prensa Latina, the police found 33-year-old José Luis Aquina with his hands and feet tied and a nylon bag over his head, indicating he might have been tortured and strangled to death.

An unamed spokesperson of Oaxaca State Justice Department told the press that the police investigation was still going on, but as for now they regarded the murder as a ‘crime of passion’.

José Luis Aquino had been playing for nearly 14 years as a trumpeter in the Mexican group Los Condes, a ‘family’ band consisting mostly of brothers and cousins, recounts Associated Press’ Latin division. The band has recorded seven albums and was about to launch a new album when the news of José Luis Aquina’s death was announced. Francisco Conde, lead singer and guitarist of Los Condes, told this to Associated Press.


Motives unknown
The lead singer of the group argued that the motive of the crime probably was an attempt to steal José Luis Aquino's car – and not a matter of ‘passion’ as suspected by the authorities, recounts AP. Without offering details, Fransisco Conde assured that the ‘Aquinas’ family had already filed a lawsuit on that point.

The father of the murdered trumpeter, Julio Efrén Aquino Hernandez, also opposed the official statements given by the justice department in Oaxaca: "I am not aware of any threats, I think this crime is due to the insecurity prevailing in the country," said his father in the Mexican television show La Oreja, referring to the increasing and fatal violence prevailing as the fight for drug control intensifies all over Mexico.


Alarming number of murders
Whatever the motives for the murder of José Luis Aquino may be, it adds to the long list of violent events aimed at popular musicians in the country over the last year and a half.

They include the killings of Sergio Gomez, singer of the famous group K-Paz de la Sierra and the raven-haired Zayda Peña, lead singer of Zayda y los Culpable, who together with Jose Luis Aquino have been murdered in December.

Contrary to most other attacked musicians in Mexico neither of these seem to have connections with the controversial ‘narco-corridos’ – songs often accused of embracing and glorifying various drug related gangs.

Last year Valentin Elizalde, the so-called ‘Golden Rooster’, was brutally gunned down in what is believed to be a gang related dispute. Valentin Elizalde wrote lyrics honoring one of Mexico's most notorious drug lords, Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, who is the leader of the Sinaloa cartel.

Adding to the list of ‘controversial’ murders is the targeting of entire music groups in 2007. Four members of Los Padrinos de la Sierra were shot and killed in Durango State on 9 June 2007 and earlier this year on 19 February 2007, assassins with machine guns attacked the members of Tecno Banda Fugaz in the town of Puruarán, Michoacán, killing four and wounding one, recounts AP.

Following the recent discovery of José Luis Aquino’s cadaver, José Ángel Medina, leader of the Mexican group Patrulla 81, told AP: “We are afraid because we are superexposed, and this could keep going. We don’t know who’s next.”