A recent murder in Mexico has the world grieving an innocent beauty influencer<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Black Han Sans|||on|||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ header_4_font=”|||on|||||” header_4_text_align=”center” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]
Words by Sarah O’Byrne<\/strong><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/Valeria-e1747758628724.png” alt=”Valeria Marquez” title_text=”Valeria Marquez- v___marquez instagram” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] On Tuesday 13th May, fashion and beauty influencer Valeria M\u00e1rquez was streaming live to her tens of thousands of followers from the Blossom beauty salon- which she owned- in the city of Zapopan, Mexico, when tragedy struck.<\/p>\n Off-camera, a man entered the salon and can be heard asking her if her name is Valeria. She smiled at the stranger and confirmed her name. According to reports, the man gained entry to the salon on the pretence that he was delivering a gift.<\/p>\n The man then shot Valeria in the head and chest, killing the 23-year-old instantly. The livestream continued broadcasting until minutes later a woman reached over and shut the camera off.<\/p>\n Police arrived at the scene around 18:30 local time and confirmed Valeria\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Valeria was a Mexican model and influencer who began to make a name for herself in 2021 when she won the Miss Rostro (Miss Face) beauty pageant. She soon began posting videos online of her travel vlogs and make-up and beauty tips. At the time of her death, she had over 200,000 followers on Instagram, with another 100,000 followers on TikTok.<\/p>\n The murder took place in one of the most violent municipalities in Jalisco where, according to the US Department of Justice, more than 50% of the real estate and commercial development in the area is connected to the laundering of drug trafficking money. Jalisco ranks sixth among Mexico’s 32 states in terms of homicides, with 906 murders reported since October 2024 according to data consulting firm TResearch. 15,000 people have disappeared from Zapopan since 2018. The state attorney’s office has also long been accused of having links to cartels, which it denies.<\/p>\n There have also been unconfirmed reports that M\u00e1rquez may have been romantically involved with a senior member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a gang which operates in Zapopan and is notorious for its extreme use of violence.<\/p>\n While these are alleged reports, it is true that Valeria was seeing a mystery man. Two years ago, Valeria mentioned to her followers she had a new boyfriend. Although she never named her new beau, she referred to him as \u2018The Doll.\u2019 However, things between them soured recently and she alluded to being threatened in several posts before her death. In one social media post she said that an unidentified ex-partner should be held \u2018responsible for anything that happens to me and my family.\u2019 During one of her final livestreams, she mentioned that she suspected that someone wanted to kill her. However, Mayor of Zapopan Juan Jos\u00e9 Frangie said his office had no record of Ms M\u00e1rquez requesting help from the authorities due to threats against her.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Libre Bodoni|||on|||||” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#333333″ header_2_font_size=”40px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] Valeria isn\u2019t the only social media star to be murdered in recent months either. In October 2024, a TikTok broadcaster also known as \u2018El Chilango\u2019- whose real name was Juan Carlos L\u00f3pez- was killed by two men while recording a video of him selling sweets on the streets of Culiac\u00e1n. It is now believed that this savage crime was carried out because a rival gang saw Juan as a sympathiser for \u2018Los Chapitos\u2019, a cartel formed by the sons of the notorious drug lord, Joaquin \u2018El Chapo\u2019 Guzm\u00e1n, who is currently serving a life imprisonment sentence in a US jail. A month later, also in Culiac\u00e1n, a YouTuber who uploaded videos under the name \u2018El Jasper\u2019 \u2013 whose real name was Jes\u00fas Miguel Vivanco Garc\u00eda- was found dead with 70 bullet wounds and signs of torture on his body.\u00a0In December, Leobardo Aispuro Soto, also known by the moniker \u2018Fat Peruci\u2019, was murdered by a group of armed men when he was out walking with his wife. Weeks later, aeroplanes flew over Culiac\u00e1n dropping pamphlets informing the public that Juan, Jes\u00fas and Leobardo were all killed because of their links to the \u2018Chapitos,\u2019 El Chapo\u2019s son\u2019s cartel. The very next day, there was yet another murder- this time of Agust\u00edn Pa\u00fal, whose alias was \u2018El Pinky,\u2019 who had tens of thousands of Instagram followers.<\/p>\n Despite the possible cartel links to Valeria\u2019s murder, the prosecution\u2019s office has suggested that it may be because of her gender. The Mexican authorities say they are investigating the killing as a femicide, the deliberate killing of a woman or girl because of their gender,\u00a0which is plaguing the country. Femicides are a phenomenon often blamed on Mexico\u2019s enduring macho culture. In 2024, there were almost 850 reported cases of femicide nationwide, with a further 162 in the first three months of 2025, according to the Mexican\u00a0government\u2019s official figures.<\/p>\n In an eerily similar crime just days before Valeria\u2019s death, a mayoral candidate called Yesenia Lara Guti\u00e9rrez was shot dead in Veracruz, and her entire murder was caught on a Facebook livestream.<\/p>\n Regardless of the reasons behind Valeria M\u00e1rquez\u2019s murder, the president of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum has assured the public that an investigation into her death is underway, saying, \u2018We’re working to catch those responsible and find out why this happened.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] Photo: <\/b>INSTAGRAM (V_MARQUEZ)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A recent murder in Mexico has the world grieving an innocent beauty influencer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"guestgrazia","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10078"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10113,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10078\/revisions\/10113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}‘She said that an unidentified ex-partner should be held “responsible for anything that happens to me and my family”.’<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]