An independent journalist found dead in northern Mexico was killed by a blow to the head, police said Tuesday, revealing the latest of 14 murders of Mexican reporters and media workers so far this year, the bloodiest year for the industry in recent memory.
The body of Juan Arjón López was discovered in the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado, according to prosecutors from the border state of Sonora. According to them, the journalist, who had been reported missing on August 9, was identified by his body tattoos.
The autopsy revealed that López died from “head damage related to a blunt hit,” according to a statement from the state Public Ministry.
Claudia Contreras, the state’s chief prosecutor, stated that detectives would attempt to determine whether López’s murder was related to his profession as a journalist.
Article 19 is chronicling the events surrounding López’s disappearance and death, the organization stated.
📢 ARTICLE 19 tiene conocimiento del hallazgo del cuerpo de Juan Arjón López, periodista reportado desaparecido. Desde el día de ayer, que esta organización conoció la desaparición está documentando los hechos.
Facebook Image pic.twitter.com/GfrXsr4paZ
— PUBLICATION 19 MX-CA (@article19mex) August 17, 2022
San Luis is located across the border from Yuma, Arizona, and has long been recognized for its American-friendly medical and dental establishments. In recent years, however, the area has been plagued by drug cartel violence.
In March, volunteer searchers discovered eleven dead in secret graves in an area of desert near a landfill in San Luis.
A journalist was one of four individuals killed in a beer shop in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato at the beginning of August.
Authorities stated that it was unknown whether the journalist’s attack was related to his profession, his function as a local business representative in the organizing of an impending fair, or anything else.
Despite the fact that organized crime is frequently engaged in journalist murders, small-town officials or politicians with criminal or political agendas are also common suspects. Small-time journalists in the interior of Mexico are easy targets.
Outside of combat zones, Mexico is regarded the most perilous place for reporters.
Additional journalists murdered in Mexico in 2022
This month, journalist Ernesto Méndez was one of four individuals assassinated in a central Mexican bar.
In June, journalist Antonio de la Cruz was killed in northeastern Mexico as he and his 23-year-old daughter were leaving their home. Later, his daughter succumbed to injuries sustained in the attack that murdered her father.
In May, two coworkers of a news website were murdered in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz by gunfire. The Veracruz State Prosecutor’s Office announced it was investigating the murders of Yessenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana Garca Olivera, respectively the director and a reporter for the Cosoleacaque-based online news site El Veraz.
Prosecutors in the western state of Michoacan said in March that reporter Armando Linares was murdered in the town of Zitacuaro. His murder occurred six weeks after the murder of a colleague from the same publication, Roberto Toledo. On January 31, Linares uploaded a video to social media announcing Toledo’s passing.
Juan Carlos Muiz, who covered crime for the online news site Testigo Minero in the state of Zacatecas, was murdered by gunmen in early March.
Late in February, Jorge Camero, the director of an online news outlet and a former municipal employee in the northern state of Sonora, was murdered.
Heber López, the director of the online news site Noticias Web, was shot and killed in the southern state of Oaxaca at the beginning of February.
On January 23, the body of journalist Lourdes Maldonado López was discovered shot to death in her automobile in Tijuana. Maldonado Lopez told Mexico’s president at a press conference in 2019 that she feared for her life.
On January 10, journalist José Luis Gamboa was murdered in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.
On January 17, crime photojournalist Margarito Martnez was killed outside his home in Tijuana. Guillermo Arias, whose images document life and death on the streets of Tijuana, collaborated with Martinez for several decades.
He recounted the traumatic experience of covering the murder of his journalist friend.
“His daughter arrived and requested that I refrain from photographing her father’s body,” Arias told CBS News.
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