Mexican police find seven bodies, including five decapitated and one completely dismembered, in a car abandoned in traffic, each with a handwritten message explaining the reason for their gruesome murder
- Police in Puebla, Mexico, discovered five human heads outside an abandoned car and a dismembered body inside the vehicle
- One of the victims has been identified as José “The Shark” Vega, 37, a former police officer who was kidnapped from his car wash business in February.
- Each victim had a note explaining why they were killed – each note was signed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel
Seven bodies, including five that had been decapitated and another that had been completely dismembered, were found Friday in a car abandoned on a Mexican highway.
The Puebla Public Prosecutor’s Office said all the bodies contained messages signed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel outlining the reasons behind their killings.
Each victim was accused of being involved in criminal activities ranging from street drug dealing to truck robbing and extortion.
A video uploaded to social media showed five heads scattered on the road surface next to the vehicle.
“On each of the bodies we found handwritten messages on paper, describing the reason for death,” said Gilberto Higuera, chief prosecutor of the state of Puebla.
Former police José ‘The Shark’ Vega is one of seven people whose remains were found last Friday in an abandoned vehicle in the central Mexican city of Puebla
Five of the bodies were dismembered and another was completely dismembered, the Puebla Public Prosecutor’s Office said. Each victim had a note on his body stating the reason for his death
One of the victims was identified as José “The Shark” Vega, 37, a former police officer who was kidnapped on February 24 along with one of his car wash employees.
Vega was fired from the Puebla State Police in 2013 over a shooting and was arrested in 2014 for illegal possession of police equipment.
A second victim was identified as a Colombian loan shark nicknamed ‘El Kevin’ who was kidnapped on March 24.
While vigilantes have sometimes left such messages on corpses, similar marks are far more commonly left on the bodies of victims by drug cartels seeking to threaten their rivals or punish behavior they claim violates their rules.
Five heads lay outside a car found abandoned on a highway in the central Mexican city of Puebla last Friday
Higuera was extremely careful in describing the evidence, but suggested that it was “not just about a dispute (between gangs) but also about something related to the dominance over certain people, not just aimed at domination, but also on recruitment.’
He did not elaborate on this comment. But some cartels in Mexico, when they want to establish territory as their own, will kill rivals or petty thieves or drug dealers they encounter, leaving messages to convince local residents that such activities will not be tolerated under the new cartel.
The gruesome murders were notable because they took place in the relatively prosperous and large city of the state of Puebla, just east of Mexico City.
Puebla is Mexico’s fifth largest city and has been largely spared from drug cartel violence in the surrounding areas.
It was also unusual to leave the bodies in the middle of a highway. Police were quickly alerted to the car laden with carcasses as it blocked traffic on the city’s main ring road.