Mexico Shocked by Musicians Killings

MEXICO CITY (AP) - A wave of organized crime violence terrorizing many parts of Mexico is driving fear into the heart of the entertainment business with the murders of several popular musicians, suggesting no one is immune to the rampant brutality.

Most disquieting were the weekend slayings of two singers who had crooned only about love and loss, not drugs and guns like some "narcocorrido" celebrities killed in the past.

The murders of Sergio Gomez, lead performer for the top-selling group K-Paz de la Sierra, and Zayda Pena of the group Zayda and the Guilty Ones has mainstream singers worrying they may become targets by becoming identified with one or another of Mexico's warring drug gangs.

"What can I say? We are dismayed about this. I mean, we are all in the same boat," said Javier Diaz, representative of Los Tucanes del Norte, a popular group that often poses with assault rifles to promote its songs and violence-filled videos.

Although not known for songs glamorizing the drug business, Gomez had reportedly received death threats urging him not to appear in the capital of the western state of Michoacan, a hot bed of the drug trade where he was tortured before being strangled Sunday.

Pena was killed with similar brutality the previous day. Gunman fired an execution-style gunshot into her at the hospital where she was recovering from surgery for a bullet wound in her neck suffered Friday at a motel in the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Some fear that singers, whether they have any links to drug cartels or not, are routinely "adopted" by drug gangs, which post Internet videos showing their members torturing and executing rivals to soundtracks of popular tunes.