THE BORDER REPORT

Sheriff's investigators in Cameron County, Texas, are now involved in the hunt for the killer of a popular Mexican singer, Zayda Peña, Saturday, in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, El Universal is reporting on its Web site. Locally, a former prosecutor and news service attorney was found murdered this morning in Agua Prieta. Gustavo Alonso Acosta was kidnapped in broad daylight; in the middle of the city Monday. His body was found in a lot to the south of town this morning. Acosta was a member of the Agua Prieta Bar and served as legal counsel for the Agua Prieta online news service, Noticias de la Frontera. I find it ... interesting ... that the news service saw fit to include a plea in its initial story for an investigation into the Agua Prieta prosecutor, Valencia Dosal. We'll have to see. She had some great songs to cut your veins to; "Quiero Emborracharme," "De Contrabando," as well as some beautifully executed corridos like "Tiro de Gracia." I notice the U.S. press is somewhat villifying her as just another narco-corrido singer, a gross misassessment of a performer known for her hauntingly lonely voice and pretty decent heartbreak songs. Valentin Elizalde or Tupac Shakur, she wasn't. Still, these kinds of killings never come as accidents. Peña was gunned down in her hospital Saturday, a day after she took a bullet to the neck in Matamoros. A friend and a hospital employee who happened to be in her room were also taken out. Meanwhile, a second performer, Paulo Gomez, of K-Paz de la Sierra, was found murdered after he was kidnapped Saturday, then tortured and strangled. Reforma reports that his ashes will be sent to his family in Indiana. That, I believe makes three musicians gunned down in northern Mexico this year. Four if you count the Sonoran, Valentín from November 2006.

--- Michel Marizco