The Mexican influencer who was murdered while she was livestreaming from her beauty salon had openly expressed fears that she was going to be killed just minutes before she was shot dead.
Valeria Márquez, 23, voiced her fear in a live TikTok video just before her motorbike-riding killer struck Tuesday while pretending to deliver a gift in her Blossom the Beauty Lounge salon in Jalisco, Mexico.
“Maybe they were going to kill me,” Márquez said during the live stream, without making clear exactly whom she was referring to.
“Were they going to come and take me away, or what? I’m worried,” she said.
Moments later, a man off-screen called out, “Hey Vale,” to which she answered, “Yes?” before muting the livestream.
Márquez was then handed a stuffed animal and a bag of Starbucks coffee — before she was shot in the head and chest by a man who had returned to the salon, collapsing on camera, Denis Rodríguez, a spokesperson for the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office, told CBS News.
The man had posed hours earlier as a delivery driver, accompanied by another man on a motorcycle, who said he had an “expensive gift” to deliver to the blond bombshell who boasted nearly 200,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram, Rodríguez said.
A person had appeared to pick up Márquez’s phone, with their face briefly showing on the livestream before the video ended.
TikTok has since taken down the influencer’s account.
While the killer hasn’t been identified, the region is firmly controlled by one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and hitmen locally as “sicarios” similarly target individuals with guns on motorcycles, the spokesperson said.
“The aggressor arrived asking if the victim (Márquez) was there. So it appears he didn’t know her,” Rodríguez said.
“With that, you can deduce – without jumping to conclusions – that this was a person who was paid. It was obviously someone who came with a purpose.”
Rodríguez said authorities are also investigating if her death was connected to the murder of a former congressman just hours earlier in the same area of Guadalajara, also carried out by gun-wielding men on motorcycles inside a shopping mall.
Márquez’s death has brought the femicide epidemic in Mexico into sharp focus, the outlet reported.
Since 2001, at least 50,000 women have been murdered in Mexico, according to the United Nations.
Around 10 women or girls are murdered every day in the Latin American nation, but few have drawn as much attention as Márquez, who had crafted an online image of luxury — posing on yachts, by private jets, and in high-end boutiques.
Jalisco is ranked sixth out of Mexico’s 32 states, including Mexico City, for homicides, with 906 recorded there since the beginning of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s term in October 2024, according to data consultancy TResearch.
With Post wires
