A 23-year-old influencer was shot and killed on Tuesday at a beauty salon in Jalisco, Mexico, while she was livestreaming on TikTok, according to the state prosecutor’s office.
The influencer, Valeria Márquez, was working at the salon in Zapopan, part of the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, and streaming to some of her 113,000 followers on TikTok, when two men pulled up outside on a motorbike, Denis Rodríguez, a spokesman for the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office, said. One of the men entered the salon wearing a mask, looking for Ms. Márquez.
“He asked her directly: ‘Are you Valeria?’” Mr. Rodríguez said. She responded, “Yes.”
The man then pulled out a gun and shot her before hopping on the motorbike and fleeing.
Ms. Márquez’s TikTok account appeared to have been taken down on Wednesday, but a video of the killing circulating online, which was confirmed by the prosecutor’s office, showed her sitting in a chair at the salon, holding a pink stuffed pig in her lap, before looking away from the camera. A moment later she clutches at her chest and stomach before slumping over in her chair. Another woman’s face is then seen before the video cuts out.
When investigators arrived later, “she was still sitting in the chair, where she was surprised, with that doll, the little pig, right there in her arms,” Mr. Rodríguez said.
The prosecutor’s office said it did not have any suspects, but it was reviewing surveillance footage and combing through her social media for clues as to whom the attackers might be. The men, who visited the shop earlier in the day saying they were trying to deliver a gift for Ms. Márquez, most likely didn’t personally know her, as they had to ask for her by name, Mr. Rodríguez said.
“They didn’t have a personal relationship,” he said. “He was simply her executioner.”
The prosecutor’s office said that it was investigating the crime as a possible “femicide,” a type of gender-based violence against women. Such attacks are often unpunished in Mexico.
Ms. Márquez’s death was the latest reminder of the rise in violence against women in the country.
The killing occurred days after Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez, a mayoral candidate in the state of Veracruz, was gunned down along with three others during a campaign march on Sunday — an attack that was also captured on a livestream.
A recording of that stream, which was posted on Ms. Gutiérrez’s Facebook page and was still online as of Wednesday evening, shows her shaking the hands of residents and marching with her supporters through the streets, before a series of gunshots ring out. Moments later, some of her supporters can be heard screaming while others run from the scene, before the camera goes dark.
Mexico has enacted a number of local and federal laws in recent years to combat gender-based violence against women, but the country still has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world.
The violence is the product of a “machismo” culture, ingrained sexism and institutions that resist acknowledging their own responsibility for gender-based violence, said Paulina García-Del Moral, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Guelph.
“There’s still a sense of entitlement among a lot of men in Mexico — and elsewhere in Latin America and the world — they feel entitled to women’s bodies,” Dr. García-Del Moral said. “It’s proven to be very resilient and resistant to change.”
A study in 2023 from a group of academics in Mexico found that femicide has been rising in the country for nearly a decade, outpacing other violent crimes, with around 10 or 11 women murdered every day.
According to the United Nations, more than 50,000 women were murdered from 2001 to 2024, with less than 5 percent of the cases resulting in convictions.
State actors often fail to investigate, or when they do, they downplay the violence by focusing on gendered stereotypes, like what a female victim was wearing or the choices she may have made that led to her death, Ms. García-Del Moral said. “Pretty much victim-blaming,” she added.
After Ms. Márquez was shot, users flooded her TikTok account with messages expressing shock and condolences. Some questioned whether the footage was real. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is unclear whether the person who attacked Ms. Márquez knew that she was broadcasting live, but, Ms. García-Del Moral said, “Any kind of public feminicide wants to send a statement, whether it’s transmitted live or not: That men can kill women with impunity.”
“Feminicidal violence in Mexico is so deep, and so broad, you are not necessarily protected by virtue of being of wealthier socioeconomic status, or being a politician or being even live,” she added. “It doesn’t matter.”
McKinnon de Kuyper contributed reporting.
