The body of Enrique Perea Quintanilla, a longtime police reporter who became editor of a crime magazine, was found at 2 p.m. on the side of a road about 9 miles (15 kilometers) south of Chihuahua, Eduardo Esparza, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutor, told CPJ. Perea was shot once in the head and once in the back with a .45-caliber gun.
Perea was editor of a monthly magazine, Dos Caras, Una Verdad (Two Sides, One Truth), which specialized in reporting on closed murder cases and local drug trafficking. He had worked for 20 years as a police reporter for the dailies El Heraldo and El Diario until becoming the magazine’s editor in 2005, his former colleague and editor at El Heraldo, César Ibarra, told CPJ.
Esparza said the journalist was last seen leaving his office in his car at 11 a.m. on August 8, but the car was found abandoned in Chihuahua’s center that night. Perea’s two sons reported the journalist missing.
Esparza said the state prosecutor’s office believed the murder was the work of organized crime. While the motive was not immediately clear, he said, Perea’s journalism was one of the investigation’s leads.