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Miguel Ángel Méndez, Prensa Libre‘s deputy director, said the journalist had reported on local drug trafficking and government corruption.
In the weeks prior to his death, Mérida told colleagues and family members that he had received multiple threats, Méndez told CPJ. But the journalist did not seem overly concerned about the threats and did not give any more details, according to Méndez. Brenda Dery Muñoz, a local prosecutor for crimes related to drug trafficking, told CPJ that Mérida and other reporters had been threatened after covering a police seizure of 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of cocaine.
Rosa Salazar Marroquín, spokeswoman for the office of the special prosecutor for crimes against journalists and union members, told CPJ that the prosecutor was investigating possible links between Mérida’s death and his journalism.