A TikTok influencer, her husband, and their two children were found dead, wrapped in plastic in their pickup truck in Mexico, authorities say.
Police discovered an abandoned gray Ford Ranger in downtown Guadalajara containing the bodies of Esmeralda Ferrer Garibay, 32, Roberto Carlos Gil Licea, 36, Gael Santiago, 13, and seven-year-old Regina. The family, who had recently moved from the western city of Michoacán, was identified on Thursday nearly a week after their remains were found.
Garibay had amassed more than 46,000 followers on her TikTok profile Esmeralda FG, flaunted designer labels, luxury cars and cosmetic surgery transformations in her videos.
The rising social media star also posted lip-syncing videos to narco-corridos: Mexican ballads that glorify drug trafficking culture. One of Garibay’s viral videos, translated by the Latin Times, featured the phrase: “Advantages of having a narco boyfriend.”
Garibay’s final post on August 7, which received 3 million views, showed her driving her car on a ranch overlayed with a message about her “dirt road neighborhood” and the inclement weather.
Investigators, however, said they did not believe the mom-of-two’s online activity was the prime motive for the family’s killing.
Gabrinay’s husband, Licea, traded vehicles and farmed tomatoes in Michoacán and is believed to be the target, according to the Mexican national daily newspaper El Financiero.
The Specialized Investigation Unit for Intentional Homicides used CCTV footage and data from the Ministry of Security and National Guard to trace the Ford Ranger’s movements to an auto repair shop on Ejido Avenue.
“The scene was processed, and investigators found multiple pieces of evidence suggesting the family was killed there,” prosecutor Alfonso Gutiérrez Santillán said last week. “While the forensic results are not yet in, ballistic and blood evidence almost certainly confirm they were murdered at that location.”
Two men employed by the workshop were reportedly detained but later released after the Public Prosecutor’s Office found insufficient evidence.
In a bizarre twist, the two suspects and two of their relatives were abducted while leaving the prosecutor’s office. Prosecutor Blanca Trujillo said the armed assailants who took them “had been watching the exit for over two hours.”
One of the men managed escaped while the other three abductees remained missing, the prosecutor’s office said.
