Five found shot to death in Mexico City apartment

Ruben Espinosa sustained severe injuries to his face before he was killed, said Dario Ramirez, director of the Article 19 group.

According to Proceso, Espinosa – who also worked for other publications – went into “self-exile” from the eastern state of Veracruz, where he felt threatened.

Espinosa’s family lost contact with him last Friday, and freedom of speech advocacy group, Article 19, called authorities to activate protocols to find a missing journalist.

One of the bodies was identified as Ruben Espinosa, a photojournalist for Mexico’s investigative reporting magazine “Proceso”.

Three of the women found shot to death lived in the apartment in the middle-class Narvarte neighbourhood in the southern part of the city, the local prosecutor’s office said in a statement yesterday. He had fled to the capital in June after being harassed in his home state of Veracruz.

Officials said identifications and cause of death were still being verified. Veracruz has been a unsafe state for reporters, as the often become targets of organized crime linked to drugs gangs. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 11 journalists have been killed there since 2010. Many reporters under threat in their home states have taken refuge in the capital, where the federal government has set up an agency to help such journalists.