{"id":4564,"date":"2025-04-25T13:22:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T13:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/25\/mother-and-son-murdered-while-searching-for-missing-relatives-in-mexico\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T13:22:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T13:22:18","slug":"mother-and-son-murdered-while-searching-for-missing-relatives-in-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/25\/mother-and-son-murdered-while-searching-for-missing-relatives-in-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother and son murdered while searching for missing relatives in Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Mexican mother belonging to a group searching for missing relatives was murdered along with her son in a western region plagued by criminal violence, authorities said Thursday.<\/p>\n

Maria del Carmen Morales was shot late Wednesday in Jalisco state, the prosecutor’s office said, adding that initial indications were that the crime was unrelated to her activism.<\/p>\n

Morales, 43, belonged to the Guerreros Buscadores collective, whose discovery of bones, shoes and clothing<\/a><\/span> at a suspected Jalisco drug cartel training camp in March shocked Mexico. The cartel is led by\u00a0Nemesio Rub\u00e9n “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes<\/a><\/span>, for whom the U.S. government has offered a\u00a0$15 million reward<\/a>\u00a0for information leading to his capture.<\/p>\n

The grisly find shone a spotlight on forced recruitment and other tactics employed by criminal gangs in a country where more than 120,000 people are missing.<\/p>\n

Morales was killed when she came to the defense of her 26-year-old son Daniel Ramirez when he was attacked by two men on a motorcycle, the prosecutor’s office said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another one of her sons had gone missing last year.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor’s office said there was no evidence so far linking Morales’s murder to her search for missing persons.<\/p>\n

In a statement posted to social media<\/a>, Guerreros Buscadores called for an “immediate and thorough investigation.”<\/p>\n

\n

<\/span>

\n

Agents from the Jalisco prosecutor’s office guard the Izaguirre ranch, in Teuchitlan, Jalisco, Mexico on March 20, 2025. Mexico’s Attorney General, Alejandro Gertz Manero, is investigating an alleged cartel killing site and training camp in Teuchitlan, Jalisco, after state authorities failed to properly handle evidence.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Stringer\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Civil society groups formed by relatives who denounce government inaction risk their own lives searching for remains in unmarked graves, often in areas where cartel gunmen are active.<\/p>\n

In addition to the discovery at the ranch, other mass graves have been found in recent months in Mexico. In January, at least\u00a056 bodies were discovered<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in unmarked mass graves in northern Mexico, not far from the border with the United States.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0mass grave<\/a><\/span>\u00a0discovered in December in a suburb of Guadalajara with dozens of bags of dismembered body parts contained the remains of 24 people, authorities said. That same month, Mexican authorities said they recovered a total of\u00a031 bodies<\/a><\/span>\u00a0from pits in Chiapas, a state plagued by cartel violence.<\/p>\n

Collectives searching for missing persons<\/a><\/span>\u00a0say that cartels and other organized crime gangs sometimes use ovens to incinerate their victims and leave no trace.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n