Gabriel Huge Córdova

Freelance

May 2 or 3, 2012, in Boca del Rio, Mexico

Huge's body was found with three others in a canal in Boca del Rio, Veracruz state, on May 3. All of the bodies had been dismembered and showed signs of torture. Huge, a news photographer who specialized in the crime beat, had gone missing on May 2, along with another victim, his nephew Guillermo Luna Varela, who was a photojournalist with Veracruznews. The other two victims were Esteban Rodríguez, a former news photographer, and Irasema Becerra, an acquaintance of Huge and Luna.

Huge and Luna had both previously worked as photographers for the local daily Notiver. After the murders of three Notiver journalists last year, the two fled Veracruz along with other local journalists, news reports said, but later returned. News accounts reported that upon Huge's return to Veracruz, he had worked occasionally as a freelance photographer.

Rodríguez had also quit his job at the local newspaper AZ after the murders and had taken up work as a welder, according to local journalists and news reports.

A federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the day after the murders that all journalists on the police beat in Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz state, as well as in the cities of Veracruz and Boca del Rio, had been offered local police protection. CPJ has documented a mixture of negligence and pervasive corruption among law enforcement officials, particularly at the state level.

State authorities have launched an investigation into the murders, according to news reports. Veracruz, which is a battleground for the Zetas and Sinaloa cartels, is one of Mexico's most dangerous states for the press, according to CPJ research.

Motive Unconfirmed: CPJ is investigating to determine whether the death was work-related.