The social media influencer who was shot dead during a livestream on TikTok in the Mexican state of Jalisco appeared to be murdered by a hit man and expressed fear before being killed, prosecutors said on Thursday.
The grisly murder of 23-year-old Valeria Márquez on Tuesday shocked the Latin American nation, igniting rumors about the motive behind her killing in a region that's been eclipsed by cartel violence in recent years. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her administration is working with local investigators to track down the killer and extended her condolences to Márquez's family.
Denis Rodríguez, a spokesperson for the Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office, provided new details on the killing on Thursday, but said prosecutors were still investigating the death of the model and beauty influencer with more than 113,000 followers on the social media app.
Mexican social media influencer, Valeria Marquez, 23, who was brazenly shot to death during a TikTok livestream in the beauty salon where she worked in the city of Zapopan, looks on in this picture obtained from social media.
@v___marquez/via Instagram/via REUTERS
Rodríguez said that early Tuesday afternoon, hours before the shooting, a masked man posing as a delivery driver arrived at the beauty salon on the outskirts of Guadalajara, accompanied by another man on a motorcycle. According to a woman in the salon, the men said they had a "very expensive" gift for Márquez that they had to deliver in person. When Márquez arrived and heard people were looking for her she expressed fear in her livestream.
"Maybe they were going to kill me," she said in the video minutes before she was killed. "Were they going to come and take me away, or what? I'm worried."
When the men returned, they asked if it was Márquez who was now in the salon, something that prompted prosecutors to believe that the men were hired assassins, Rodríguez said.
"The aggressor arrived asking if the victim (Márquez) was there. So it appears he didn't know her," Rodríguez said. "With that, you can deduce - without jumping to conclusions - that this was a person who was paid. It was obviously someone who came with a purpose."
Marquez was seen on the livestream saying, "they're coming," before a voice off screen asked "Hey, Vale?" and Marquez replied "yes," the Reuters news agency reported.
Márquez was handed a stuffed animal and a bag of Starbucks coffee while she was on the livestream, and was shot in the head and the chest, collapsing on camera. TikTok has since taken down the influencer's account.
While it was still unclear who was behind the killing, the region is firmly controlled by one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and Rodríguez noted murders by hired guns on motorcycles, often known as "sicarios," have become a common occurrence.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel has recently been accused of using fake job advertisements to lure new members and of torturing and killing recruits who resist.
Rodríguez said that authorities were also investigating if the death was connected to the murder of a former congressman just hours earlier in the same area of Guadalajara, also carried out by two men on a motorcycle. The state prosecutor's office said he was killed inside a shopping mall in Zapopan.
Márquez's murder has shocked Mexico -- where killings and kidnappings are a daily occurrence -- and brought into sharp focus both its femicide epidemic and growing violence against influencers.
It is not the first murder of a social media star in Mexico, which has a history of musicians, influencers and other celebrities getting caught up in the criminal underworld.
In January, a small plane was reported to have dropped pamphlets on the northwestern cartel stronghold of Culiacan threatening around 20 artists and YouTubers for alleged dealings with a warring faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Several influencers in Sinaloa have already been killed.
David Saucedo, an independent expert on Mexican cartels, said people who have fallen afoul of the gangs include informants, money launderers and those in romantic relationships with criminals.
"Influencers have become another cog in the machine of organized crime," he said.
Zapopan mayor Juan Jose Frangie said that his office has no record of Marquez requesting help from authorities because of threats against her.
A police officer escorts the hearse transporting the body of Valeria Marquez, 23, a Mexican social media influencer who was fatally shot during a TikTok livestream, as it leaves the Saint Bernard of Clairvaux parish after her funeral Mass, in Guadalajara, Mexico, May 15, 2025.
Stringer / REUTERS
"It's incredible that (one minute) you're making a video and then you're murdered. A femicide is the worst thing," Frangie said.
According to the United Nations, 70 percent of women over the age of 15 have experienced some form of assault at least once in their lives in Mexico. Since 2001, at least 50,000 women have been murdered in Mexico, according to the U.N, but only 2% of cases end in a criminal sentence and only one in 10 victims reports their aggressor.
Around 10 women or girls are murdered every day in the Latin American nation, but few draw as much attention as Marquez's sudden death while interacting with her fans.
On Marquez's Instagram account, where photos showed the young woman lounging on a yacht, by a swimming pool and in a private plane, some users paid tribute to the influencer.
Others speculated about the motive, the sources of her apparent wealth and possible role of an ex-boyfriend.
"Justice for Valeria," multiple posts demanded.
"So young and beautiful, she did not deserve to have her life taken away," one user wrote.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.