The person who was shot dead after allegedly killing the mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán, last Saturday has been identified as a 17-year-old boy from an adjacent municipality.
Michoacán Attorney General Carlos Torres Piña said in a video message on Thursday that on Wednesday afternoon the body of “the perpetrator” of the murder of Mayor Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez was identified and claimed by members of his family.
(Michangoona/X)
He identified the alleged murderer as Víctor Manuel Ubaldo Vidales, a 17-year-old youth from Paracho, a municipality that borders Uruapan. Ubaldo was shot dead by a municipal police officer shortly after he allegedly opened fire on the mayor, who had a security detail that also included members of the National Guard.
Torres said that the family of Ubaldo acknowledged that he left his home a week before Manzo was shot in Uruapan’s central square while officiating a Day of the Dead event last Saturday night.
Two other people were arrested in connection with the crime, which triggered protests in various parts of Michoacán and prompted the federal government to develop a “peace and justice” plan for the state, one of Mexico’s most violent.
Torres said that the identification of Ubaldo “allows us to continue making progress” in the investigation into the murder of Manzo.
He said that a sodium rhodizonate test, which detects the presence of lead, was carried out on Ubaldo’s body and came back positive, “confirming the hypothesis” that he was the perpetrator of the murder of Manzo, an independent mayor and outspoken anti-crime crusader.
Torres also said that authorities had determined that Ubaldo was addicted to methamphetamine. He said that the boy’s family had confirmed that finding.
The attorney general said that “advances in acts of investigation and intelligence have allowed us to determine that … more than two people participated” in the crime against Manzo.
The homicide, he added, “is related to organized crime groups.”
Torres didn’t name any group, but the Milenio newspaper reported that it “was able to confirm with sources that investigations point toward the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.” That organization’s alleged plaza chief in Uruapan was arrested by municipal police in August.
Outspoken anti-crime mayor assassinated in Uruapan, Michoacán’s second-largest city
Torres noted that “the investigation work” into Manzo’s murder is being carried out in “a coordinated way between federal and state authorities.”
He said authorities will “continue informing citizens” about the progress in the investigation and pledged that the crime won’t go unpunished.
Manzo, 40, had been mayor of Uruapan since September 2024, and had urged President Claudia Sheinbaum to ramp up the fight against organized crime. On Wednesday, his wife, Grecia Quiroz, was sworn in as his replacement.
In the past 25 years, 119 mayors and mayors-elect have been murdered in Mexico, according to a count by the El Universal newspaper. Twenty of the victims were killed in Michoacán.
With reports from Milenio and Sin Embargo
