A multiple homicide on Thursday in Guadalajara’s metropolitan area (ZMG), the third in just over a week, has left five people dead.

The murders, which took place in a home in San Pedro Tlaquepaque, were discovered by municipal police after a 911 call around 5:50 p.m. reported gunshots being fired.

The incident follows on the heels of another multiple homicide in Guadalajara early Wednesday morning, where three men and a woman were shot and killed in a park in the Lomas de Polanco neighborhood.

At the site in Tlaquepaque, officers found bodies both inside and outside the home.

Police also found a man and a woman outside who were still alive but seriously injured. They both died hours later at a nearby hospital.

The incident is the second multiple homicide in the Magical Town in the last eight days.

On February 10, five people were killed and one seriously injured when unknown assailants entered a makeshift building that police said was known as a site of criminal activity and shot at the six people inside.

According to official numbers, murders in the ZMG declined 12% in 2020, but the statistics don’t include victims found in hidden graves, giving a limited picture of the security situation in the area.

Jorge Tejada, a security expert at the city’s ITESO university, told the newspaper El Universal last week that those statistics should be included.

“… These discoveries should be counted as homicides,” he said.

During 2019 and 2020, 406 bodies were found in hidden graves in the ZMG, according to state government data.

Source: El Universal (sp)