The investigation into the April 14 murder of former beauty queen Carolina Flores Gómez took a surprising turn this week after a video appeared to confirm that she was murdered by her mother-in-law.
Mexico City prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Erika María Herrera and have accused her of femicide. They are also questioning the husband who was present during the murder, but did not report it to police until the next day.
“Q HICISTE MAMÁ!?”
Es la forma en q la exreina de belleza, Carolina Flores, fue atacada a tiros por su suegra Erika Herrera.
Ahí la mató.
Su hijo Alejandro, le reclamó, pero la dejó huir del depa d Polanco.
Hasta el otro día, fue a @FiscaliaCDMX a denunciar.El caso #c4EnAlerta pic.twitter.com/i6dG2HKTGz
— Carlos Jiménez (@c4jimenez) April 22, 2026
Warning: Though the video does not clearly show the murder, it’s contents may be distressing to viewers.
The video in question — apparently from a baby monitor — shows the moment when Flores, 27, was shot dead.
In the 60-second recording leaked to the public, Flores can be seen walking into a room inside her apartment in the Polanco neighborhood of the capital as her mother-in-law follows.
Then comes the sound of at least six gunshots and screams. Alejandro, Flores’s husband, appears in the frame and can be heard confronting his mother, saying “What was that? What did you do, Mom?”
Herrera calmly replies, “Nothing, she made me mad.”
Alejandro then says, “What’s wrong with you, she’s my family.”
Herrera responds, “You are my family, not hers … you’re mine, she is not.”
When detectives arrived the following day, they found the former Miss Teen Universe face down on the floor with multiple bullet wounds.
Under questioning, the husband admitted his mother had shot Flores while he and their 8-month-old son were present in the apartment. Alejandro justified his failure to immediately report the shooting by saying he was doing what he thought was in the best interest of the baby.
The suspect remains at large. Authorities have issued an immigration alert and continue to look for the 9mm gun used to murder Flores, originally from Ensenada, Baja California,
Prosecutors say they continue to classify the murder as femicide, which in Mexico is defined as when a woman is murdered under circumstances that may be related to gender violence.
Femicide is a significant problem in Mexico, with an average of eight to 10 women murdered every day. The data on how many of those murders qualify as femicides varies widely, with some putting the number as high as 2,800.
The impunity rate for femicide in Mexico is 95%.
Last month, the attorney general proposed a new anti-femicide law seeking to increase penalties and unify criminal codes among all 32 states.
One major concern is the tendency of investigators to repeat old sexist patterns of negligence, indifference or even misogyny. Among these patterns is suggesting the missing woman might have eloped.
Family members of Edith Guadalupe Valdés, murdered in Mexico City three days after Carolina Flores, say police officials demanded money before opening a case file, then asked whether she might have run off with her boyfriend.
The family started an investigation on their own and tracked Edith Guadalupe — who had left home for a job interview — to a building in the borough of Iztapalapa only for the police to wait until the following day to send agents to the building where the body was found in the basement.
Three police officials were fired for negligence in that case.
With reports from La Jornada, Reporte Indigo, El País, El Financiero and Milenio
