A businessman and his son were killed on Saturday night while driving toward Acapulco on the Autopista del Sol, in the state of Guerrero.

According to reports, José Guadalupe Fuentes Brito and his 20-year-old son, José Manuel Fuentes Calvo, were murdered by armed men, their Toyota Tacoma pickup was stolen and a woman identified as the wife and mother of the deceased was hospitalized with four gunshot wounds.

The crime occurred on a notoriously dangerous stretch of the highway between Cuernavaca and Chilpancingo, the state capital of Guerrero where the businessman and his family resided.

According to media reports, Fuentes Brito, who worked in real estate and also owned a motorcycle shop, had political ties and was a promoter of Marcelo Ebrard in his bid to become the Morena party’s 2024 nominee for president. Fuentes Brito was the uncle of Rubén Fuentes Hernández, coordinator of the Guerrero governor’s office.

Ebrard, who stepped down as foreign minister last month to focus on beating out Morena frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum, expressed his condolences on social media and insisted officials take swift action.

“We demand that the State Prosecutor’s Office intervene immediately and this crime, like all others, be clarified and those responsible brought to justice,” he tweeted.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador addressed the murders in his Monday morning press conference, saying “there is still not much clarity about the case,” while also noting that a man driving a transport van in the same area  was murdered around the same time.

“It is thought that [the driver] saw something about the [killing] of the man and his son, and that is why they also murdered him,” he said. “It is being investigated.”

Reports put the murders of Fuentes Brito and his son at between 7 and 8 p.m. between the Paso Morelos toll booth and Chilpancingo.

According to journalist Ricardo Castillo, director of Quadratín Guerrero, it is common knowledge that this stretch of road is very dangerous at night. Interviewed on the Fórmula radio network’s “Por La Mañana” show, Castillo said, “After 6, many people do not recommend traveling in this section … There are many entrances and exits from the highway to the communities that are nearby. It becomes very dangerous. There have been many assaults.” 

Castillo did say that a National Guard unit is permanently deployed in the area.

With reports from Milenio, El Universal, El País and RadioFórmula