The International Press Institute (IPI) today condemned the murder of a Mexican reporter who was found dead Tuesday after having been missing for nearly three months.

Authorities discovered the body of journalist Noel López Olguín, who disappeared on 8 March, buried in a clandestine grave in the city of Chinameca in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that a local investigator said the journalist died from a blow to the head. The investigator said that soldiers found López’s body after a man arrested in the killings of several police officers confessed to the murder and led them to the grave.

López’s family reportedly identified the body, already in a state of decomposition, the following day.

The journalist worked for the weekly newspapers Horizonte and Noticias de Acayucan, and for the daily La Verdad. His written pieces reportedly focused on government corruption and the activities of the drug cartels.

López is the fourth journalist murdered in Mexico in 2011, according to IPI’s Death Watch. Rodolfo Ochoa, José Luis Cerda Meléndez, and Luis Emanuel Ruíz Carrillo were all brutally killed earlier this year.

According to reports, at least 13 journalists in Mexico were abducted and later released in 2010, and another two have been missing since early April of that year. Fifteen reporters have been murdered in the past 18 months, IPI’s research shows, making the country the second most dangerous in the world for journalists in 2010.

IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said: “We offer our condolences to Mr. López’s family and colleagues. A culture of impunity in Mexico is creating an environment in which killers of journalists know they can strike again and again without being brought to justice. We urge Mexican authorities to conduct thorough and transparent investigations of these heinous crimes, and to hold the perpetrators accountable.”