Mexican columnist and reporter Angel Castillo Corona and his 16-year-old son were killed in the early hours of Sunday, 3 July, while driving home. Police informed Mexican newspapers that at around 3:30 am they were intercepted on the Mexico – Santiago – Chalma road, allegedly by carjackers. The journalist was brutally beaten, while his son was run over several times.

The police suggested robbery as a motive because the many journalists slain in Mexico are normally killed with guns, but in this case no weapons were used. The local press dismissed the robbery theory because although the son was killed immediately, the attackers showed no mercy towards the journalist. Castillo was still alive when he was taken to the Adolfo López Mateos medical center, but died shortly afterwards.

Castillo had founded several journalist societies and was working as a columnist for Portal, and as a reporter for Diario de México. He was also an Ocuilan council spokesman. According to the IPI Death Watch, he is the sixth Mexican journalist killed in 2011. Rodolfo Ochoa, José Luis Cerda, Luis Enmanuel Ruiz, Miguel Ángel López Velasco and Noel Lopez Olguin were the others.

With 12 journalists killed, Mexico was the second most deadly country in the world last year, following Pakistan with a total of 16.

The attorney general of the state of Mexico, Alfredo Castillo Cervantes, received several journalistic associations from Toluca Valley and the Valley of Mexico and promised to clarify the circumstances surrounding the murder in order to roll back the impunity associated with the killing of journalists. “We cannot give more information about the investigations being undertaken because we do not want to hinder the investigation, but there are important steps that will soon be known to the journalists’ guild,” the attorney general said.