California couple killed in Mexican town plagued by violence were visiting for the holidays

Mexico City — A California couple with Mexican roots went south for the holidays to visit relatives, an annual tradition among many U.S. residents of Mexican ancestry.

But tragedy struck: Both were shot dead in Mexico’s violence-plagued Michoacán state, Mexican authorities said Friday. The couple fell victim to the violence that has been pummeling Mexico.

Police were investigating but had no immediate word on a motive or possible suspects, said Magdalena Guzmán, a spokeswoman for the state prosecutor’s office.

The two were shot just before midnight Thursday while inside a pickup truck on a road in rural Angamacutiro, a municipality of about 15,000 in northern Michoacán.

In the last few months, Angamacutiro has seen its chief of security murdered and an ex-mayor disappeared — crimes indicative of the violence that has convulsed the western state of Michoacán.

The victims of Thursday’s double homicide were identified as Rafael Cardona Aguilera, 53, and his wife, Gloria Ambriz de Cardona, 50, according to authorities and a mourning notice posted on social media. Cardona was the brother-in-law of the town mayor and the couple were staying at the mayor’s residence, the prosecutor’s spokeswoman said.

Cardona was born in the United States and his wife was a naturalized U.S. citizen, Guzmán said.

The couple resided in the Sacramento area and arrived in Mexico at the end of November to spend the holidays with relatives, Guzmán said.

The wife died at the scene and her spouse succumbed shortly afterward at a hospital, the prosecutor’s office said.

For decades, Michoacán, a sprawling region to the west of Mexico City, has been a major source of immigrants settling in California and elsewhere in the United States. Many immigrants traditionally return for the end-of-year holidays to visit loved ones and hometowns throughout Mexico.

In recent years, Michoacán has seen a wave of violence linked to gangs competing for various lucrative rackets, including drug-smuggling, extortion and illegal timber-harvesting.

The state, authorities say, is also a key transit route for precursor chemicals used in the production of U.S.-bound fentanyl, the synthetic opioid, and shipped from China to the Pacific port of Lázaro Cárdenas, on the Michoacán coast.

Angamacutiro has seen several recent high-profile crimes.

In October, Lizbeth Estela Romero, the head of security in Angamacutiro, was shot dead outside her home. The town’s ex-mayor, Maribel Juárez Blanquet, disappeared in August and was presumably kidnapped, authorities say. She remains missing.

The ex-mayor’s brother, Erik Juárez Blanquet, a state lawmaker and also a former mayor of Angamacutiro, was shot dead in 2020 when a pair of assassins on a motorcycle opened fire on his vehicle in the state capital of Morelia.

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said it was “aware” of the shooting of the U.S. couple and was “closely” tracking developments. “The safety of U.S. citizens abroad is our first priority and we stand ready to assist in any way possible,” the embassy said, declining to provide further details.

Special correspondent Cecilia Sanchez Vidal contributed to this report.