Valeria Marquez's close friend says beauty influencer received threats before she was shot dead
A close friend of Valeria Marquez, the beauty influencer who was shot to death during a TikTok livestream, claimed that the personality had already received threats before her murder.
Local online newspaper El Diario reported that Marquez's close friend, who chose to remain anonymous, said someone threatened Marquez after getting bothered seeing her partying and enjoying herself in clubs.
"It was learned that she was threatened once in a club, that she was in a club and they threatened her," the friend said in Spanish. "'Why are you having fun?' I don't know how much. 'You having fun, and I'm here.' They threatened her."
"Why her?" I mean, why her? Why those friends? She didn't deserve it," the friend added.
The friend said Marquez's death "makes me want to cry."
"It shocked all of Mexico, and it's terrible, horrible. Listen, she didn't deserve what happened to her. She didn't deserve what happened to her, nor did she. She was a lovely person," the friend said. "And you're… I didn't know you, and I was smiling at you."
Marquez was killed on May 13 at the beauty salon where she worked in the city of Zapopan in Mexico. She was 23.
Her death is being investigated according to protocols for femicide, the killing of women or girls for reasons of gender, the Jalisco state prosecutor said in a statement.
A man entered the salon and shot her, according to the prosecutor, who didn't name a suspect.
Seconds before the incident, Marquez was seen on her TikTok livestream seated at a table clutching a stuffed toy. She was heard saying, "They're coming," before a voice in the background asked, "Hey, Vale?"
Moments later, Marquez was shot to death. A person appeared to pick up her phone, with their face briefly showing on the livestream before the video ended.
Marquez, who had nearly 200,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok before her murder and has grown since then, on the livestream said someone came to the salon when she was not there with an "expensive gift" to deliver to her. Appearing concerned, she said she wasn't planning to wait for the person to come back.
Mexico, along with Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia, has the fourth-highest rates of femicide in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The latest data, in 2023, showed that there were 1.3 such deaths for every 100,000 women.
According to data consultancy TResearch, Jalisco is ranked sixth out of Mexico's 32 states for homicides, with 906 cases recorded there since October 2024, the start of the term of Claudia Sheinbaum, the first Mexican woman president. (with reports from Reuters)
