Guys, this week a video has been spreading online that is truly horrifying. 23-year-old Valeria Marquez was a rising star. She was young, ambitious, and she really began making a name for herself after winning the Miss Face Beauty pageant in 2021. And since then, like most young people aspire to do nowadays, she's been making content on Tik Tok and Instagram and has really started gaining traction. She had over 220,000 followers on Tik Tok and over 100,000 on Instagram. Her future, she just stayed consistent and kept working hard. looked really promising. But just a couple of days ago on the 14th of May, while she was live on TikTok with all of her fans watching, she was shot multiple times in the torso and head, ending not just her life, but her promising future. Her fans, horrified, still on the stream, watching her lifeless body slumped against the table, were in pure shock. And quickly, they started demanding answers, and rumors began swirling. Who would do this to someone? Was it a hit from the cartel? Did one of her friends set her up? What did Valera do for someone to want to kill her? Especially like that. The video quickly gained global attention with social media companies scrambling to take it down and the case itself has now spiraled into one of the biggest stories in the world. However, the answer to some of those questions have now started coming out. And the truth about this whole situation, honestly, it is even more tragic than we initially thought. And guys, look, this is not the video to get the whip out and do my my regular intro, okay? So, I don't want to see a single comment, but yes, subscribe to the channel and let's get cracking. So, one of the places that Valeria would often stream on TikTok is from her beauty salon in Zapopan, Mexico. And on Wednesday, like normal, you know, she was chatting with her viewers while waiting for someone her friend said would deliver her an expensive gift, which she had to accept in person. And keep in mind this is fairly normal. Like she often talks about doing brand collaborations in this uh beauty salon and she receives plenty of uh gifts from her fans while she streams. So seemed regular, but this gift in particular seemed like it was taking a long time to arrive. And after a while, Valera starts to grow a bit impatient. And she even tells the chat at one point that, you know, she's actually going to leave because it's starting to get late. It's around 6:30 p.m. But that same friend, who we'll speak about in a second, also is an influencer named Viven. Well, she urged her to stay. Now, not long later, two men arrive on a motorcycle. However, Valera, nor her friend that was in the salon, could see their face, and they also walked away. This is when Valera eerily says uh on the chat, "Why didn't he just drop off the gift?" and then kind of casually says, you know, were they going to kidnap me or what? Not long later, one of them walks back and Valera looks up as he approached and he asks, "Are you Valera?" She responds, "Yes," and then mutes the live stream, anticipating a conversation. Hola. Seconds later, however, horrified viewers watched as she was shot multiple times in the torso and head. She collapses against the table, but never letting go of this stuffed pig, which she'd received earlier that day as a gift. The live stream only ended when someone who her fans initially thought was Viven, that same girl who asked her to stay, picked up the phone and shut it off. We even get a glimpse of her face right at the end. Now, tragically, this footage has spread across the internet. And as I mentioned before, all of these social media platforms desperately trying to take it down. Now, the internet immediately interneted and people started coming up with theories suggesting that Viven, her friend, set her up, pointing to the fact that she kept on asking Valera to stay and wait for this gift. They also started dragging up old videos revealing that the two friends were actually fighting before her death. In this Tik Tok that Vivian posted around 2 months ago, it was captioned, "How beautiful we are. It doesn't seem like we were fighting to the death a few months ago." Now, because of all of this, uh, Viven has had to address the accusations via Tik Tok and Instagram. and she straight up denies any involvement and she said that they were close friends. She even described Viven as a sister, explaining that these gifts were a normal part of their friendship and this is a regular thing because she normally receives gifts at her salon. She also noted that in the live stream the person that we saw at the end, the face that fans suspected was uh Viven. Well, she denies that it is her and she said that it was an employee named Erica. Now, it's important to note that officials at this point have not named the suspect yet, but you'll realize why that's an interesting fact later on. The state's prosecutor office also confirmed that they are investigating this as a femicide, which is the killing of a woman for genderbased reasons. In fact, this is now the eighth femicide investigation that they've launched this month in her state alone. And while the police haven't named a suspect yet, local media reports have, and they say that it is a man known as LR. Authorities have confirmed that he and Valera have dated for several months and they suspect that it is possible that he was angry when she was receiving a bunch of these gifts from her friends and wanted to do something about it. And here's the thing that this isn't just some typical ex, okay? In fact, Mexican media outlets have also previously published texts in which Viven said that she blames her exartner if anything happens to her. So, that's not exactly normal. Turns out, however, LR is short for Ricardo Ruiz Velasco, and he runs with the Jelasco New Generation Cartel. And this guy allegedly is not just a foot soldier. He reportedly is leading their so-called elite squad, which according to local media is a heavily armed group involved in high-profile assassinations and clashes with the military. Like, apparently, these guys have blown up helicopters with RPGs. And allegedly, these guys specialize in making people disappear. LR himself has also been linked to multiple disappearances and murders of celebrities deaths and also influencers. Local media described him as one of the most violent criminals in the country. Now, his name has circulated for years, but so far no formal charges have stuck. I wonder why. But here's where things get really tragic. In 2023, a report by Mexico's National Statistics Agency estimates that only 3% of all homicides in the country end in conviction. 3% is insane. And when it comes to crimes specifically against women, multiple watchd dogss, including the Center for Women's Rights and the United Nations, they say that that solve rate may be even lower. So we're talking 1 to 2%. And in Zapopan, the city where Valera lived, more than half of the real estate and commercial development is connected to the laundering of drug trafficking money, according to the US Department of Justice. And Jaliscoco, which is the state which Zapopan is in, is one of the most affected by the cartels in the entire country. Only around 50 km away is a cartel training center that was found in March. Oh, and this is insane. And a staggering 15,000 people have disappeared in that state and never found since 2018. 15,000 people. I can't even wrap my head around that number. That's just disappearances. That's not homicides, murders, kid, none of that. just disappearances. According to the state of Jalisco, as many as 90% of crimes are never even reported or investigated. And the state's attorney's office has long been accused of having links to the cartel. They obviously deny that, which is the reason why people say so many of these crimes never get solved. The reality is is that what's happened to Valera, as horrible as it is to say, it's not uncommon. In fact, this same day that she was killed, a former congressman named Lewis Diaz was murdered just 2 km away. And two days before that, also on a live stream, a candidate running for mayor, was also killed while participating in a political motorcade. The tragic truth is that when someone is murdered in Mexico, whether that be on live stream or in silence, unfortunately, there is a pattern. There is initial shock, maybe some public outrage, but then it slowly fades into the cold files and unsolved cases, which is why Valera's story, as tragic as it is, feels familiar. Young, ambitious, killed violently, and now the system and authorities are under pressure yet again to prove that it can do more than just label it a femicide and move on. The only difference this time, however, is that pretty much the whole world is watching. So, what do you guys think? Will this case be just a part of the 97% of cases that never get solved? Or do you believe that this time it'll be different and the public will keep the pressure on the authorities to do more? Either way, I hope you guys continue to talk about this, continue to keep it in people's thoughts and on social media and not let this one just drift away and be forgotten. Love you all. Have a good weekend and I will see you next week. [Music]