<img src="http://www.juarol.com/img/news/_Kpaz_.jpg" title="Funeral de Segrio Gomez" width="365" height="247" align="left"> Sergio Gomez, of K-Paz de la Sierra , was seized after a concert in the western state of Michoacan on Sunday.
Gomez and several others were travelling in a car in the early hours of Sunday after K-Paz de la Sierra's concert in Morelia, Michoacan's capital, when they were kidnapped by armed men.
The other people were released but Gomez's body was found on Monday on Morelia's outskirts, bearing signs of burns and bruises, police said.
K-Paz de la Sierra, whose members were immigrants to the Chicago area, were one of the best-known bands playing the US and Mexican "Duranguense" music scene, heavy on drums and synthesizers.



<img src="http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1688/kpazsegrioor9.jpg" width="350" align="right">
Gomez was killed hours after another singer, Zayda Pena, was killed in the border city of Matamoros in Tamaulipas state.
Pena, 28, was shot by an unknown assailant in hospital where she was recovering from a previous gunshot wound.
The motive behind her murder is also unknown.
Several of the murders of musicians over the past year are believed to be tied to organised crime and drug-trafficking.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Mexico this year as drug cartels battle for territory and drug routes.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed troops in several states, including his home state of Michoacan, to try to tackle the violence.

<img src="http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/8483/sergiogomez1wu8.jpg">
People accompany the hearse carrying the body of Sergio Gomez, the lead singer in the top selling band K-Paz de la Sierra, at his hometown of Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007. Gomez, who was tortured and strangled to death, is the newest in a string of attacks that have driven fear into the heart of Mexico's music industry.(AP Photo/Agencia Esquema)

<img src="http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/8972/segiogomezal5.jpg">
Thousands of people accompany the hearse carrying the body of Sergio Gomez, the lead singer of the band K-Paz de la Sierra, at his hometown of Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007. Gomez, who was tortured and strangled to death, is the newest in a string of attacks that have driven fear into the heart of Mexico's music industry.(AP Photo/Agencia Esquema)

<img src="http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/4162/mexicomusicianskilledmxvn9.jpg">

<img src="http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/2328/kpazdeae4.jpg" title="Funeral de Segrio Gomez de K paz de la sierra. Picture of Mexican Singer Segrio Gomez of K paz">

<img src="http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/1942/kpazsergio33iz9.jpg" title="Segrio's Wife saying her last goodbye to her muerded husband, Segrio Gomez.">






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<img src="http://www.juarol.com/img/news/segio_gomez.jpg">
1973 - 2007

I don't know who they are, but the guy to the far right is a cutie! I'm lovin' that goatee.

daym, that F*ed up.

wow how sad

Yeah, sad news.. Que en paz descanse. Just crazy in the way he was murderd in such a fucked up barbaric way. Not suprising and i'm sure it's about normal in that area anyway and what not... but shit... still crazy.
I was a fan of thier music... or at least the only Durangusnse band that I actually enjoyed listening to.

Here they are taking his body to the furnal service in his home town.


[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=JHw1Tr4Kpfk[/youtube]



[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=vkoMo1jgagE[/youtube]

[align=center]Saying goodbye to a beloved singer[/align]

<img src="http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/1935/funeralsergiogomezej4.jpg" width="320" align="left">A closed casket with a beige cowboy hat and a red rose drew hundreds of mourners Sunday afternoon.

Family members, friends and fans walked past Sergio Gomez' coffin to pay their respects to the slain Mexican singer while a mariachi band played in the background.

A Mass and viewing were held Sunday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Indianapolis for Gomez, 35, the lead singer of the top-selling band K-Paz de la Sierra. Though he toured internationally, Gomez had lived in Avon with his wife and three children since 2003.

Gomez is the latest victim among Mexican musicians suspected of being killed by Mexican gangs. Gomez was kidnapped, tortured and strangled after a show in Morelia, Mexico, a city known for violent battles between the county's two main drug cartels.

Previous victims were likely targeted because they sang "narcocorridos," songs that glamorize the drug world.
But Gomez's songs were cheerful and romantic, not narcocorridos, said longtime fan Florentino Rangel, 27, who drove from Kokomo with his family to pay their respects.

"I was shocked with what happened," he said. "It's a mystery why they killed him. Nobody knows why."
Rangel was born and raised in the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, where another musician, Zayda Pena, was killed last weekend.

About 650 to 700 people attended the Mass, which was conducted entirely in Spanish. People filled every seat and stood along every wall. Several hundred others were allowed to walk through the church to the casket and back out again.
At least half a dozen TV crews, including some from Chicago and Los Angeles, covered the Mass. K-Paz had fans all over the United States and in Mexico, and the slayings of musicians have made headlines worldwide.

Esther Barber, founder and executive director of the Mexican Civic Association of Indiana, presented Gomez's father with a guitar painted in green, white and red -- the colors of the Mexican flag.
The guitar belonged to Barber, who said that on the day Gomez died, it fell off its stand and broke.
"The broken guitar symbolizes the rupture of music in Mexico and in the hearts of people in Mexico and Sergio's fans," Barber said in Spanish.

Barber, who also is a friend of the Gomez family, encouraged the musician's father, Baldomero Gomez, to continue to sing and to encourage his other children and grandchildren to learn about music.
Baldomero Gomez lifted the guitar over his head as people clapped and chanted his son's name.
"About 16 or 17 years ago, we arrived in the United States with our family," Gomez told the crowd in Spanish. "He (Sergio) was a restless boy with a desire to be successful in this country.

"I gave him music, but the intelligence he already had," he said. "His goal was to become someone in the music world."
Baldomero Gomez later sang a song he once sang to his son. The lyrics spoke of forever remembering a loved one and ended with the grieving father in tears.

"God was generous with us because he loaned us five children," Baldomero Gomez said, with his wife at his side. "He (Sergio) is the third. I say he loaned them because children are borrowed. When he wants to take them, he takes them."
J. Guadalupe Garcia, 36, began following K-Paz de la Sierra when he lived in Chicago, where the band started. When he and his family moved to Indianapolis six months ago, he continued to follow them.

Garcia had a chance to meet Gomez after attending a show in Chicago about three years ago.
"At the end, the band came out and threw their hats out into the audience," he said in Spanish. "Sergio threw his last, and I caught it, but a woman pushed me, it fell and she took it. At the end Sergio called me to the side of the stage and asked for my address so he could send me something."
Garcia didn't expect him to send anything and forgot about it. Not long after, he was surprised to receive a K-Paz T-shirt.
Garcia said the news of Gomez's violent death brought tears to his eyes. He and his family stood outside the church on Sunday, waiting for a chance to see the casket.

"He was such a good person," he said. "And they say he was killed because of narcocorridos, but his music is family-oriented. Everyone loves his music, even children.
"The truth is that it's wrong," he said of the gangs targeting musicians. "They make their music and live off their music. They should just let them do their jobs."

Joe Stevens of Stevens Mortuary, which organized the viewing, said Garcia's body was to be taken to Chicago today for a viewing and Mass, and then returned to Indianapolis for burial at 10 a.m. Wednesday at West Ridge Park Cemetery.