On the night of April 19, 2017, Gerardo Corona Piceno was killed in cold blood in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

Gerardo was the brother of Álvaro Corona Piceno, who was forcibly disappeared on August 3, 2012 in Ixtlahuacán de los quince Jalisco. Gerardo had directly accused the FGE (the State Prosecutor)  of threatening him, so that he would not continue with his complaint and would stop investigating the disappearance of his brother.

According to local media sources, Gerardo Corona Piceno was regularly seen walking through the streets of Guadalajara with a banner showing the photograph and the name of his brother, demanding assistance from the governor, so that the case would not go unpunished . On September 29, 2015, he was shot dead outside his home by a single unidentified gunman. Gerardo’s family had repeatedly asked for state protection because of threats they had received, but the security was never provided.

In an interview, Gerardo stated that he had evidence to indicate that the disappearance of his brother, Álvaro, was related to organised crime and that he was killed because he had refused to cooperate with a drug trafficking gang.

The evidence that Gerardo Corona Piceno had consisted of a series of recordings of telephone conversations which appeared to show that the person who ordered the killing worked for the local government. Gerardo was demanding a full and independent investigation into the killing of his brother and that at the very least the Governor should state what progress had been made in the investigation to date.