Pamela Montenegro was a journalist, satirist and social media commentator who was also known as Pamika. The 36-year-old ran a satirical YouTube channel and an online news magazine called El Sillón, which she founded in 2012. She was more widely known as « La Nana Pelucas » (The Grandma in Wigs), her online persona featured on her satirical YouTube channel, El Sillón TV.
Both as editor of El Sillón and as « La Nana Pelucas, » Montenegro covered local politics in Acapulco and the Guerrero region, and frequently mocked local politicians. El Sillón‘s Facebook page, which Montenegro administered with her husband, Samuel Muñuzuri, featured a variety of posts in the months before her death, including on topics such as beauty, culture, and politics.
On her Facebook profile, « La Nana » was described as « a satirical and irreverent character, who highlights the good and bad actions of political actors with humour and sarcasm. She is a widow and a flirt who falls in love easily, as well as being the godmother and bosom friend of most of the important people in her state. She is imprudent, moralistic and loves a good scandal. » Pamela herself was described by news magazine Animal Político as « a woman who didn’t need scripts. She had a strong, restless character and advocated for equal rights »
On 5 February, 2018 two unidentified assailants shot Pamela dead in the beach side resort city of Acapulco. The attack took place between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. in A Todos los Santos, a restaurant that Montenegro owned with her husband. According to a statement given that same day by Roberto Álvarez Heredia, a spokesperson for the Guerrero state attorney general’s office, two unidentified attackers entered the restaurant and immediately approached Pamela, who was sitting with her husband. The assailants fired at least two shots at her before fleeing.
The Attorney General of the state of Guerrero, Javier Olea, stated that Pamela was killed because she had acquired sensitive information about a criminal organisation and that Javi Daniel Cervantes Magno, the alleged leader of a local criminal gang that is active in Acapulco, ordered Pamela‘s murder. However, when the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) followed up on the statement, a spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office told CPJ that he was unable to confirm that a warrant had been issued for Magno’s arrest and did not return calls requesting further comment.
Pamela’s husband Samuel Muñuzuri publiclly condemned the investigation and Olea’s statement. “The Attorney General is exercising gender violence because he is criminalising her… She only did political satire, it’s just not valid that now they’re trying to make her out to be a delinquent. This was a hate crime, a political crime, it had nothing to do with organised crime.”
Based on reports by CPJ, El Universal and Animal Político