http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07281671.htm

Mexican family shot dead over cock-fight debt
07 Feb 2006 23:39:33 GMT

Source: Reuters

TIJUANA, Mexico, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen shot dead three members of a Mexican family in an apparent settling of scores over a cockfighting debt, police said on Tuesday.

Police found the bodies of Juan Jesus Adata, and that of his son and daughter-in-law, Ramon and Luz Maria, in a house in the outskirts of Tijuana, south of San Diego, Calif.

Local police chief Roberto Ramirez said the three family members had been gagged with duct tape and shot. Officers investigating the crime scene found a hand-written note saying, "Debts are paid with lives."

"The father was known to be involved in cockfighting, and the killings may have been related to a gambling debt," Ramirez told Reuters.

Cockfighting has a passionate following in parts of Mexico, and the sport is occasionally marred by violence.

Last July, four men were killed when angry gamblers tossed two hand grenades into a crowd at a cockfight in the western state of Jalisco.