A 22-year-old Colombian model and influencer was shot and killed by a gunman disguised as a deliveryman — just days after a Mexican influencer was murdered in a similar ruse.
Maria Jose Estupinan, a university student in Colombia’s northeastern city of Cucuta, was shot at close range as she opened a door to the bogus deliveryman, Magda Victoria Acosta, president of the National Gender Commission of the Colombian Judiciary, said in a news conference, per CNN.
A nearby security camera showed the suspect running away from Estupinan’s home after she was shot, with screams for help heard in the background, according to footage obtained by NDTV.
The incident occurred just days after Valeria Márquez, 23, was killed while livestreaming by a motorbike-riding killer who pretended to deliver a gift in her Blossom the Beauty Lounge salon in Jalisco, Mexico.
Estupinan — who posted pictures of her lavish travels and daily life — had previously reported an ex-partner for domestic abuse, Colonel Leonardo Capacho, commander of District One of the Cúcuta Metropolitan Police, said in a statement to Noticias Caracol.
“It could be an alleged femicide, since she filed several complaints for domestic violence in previous years, but that is a matter of investigation,” Capacho said
Her ex-partner had “stalked her and abused her,” Alejandra Vera, director of the organization, Mujer Denuncia y Muévete, which translates to Women Report and Move, told the outlet.
Estupinan and Marquez’s deaths have reignited conversations about femicide in the two countries south of the border.
In Colombia, there were 633 femicides in 2022 and 630 in 2023, according to the PARES foundation.
Since 2001, at least 50,000 women have been murdered in Mexico, according to the United Nations.
“She was a young, enterprising woman with a whole life ahead of her, but those dreams are cut short like the dreams of many women in this country,” Acosta said of Estupinan.