Valentín Elizalde, Sergio Gómez from K-paz De La Sierra, Sergio Vega and Luis Mendoza from Los Ronaldos are some of the singers from the Mexican regional who have brutally murdered. However, before them there were more cases of composers of the same genre who had that tragic end; one of them was Chalino Sánchez.

On May 16, 1992, in a water canal located near the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, some peasants found the body of Chalino Sánchez. He had tied wrists and ankles, plus he was blindfolded. He had been shot twice in the back of the head.

His real name was Rosalino Sánchez Félix, but he decided to change it to “Chalino” Sánchez considering that Rosalino was very effeminate. He was born on August 30, 1960 in Culiacán, Sinaloa . Despite being born into a low-income family whose father died prematurely, Chalino would be the center of many legends.

It is known that, in the 70s, during his adolescence, he had to cross the border illegally and that he settled in the United States. However, one of the versions that exist about his motives for leaving his native country is that he was fleeing a murder that he himself perpetrated.

According to this story, one of the sisters of the future singer was sexually abused . Chalino, with a clear desire for revenge, came across the person responsible for said abuse and shot him to death. After that, when he was in Inglewood with an aunt of hers, he began to look for different ways to subsist.

First he did small jobs, among them was being a dishwasher or car wash. However, over time he would also enter into the sale of drugs (in small quantities) and established a business with his brother, Armando, as coyotes ; that is, they helped undocumented immigrants to cross the border.

Chalino’s family would experience another tragedy in 1984. That year they found Armando’s body in a hotel in Tijuana, they had killed him using a firearm. It is believed that this coincided with the singer’s imprisonment , but the reasons for this alleged confinement are not known.

Either way, it is a fact that the death of his older brother was the trigger to start his musical career. If the prison part is true, then Chalino would compose his first song behind bars and, with the passage of time, he would become a certain fame among the inmates of the place.

Sánchez would begin to compose songs for all those who had interesting stories and, little by little, he would add several corridos. Once outside, and on the recommendation of the contacts he made, he was able to go to Estudios San Ángel, in Los Angeles. There he would record his first demos.

Despite his small presentations and the fact that he was constantly putting out songs, Chalino would gain fame until 1992 after a shooting at his concert at Coachella. In it they managed to injure him, but he also contributed by drawing a pistol and starting to shoot Eduardo Gallegos, the man who detonated the attack.

The legend of Chalino Sánchez would start from that moment. It is said that they managed to puncture his lung and that, despite this, he survived after spending several weeks in the hospital. His music would begin to be more consumed, his fame was no longer only local: it had begun to arrive with more force in the northern cities of Mexico.

By then he was known as “El Rey de los Corridos”. The problem is that this fame lasted only a few months. On May 15, 1992, he went to give a presentation in Sinaloa and they say that he received a note threatening him with death.

Despite the alert and apparently looking quite affected by the warning, Chalino went ahead with his concert. After that, he went out in the company of some friends and one of his brothers; they were ready to go to a party to celebrate.

It was in the middle of the journey that his vehicle was intercepted by an armed group in vans. When they approached Chalino and company, the men introduced themselves as policemen and said their commander wanted to speak to the composer alone.

The January Nieves singer did not want to put his companions at risk, so he willingly agreed and left with this group. They never saw him again, the true identity of the men who cornered them was never known, much less who it was who shot Chalino.

At the age of 31, this Sinaloa native died in his native land and left behind a wife and two children: Cynthia and Adán . In fact, the second would also become a singer, but he also had a tragic end when he died at the age of 19 in a car accident.

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