Mexican federal deputy Zenyazen Roberto Escobar García, a 42-year-old lawmaker for the governing Morena party, was found dead on Friday, September 4, 2026, inside his black Mercedes-Benz on the shoulder of the Xalapa-Veracruz highway in the eastern state of Veracruz, with at least one gunshot wound to the head. Mexico’s federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said on September 10 that its principal lines of investigation point to a death by suicide and that the case remains open.
A motorist reported the vehicle stopped on the shoulder of Federal Highway 140 near Chichicaxtle, and the body was found in the community of La Gloria, in the municipality of Puente Nacional. Forensic experts, prosecutors and Ministerial Police officers worked at the scene. Veracruz state Attorney General Lisbeth Aurelia Jiménez confirmed the death and said the investigation file was being compiled, without offering further detail.
Veracruz Secretary of Government Ricardo Ahued Bardahuil said at a news conference that the lawmaker’s vehicle showed no signs of violence. “It wasn’t an attack, because the car is off to the side,” Ahued said, adding that he did not want to get ahead of an investigation still under way. Images broadcast by Mexican news television showed a black firearm inside the Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Early reports noted that Escobar was traveling without bodyguards, though he was usually accompanied because of his office.
Open Questions in the Investigation
The FGR announced on X that it was taking over the case because Escobar held federal office. President Claudia Sheinbaum, speaking during a tour of San Luis Potosí, said she had asked the office to report as the investigation advances. Veracruz Gov. Rocío Nahle said on September 5 that investigators were pursuing several lines of inquiry and urged the public to wait for the FGR’s report. Two days later, on September 7, Nahle told the local program “En Contacto” that the Mercedes-Benz had been locked from the inside with its door locks engaged, that a single bullet was involved and that one casing was recovered inside the car.
An autopsy was completed in the early hours of Saturday, September 5. On September 10 the FGR said forensic, ballistic, genetic and toxicological examinations, together with interviews with people close to Escobar, pointed to suicide, adding that it would not rule out other motives as the investigation continues. Escobar’s widow, magistrate Liliana López Coronado, told local media the family would wait for the autopsy findings before discussing the circumstances, and asked that her husband be remembered for his work in the teaching movement.
Mourned in Xalapa and Río Blanco
Escobar was mourned on September 5 at the Bosques del Recuerdo funeral home in Xalapa, where Nahle, former Gov. Cuitláhuac García Jiménez, family, party members and union groups gathered. It was the first time Nahle and Cuitláhuac García had appeared publicly together since December 2024. Mourners placed a white cowboy hat on the casket, a nod to the hat Escobar wore in the Chamber of Deputies.
He was buried on September 6, in the rain at the municipal cemetery in Río Blanco. Cuitláhuac García, whose inner circle Escobar belonged to, wrote on Facebook that he deeply mourned a friend and fellow party member with whom he had shared years of struggle and work for the people of Veracruz. Morena’s floor leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Ricardo Monreal, sent condolences to Escobar’s family, staff and associates in a social media message, calling the death a loss for the parliamentary group and for the district he represented. On September 8, Monreal, who chairs the chamber’s Political Coordination Board, said parliamentary group leaders had agreed against creating a special commission to investigate the death and would wait for the FGR to establish what happened. The chamber instead held a formal tribute on September 9 that opened with a minute of silence and closed with a minute of applause, with Escobar’s widow, daughters, mother and sister at the foot of the rostrum. Movimiento Ciudadano deputy Sergio Gil Rullán, who also represents Veracruz, told the floor that the deaths in its ranks had made the 66th Legislature the most violent since post-revolutionary Mexico, and PRI deputy Lorena Piñón said the death could not be left in the realm of versions and speculation.
From Telesecundaria Teacher to Congress
Born June 4, 1984, Escobar earned a degree in communication sciences from the Universidad de Sotavento and a master’s in education sciences. He began working in school supervision for state telesecundarias in 2007 and taught in Veracruz classrooms from 2009. In 2015 he joined Educación, Resistencia y Dignidad Magisterial, a movement linked to the dissident teachers’ union CNTE, and emerged as leader of the Movimiento Magisterial Popular Veracruzano, which opposed the federal education reform. He entered the Veracruz state congress in 2016 and coordinated Morena’s caucus there, then was named state secretary of education in December 2018 under Cuitláhuac García. In 2024 he won a seat in the federal Chamber of Deputies for Veracruz’s 16th district, based in Córdoba. He was also dogged for years by images from his early adulthood, said to show him offering private dances under the name “Tarzán Boy” in bars around Orizaba. Escobar denied having worked as a stripper, telling an internet interviewer in October 2017 that he had spent 11 years in bodybuilding and fitness.
He drew national attention on May 28, when he confronted Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) deputy Carlos Gutiérrez Mancilla on the floor of the Chamber during an extraordinary session, in a video that spread widely online. Gutiérrez Mancilla shouted an insult referring to those old images; Escobar removed his hat and took a fighting stance before other deputies separated them. PRI deputy Ana Isabel González asked that Escobar take a drug test, a request opposition legislators backed on suspicion he had been drinking. Monreal denied that Escobar was drunk, attributing his behavior to exhaustion after the marathon session. The Chamber reported no sanctions.
A Violent Backdrop Before the 2027 Vote
The death comes as Mexico prepares for elections on June 6, 2027, to renew mayoral, state legislative, city council and gubernatorial posts. A human rights organization recorded at least 30 incidents of “political-criminal violence” across 11 states in July 2026, including 14 homicides, and defines the category as threats, murders, armed attacks, assassination attempts, disappearances and kidnappings. In the same legislature, Veracruz deputy Benito Aguas Atlahua was shot in the Sierra de Zongolica in December 2024 and died hours later.
Sheinbaum, asked about the case at her morning news conference on September 10, said the prosecutor’s office would have to be the one to report and that it already had some results. “Our condolences to the family and to all the friends and colleagues,” she added. The FGR released its findings that afternoon.
