GUADALAJARA, Mexico

“THIS is what will happen to everyone who talks, who accuses us. Respect us and we will respect you (big mouths and finger pointers).”

That was the message attached to the lifeless body of a man who, by the end of a workday, had become one more statistic, one more death connected to Mexican organized crime. His name will be forgotten — and the day of his death will be remembered only by his family.

This body was found around 8 a.m. on a Wednesday, by the local police of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. In the same spot, 44 days earlier, in an alley leading to a transient motel, another man was found murdered.

The note offers only a hint of the possible motive for the man’s murder, and it may well have been used as a ruse to confuse investigators. The real message that the assassins wanted to send, and the reason for it, will remain a secret that he takes to his grave.