Oaxaca (Mexico) (AFP) - Gunmen burst into a musician's home in southern Mexico before dawn on Thursday, decapitated him and killed his wife and son, police said.

The armed group entered the family's home in Juchitan, Oaxaca state, at 2:30 am and killed Victor Sanchez, 40, the singer of the tropical band Sensacion Caribu, the police said in a statement.

His wife and 11-year-old son were gunned down.

It was the second slaughter of a family this week in Oaxaca, a state that has been relatively spared of the drug violence afflicting other regions of Mexico.

The state prosecutor's office issued a separate statement saying that shots had been fired at Sanchez's house a few months ago and that a note threatening him with death was left behind at the time.

Authorities are investigating whether the murders are linked to a dispute between rival criminal gangs.

In the previous massacre on Monday, eight shark fishermen from the same family were killed in Puerto Escondido, a beach resort famous among surfers.

Authorities said they were investigating whether the fishermen were involved in illegal activities at sea.

Officials did not specify what type of activities, but drugs are shipped along Mexico's Pacific coast.

Elsewhere in Mexico on Thursday, authorities found six bodies on a path in the eastern state of Veracruz.

The victims included a police officer who had been missing since Saturday, three other men and two women, authorities said.

Also in Veracruz, a 45-year-old journalist, Pedro Tamayo Rosas, was gunned down in front of his wife and two children late Wednesday.

Tamayo is the 19th journalist killed since 2010 in Veracruz.