A Mexican beauty queen has been shot and killed during a gun battle between soldiers and the gang of drug cartels she was traveling with in northern Mexico, according to media reports.
The beauty queen, Maria Susana Flores Gamez, was found dead on Saturday on a road near the drug-filled state of Sinaloa which is in the north of Mexico, according to the Associated Press. A gun was found near her body but it is unclear whether she had used it.
The beauty queen, 20, was the 2012 Woman of Sinaloa. Two other men, who are drug cartel members, were also found lying dead near her body.
''She was with the gang of criminals, but we cannot say whether she participated in the shootout,'' state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said. ''That's what we're going to have to investigate.''
In addition to the Woman of Sinaloa pageant, she had participated in the Our Sinaloa Beauty 2012 beauty pageant. Organizers of that contest released a statement, offering their condolences to her family, which received her body Monday.
"We are dismayed by the news -- a beautiful young person, happy, and with a big future ahead of her, " the pageant organizers said. "Rest in peace Susy."
This is the third time in which a beauty queen or pageant contestants shows ties to Mexico's drug cartels, a theme so common it was the subject of a critically acclaimed 2011 movie.
In ''Miss Bala,'' Mexico's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of this year's Academy Awards, a young woman competing for Miss Baja California becomes an unwilling participant in a drug-running ring, finally getting arrested for deeds she was forced into performing.
