Dismembered Bodies Found in Front of Children’s Museum

Caution: Graphic content, discretion is advised.

Two dismembered bodies were found by police early Tuesday in front of a children’s museum in Chilpancingo, the capital of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.

State police received a call that two naked bodies with the heads, arms and legs cut off had been dumped in front of the La Avispa Museum.

The dismembered bodies were left near the part of the building that contains two mechanical dinosaurs. The bodies appeared to be men between the ages of 20 to 30 years old.

At the scene were two torsos, two heads, one wrapped in duck tape, two complete legs from the femur to the foot, which had tennis shoes with a red stripe around the laces and the other two legs were cut in pieces. There were also four dismembered hands and arms, two of them up to the elbows.

The identity of the men had not been determined at the time of this report.

At the scene police also found two plastic bags, some jeans and gray boxer shorts.

The heads were located on the grass between the museum and the sidewalk and in front of them was a pink cardboard secured to the ground with the same pieces of bodies that read:

"Esto les paso por andar de rata y el otro por asalta taxi. Esto les pasara a todos los que kieran seguir su camino. Atte. El Nuevo Cartel de la Sierra!!"

"This happened for being a rat and the other for assaulting a taxi. This will happen to all who wish to follow this path. Attentive: El Nuevo Cartel de la Sierra!"

The cartel, which is based in Guerrero, has dumped dozens of bodies in the streets of Chilpancingo in the past two months.

Two decapitated bodies were found hanging off a bridge on Aug. 24 in Chilpancingo.

The grisly display was left on the Highway of the Sun, which links the Pacific tourist resort of Acapulco to Mexico City.

A message signed by the Nuevo Cartel de la Sierra was also left with the bodies.

Officials say they know little about the criminal organization, whose messages indicate that it is dedicated to killing extortionists, robbers, auto thieves, informants and all those who do not “align themselves with the cartel.”

Guerrero has been the scene of a war between the drug gang led by Edgar Valdez Villarreal, who was arrested by Federal Police on Aug. 30, and the Beltran Leyva cartel, which is led by Hector Beltran Leyva.

In one past episode the bodies of four mutilated and decapitated men were found August 22, 2010 hanging from a bridge in Cuernavaca, Morelos officials said.

Left near the victims was a note warning that the same fate would befall anyone who supports “the traitor Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias ‘La Barbie.’”