In Ciudad Hidalgo, a small farming town nestled in a valley about 100km east of Morelia, people remembered Gomez with warmth. He had grown up there, the son of a local singer who had never made the big time, in a modest house in a poor neighborhood. While still a teenager, he married a girl from a nearby ranch, lived in his parent's home, fathered his first child and went to work as a cabinetmaker.
The entire family moved to Chicago during the financial crisis in the mid-1990s, where Gomez worked menial jobs, fathered two more children and ran into trouble with immigration authorities. Eventually he found work as a sound technician for a band, Montez de Durango.
In 2003, he and three musicians from that group formed K-Paz de la Sierra. His career took off. The band recorded four highly successful albums and regularly toured arenas and large concert halls venues in Mexico.
He also visited Ciudad Hidalgo every year and gave thousands of US dollars to expand the grade school where he studied as a child. He never put on airs with his old friends, neighbors said. "He always behaved very well," said one acquaintance, who asked not to be identified for fear of drug dealers. "He was not one to be very snobbish."
His wife, Felicita, told reporters he seemed relaxed in the days just before his death and never mentioned any threats. "I never saw him nervous or expecting something bad," she said.
Froylan Gomez noted his nephew never sang about drug dealers or used drugs himself. "This man didn't even smoke or drink," he said. "We cannot understand why it happened. The whole family is demanding justice. We want to know who is the author of this crime."
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