Grupero singer Zayda Pena was shot to death in a Mexican emergency room after coming out of surgery for being shot just the day before by gangs. She was killed in her hospital bed. The killings of musicians in Mexico are a recent and tragic trend.

The latest casualty appears to be Zayda Peña, 28, a singer who was shot dead Saturday in a hospital emergency room in the city of Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville.

An assassin put two bullets into Peña after she emerged from emergency surgery for a gunshot wound to the back she received the day before in a motel where she was staying.

Although police said they they had no suspects or motive for the killing, it seemed a classic gangland-style slaying that has killed hundreds of people in Mexico this year.

Her manager and the hotel manager were both killed in the initial attack that had hospitalized Pena. Zayda was the lead singer for the group “Zayda y los Culpables” which translates to Zayda and the Guilty Ones.

Grupero lyrics focus on love, unrequited or not, and on the exploits of narcotics gangsters and other borderlands themes. The genre’s bands are popular draws in dance halls across provincial Mexico. Gangsters are said to be among the bands’ many fans.

Although one of her songs is titled Tiro de Gracia, or Coup de Grace, the term used for the final shot to the brain in an execution-style killing, Peña’s songs, which can be heard on YouTube, focus mostly on romance.

This is not the first time a famous Mexican musician has been killed by drug lords. Just this past week Sergio Gomez was kidnapped and killed and members of another grupero band were as well.

Officials Monday night also confirmed the murder of Sergio Gomez, lead singer of the group K-Paz de la Sierra, who was kidnapped early Sunday as he left a dance hall in Morelia. In February, four members of another grupero band were shot to death after playing a hall in central Michoacan state.

Tragic week of senseless killings with the passing of Pena and the Washington Redskins Sean Taylor.