# 78: He Knew He’d Be Murdered After The Concert

An episode of [Outlore with Eleanor Neale](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1682504024), 10 Oct 2024, 1 h 07 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6836806265.mp3

Ad - Use my code USUAL20 for 20% off your first Wild order: https://www.wearewild.com/?discount=USUAL20 Today’s case is about the unsolved murder of Mexican Musician Chalino Sanchez who was handed his own death note, live on stage. Later that night, Chalino was kidnapped by alleged Police and by the morning, he’d be found dead. Chalino Sanchez was crowned the King of Corridos and is the idol of many musicians today, including Peso Pluma, who in 2023 went viral after receiving his own death note. The message warned Peso Pluma that if he performed his upcoming concert in Tijuana, it would be his last. It had been sent by a Cartel over his song ‘El Gavilán’, that he’d made with Luis R Conriquez and Tony Aguirre. The lyrics complimented El Chapo, which enraged the cartel. But after Peso Pluma received a death note over a bad lyric, theories behind Chalino’s unsolved murder were re-ignited across the internet. Corrido music is about love, hardship and crime. Narcocorrido is specifically about the life of narcos. Chalino Sanchez lived a crazy life full of revenge, drug trafficking, coyotes, and music. And it’s Chalino’s music that may be the reason for his early death. Decades on Chalino’s music has millions of fans and plays on Spotify, with his image being blasted across the Coachella Mainstage in 2023 thanks to Peso Pluma. Kids In Need Of Defence - https://supportkind.org/ Trigger Warning: drugs, addiction, murder and discussions of rape. Resources: https://linktr.ee/usualdisclaimer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

## Transcript

[0:00] Urban myths and stories of Death Notes have always been in
[0:04] circulation. It's said that if someone's name
[0:07] and cause of death is written down on paper, with the help of
[0:10] a higher dark power, it can become a reality.
[0:14] But Death Notes don't just live within the safety of fictional
[0:18] worlds. They actually exist in the
[0:20] reality of Mexico's biggest music stars.
[0:24] Today, we're taking a deep dive into one of the most disturbing
[0:28] moments in music history. The night Chelino Sanchez, at
[0:32] the height of his career in 1992, was handed a Death Note
[0:37] live on stage. The note supposedly promised
[0:41] that when the show ended, so would his life.
[0:44] As the crowd screamed out his name, there's actually footage
[0:48] of the exact moment Chelino read that note and realized his fate.
[0:54] He was visibly alarmed. He wiped the sweat from his brow
[0:58] and weighed up his options. But he was a true showman and
[1:01] the show must go on. But little did his audience
[1:05] know, they were now watching his last ever performance.
[1:10] A few hours after receiving his Death Note, Chelino Sanchez
[1:14] would be kidnapped and by morning his dead body was
[1:18] discovered. This case was thrown back into
[1:20] the public eye in 2023 when a very public Death Note was
[1:25] displayed. For a modern Mexican superstar,
[1:28] you might have heard of Peso Pluma.
[1:30] He's the most streamed artist in Mexico right now, and he was
[1:34] forced to cancel his show for fears of his own life.
[1:38] Chelino Sanchez's story is proof that the cartel mean what they
[1:43] threaten. Both Pluma and Sanchez shared
[1:46] the same genre of music, corridos and narco corridos,
[1:50] where the lyrics serve to tell the often true stories of drug
[1:54] Lords and traffickers. Chelino Sanchez really lived the
[1:58] lyrics he sang. Since a child, his life had been
[2:01] full of drug cartels, murder and revenge.
[2:05] It's possible that he was born into a world where a Death Note
[2:10] had already been written, awaiting him.
[2:12] This is the story of Chelino Sanchez, the man faced with the
[2:17] promise of his own death live on stage.
[2:28] This series is intended for educational purposes, to
[2:31] memorialize victims, and to amplify important conversations.
[2:34] All opinions stated are mine alone.
[2:37] Now, before we jump into the case, I want to give you a
[2:39] warning for some of the themes that we're going to be talking
[2:41] about. As with every episode, there are
[2:44] a lot of different sensitive themes, but especially including
[2:47] drugs, addiction, murder, and discussions of rape.
[2:51] So viewer discretion is advised. And now, with all that being
[2:54] said, let's jump into this video, the case of Chelino, sent
[2:58] as the singer who received a death threat on stage and was
[3:03] murdered that same night. Just last year, in September
[3:07] 2023, the Internet woke up to pictures of a message hanging
[3:11] from a bridge in Tijuana. It was written in blood red
[3:15] paint on some white sheets. The warning was addressed to
[3:19] musician Peso Pluma, warning him that if he were to perform his
[3:23] upcoming concert in Tijuana, it would be his last show ever.
[3:28] The banner said this is for you Peso Pluma.
[3:31] Refrain from presenting yourself on October 14th because it will
[3:35] be your last show due to your disrespectful loose tongue.
[3:40] It was signed off by a cartel making it clear that they did
[3:44] not like Peso Pluma's lyrics, and instantly his concert was
[3:49] cancelled. Because this wasn't just a
[3:51] threat, this was a promise. The cartel do not mess around,
[3:56] and this threat ignited a very real fear that history was about
[4:02] to repeat itself in Mexico. Peso Pluma had now received a
[4:06] Death Note, just like his idol Chelena Sanchez had over 30
[4:11] years prior. Chelena, unlike Pluma, had
[4:15] ignored the threat and gone ahead with the show, only to be
[4:19] murdered that same night 32 years prior.
[4:23] In May 1992, Chelino Sanchez was seven years into his successful
[4:29] music career and he was set to perform a hometown show in
[4:33] Kaliakan. The show was caught on a wobbly
[4:36] camera recording, forever immortalizing the exact moment
[4:41] Chelino paused mid performance to read a note that was handed
[4:45] to him by one of the audience members.
[4:48] It was his death note. A possible reason for Chelina's
[4:51] very elaborate murder could actually be traced back to his
[4:55] childhood, the night a very young Chelina decided to stalk
[5:00] someone to a house party. Chelina Sanchez was originally
[5:04] born Rosalina Sanchez Felix on the 30th of August 1960 into a
[5:09] very rural farming town in Sinaloa, Mexico.
[5:13] He was the youngest of eight kids, so he was the baby of his
[5:18] family. And if you're as interested in
[5:19] like, birth order theory as I am, this can probably tell you a
[5:23] lot about Chelino's character. The youngest children,
[5:27] especially of so many siblings, tend to be creative and outgoing
[5:32] and confident and rebellious and risk taking.
[5:35] Sometimes they can also be a bit spoiled and a bit babied,
[5:38] depending on the family. But his music career totally
[5:42] checks out. As a child, Chelino decided that
[5:45] the name Rosalino that he was given at birth too girly.
[5:49] It didn't suit him. He decided to unofficially
[5:52] rename himself Chelino instead. Chelino grew up in a very poor
[5:57] household. The family had always struggled
[6:00] financially, but when he was four years old his father passed
[6:04] away and this had so many different effects.
[6:06] Of course, the grief, the sudden loss, the sadness, but also the
[6:11] family had lost their main breadwinner, so the financial
[6:15] struggles only got 10 times worse.
[6:17] Having lost his own dad at such a young age, Chelino spent his
[6:21] early childhood in search of father figures in other places.
[6:26] He would often follow the men around in his town and try to
[6:29] make friends with them. Although many of them were
[6:32] linked with cartel activity, Chelino would learn many lessons
[6:37] from these men, and the one that was drilled into him the most
[6:41] was the importance of honor. And Sinaloa, where he lived, was
[6:45] a place where honor mattered almost more than anything else.
[6:49] People would die or kill others to defend their honor, and at a
[6:53] young age, Chelino would soon feel the desperate duty to
[6:58] defend his own family's honor. The story goes that a close
[7:02] relative of Chelino's, believed to be his own sister, was
[7:06] kidnapped and raped by a local tough guy.
[7:10] Now, this story is a big question mark when it comes to
[7:14] researching this case because Chelino's own family have
[7:19] actually denied that this ever happened, but Chelino's fans
[7:22] believe it to be true. Many are convinced not only did
[7:25] this happen, but it was also a major turning point in Chelino's
[7:29] early life. So Chelino's family might have
[7:32] done this for a reason. They might be trying to cover up
[7:35] the fact that this happened because you have to remember
[7:38] that this happened in the late 60s, early 70s, a period of time
[7:43] when empathy for victims of sexual assault was almost non
[7:48] existent. It definitely wasn't what it is
[7:50] today. In a situation as awful as being
[7:53] raped, it would then be the woman's reputation and her
[7:57] future that would be tarnished as much as sometimes even more
[8:02] than the man that had raped her. And so maybe Chelino's family
[8:06] denied that this ever happened to his sister in order to
[8:09] protect her. This would allow her to continue
[8:12] on with her life and with her freedom without constantly being
[8:16] accused of being tarnished or destroying her family's honor by
[8:22] being raped. It's so disgusting and
[8:25] heartbreaking to think about to think that they might even have
[8:28] to take these precautions to to lie and to hide it away.
[8:32] After the alleged assault took place the perpetrator supposedly
[8:36] left town so he wasn't around anymore but his friends still
[8:41] work and one day Chelino overheard one of the attackers
[8:44] friends bragging and claiming their he helped to kidnap
[8:49] Chelino's sister and potentially even took part in the rape.
[8:53] Chelino was only around 12 years old at this point in time
[8:57] overhearing this conversation and he just saw red.
[9:01] Chelino was known to be quite hot headed.
[9:04] He was always ready for an argument or a fight.
[9:06] He was always ready to defend himself and so he swore.
[9:10] The day I become a man with the first gun I get, I will bury a
[9:14] bullet in that man's chest. And a few years later, in 1972,
[9:19] Chelino was still only 15 years old.
[9:22] He would follow that man to a party and carry out his deadly
[9:26] promise. The party was full of local
[9:29] people dancing to music, cooking over an open flame, drinking,
[9:33] enjoying the night, all while Chelino watched and waited from
[9:38] the shadows. As the music lowered, the
[9:41] cooking flames died down and guests began leaving.
[9:44] Chelino approached the man that he had stopped to the party
[9:48] without much of an interaction beforehand.
[9:50] He pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot 3 times into the
[9:55] man's chest, point blank. And now laying dead, bleeding
[9:59] out on the stone cold floor was one of the men that supposedly
[10:04] partook in the rape of his sister.
[10:06] A man that Chelino had promised himself years ago that he would
[10:10] kill. He would take care of this man.
[10:13] And now he was dead. Little did Chelino know, in the
[10:16] years since he had vowed to kill him the first time, this man
[10:21] that he had just murdered had become a mafia boss.
[10:25] He was no longer just some horrible school kid committing
[10:29] crimes at parties. He was a big deal, and who
[10:33] knows, maybe they were after Chelena now.
[10:36] Somewhere in the chaos of the aftermath of the attack, Chelena
[10:39] managed to escape and run out into the night.
[10:42] And when he ran out, he just kept running.
[10:45] He was running through fields and up into the mountains.
[10:48] And once he was up there, he laid low for two weeks, knowing
[10:52] that the police would be investigating.
[10:54] I mean, the fucking mafia that this guy belonged to would
[10:57] probably be doing their own unofficial investigation.
[11:00] Chelena knew that he would be a wanted man at this point in time
[11:03] time. So for two weeks he lived in the
[11:05] mountains, which is actually a relatively common hiding place
[11:10] for people on the run, as as common as a situation like that
[11:13] is apparently there's quite a few shelters, you know, like
[11:16] camping trails and stuff. And there's a few villages that
[11:19] sell groceries. So he he was able to survive up
[11:22] in the mountains for two weeks. And then once the coast was
[11:25] clear of all of the immediate frenzy, he fled to Tijuana.
[11:29] And by car, it takes almost 19 hours to drive to Tijuana, so I
[11:34] assume he was hitchhiking or maybe he got someone to take
[11:36] him. But either way, once he got
[11:38] there, Chelino kept a low profile.
[11:41] He was apparently just selling drugs and working as a coyote.
[11:44] For those that don't know what a coyote is, it's not the animal,
[11:48] it's a job, an illegal job. These people are basically the
[11:53] enablers in illegal border crossing.
[11:56] For a price, they will take people across the border from
[11:59] Mexico to America either by foot or hidden away in vehicles,
[12:04] which is a difficult and risky journey.
[12:07] But Chelina was used to difficult and risky at this
[12:11] point in time, so he was working in Tijuana.
[12:14] He was eventually joined by his closest brother, Armando, and
[12:17] when he arrived, the two of them started making plans to leave
[12:21] Mexico. I mean, Chelino couldn't really
[12:24] stay there even though he was currently safe.
[12:27] He knew that the Mafia was going to be after him, so the brothers
[12:31] made a plan to escape to America and start a new life together.
[12:35] So in 1977, Chelina left Mexico and entered California, a place
[12:40] that he would now call home. He was just 20 years old, and he
[12:44] and his brother took undocumented jobs as farm
[12:48] workers. This kind of undocumented work
[12:50] would have these workers doing like abusive amounts of Labor
[12:55] for very, very low pay. Within just a few months of
[12:58] getting these jobs, Chelina and Armando were sick.
[13:01] They just couldn't hack it anymore.
[13:03] It was an awful time. So within a year they had quit
[13:06] working at the farm and began to work as drug traffickers and
[13:10] coyotes again. And for the next 7 years of
[13:12] Chelino's life, we don't really know what he was up to because a
[13:18] lot of his life was surrounded with crime and undocumented work
[13:22] and all of this kind of stuff. It means there was number like
[13:25] proper records of this man doing anything official.
[13:29] So piercing together a timeline on him has been pretty
[13:31] difficult. There's actually not that much
[13:33] detail of his lifeout there. But what we do know is that
[13:36] Chelina would meet his future wife, Marisela Vallejos.
[13:40] The two of them met on a rainy afternoon when Marisela stepped
[13:44] off the bus. She looked beautiful, her hair
[13:47] was freshly done, she was wearing a lovely outfit, and
[13:50] within a few seconds the rain had ruined it all.
[13:53] Chelino sat across the street in the comfort of his car watching
[13:57] all of this happen and when he noticed Maricela he was captured
[14:02] by her beauty and her need to be rescued in this moment.
[14:06] So Chelino revved his engine and put his foot on the accelerator,
[14:11] charging at her full speed. It terrified Maricela, obviously
[14:16] it would terrify anyone. This is the opposite of what she
[14:19] needed right now. He speed up real close to her
[14:21] but he didn't hit her, that wasn't his intention.
[14:24] At the last second he slammed his brakes on which caused a
[14:28] whole other like wave splash of puddle to come and hit her in
[14:32] the face. Chelino thought this was a fun
[14:34] little flirty thing to do to this woman.
[14:38] He was proud of himself. I mean I genuinely couldn't
[14:40] think of a worse introduction from a man ever.
[14:43] But anyway, once this had happened, Chelina offered her a
[14:46] lift home because she was sucking wet and she decided that
[14:51] she would take this offer, even though she didn't really like
[14:54] Chelina at this point in time. He was an arse, you know What he
[14:57] did was very arsy. So she decided when she accepted
[15:01] this offer of a lift home, she decided she would twist it and
[15:05] teach this man a lesson for the reckless driving he had just
[15:09] displayed, she told Chelino Sanchez.
[15:11] Get in the passenger seat where you belong.
[15:14] I'm gonna drive myself home in your car.
[15:17] Obsessed. Obsessed.
[15:19] She's a queen. I love it.
[15:20] But it gets even better, right? So she gets in the driver's seat
[15:23] and she still has this burning desire to terrify this man as
[15:29] much as he had just scared her. So she began treating his car
[15:33] like a freaking go Kart. She was speeding.
[15:36] She was taking quick turns, taking turns a bit too late.
[15:39] She was really trying to scare it.
[15:41] She was doing everything she could to shake up this very
[15:45] arrogant man that had just tried to mess with her.
[15:47] But this actually had the complete opposite of the desired
[15:51] effect on Chelina. He couldn't help but stare at
[15:55] her, completely transfixed with this very confident, powerful
[15:59] woman in his driver's seat. He was completely smitten.
[16:03] This was like the first woman that had ever stepped into his
[16:06] life and taken control and dared to mess with him.
[16:10] Chelina and Maricela went on to get married in 1984.
[16:14] He was 24 years old and she was apparently 14.
[16:19] Now this is a very confusing and strange part of the case because
[16:25] this woman has recently come out in like recent years and said
[16:29] that her birth year is 1970, which would have made her 14
[16:34] years old when she married Chelina.
[16:36] But people don't know if that's actually true.
[16:40] There was never any mention of like such a big age gap in this
[16:44] relationship up until she very recently said her birth year
[16:48] like stated it. Some people don't believe her
[16:50] though, which I was quite taken aback by because I don't know.
[16:54] You're hearing it from the horse's mouth.
[16:56] She said that she was born in 1970.
[16:58] I would be inclined to believe her, but a lot of people don't.
[17:01] Actually. There was never any mention of a
[17:04] large age gap in this relationship up until she came
[17:07] out and publicly said her birth year was 1970.
[17:10] I don't know if anyone's actually like, properly checked
[17:13] on that. Some people think she might just
[17:15] be trying to sound younger than she is in her old age, but we
[17:20] don't know. There's genuinely never been any
[17:22] confirmation on how old she was at the time of the marriage.
[17:25] And Chelina has done a lot of criminal things that we've
[17:30] spoken about already in this video and we're going to
[17:33] continue to speak about. But I'm not entirely sure if
[17:36] marrying a child is one of them. I'm not going to try and defend
[17:39] him because like I say, I have absolutely no idea if he was 24
[17:44] years old marrying a 14 year old, That is grotesque.
[17:47] And there's also the element that both of them were
[17:50] undocumented at the time. So I guess her being underage,
[17:54] if she was 14, 14 at the time they got married, it could have
[17:57] easily like slipped the system or something.
[18:00] I don't know, it seems a little bit dodgy.
[18:02] But Chelino fans seem to be OK with it.
[18:05] But they also seem to be OK with a lot of shit that he's done, so
[18:08] I don't know. But moving on, the two of them
[18:10] were married anyway and they very quickly welcomed a son.
[18:13] Their family life was very happy.
[18:15] But around that same time, things started to fall apart
[18:19] outside of their married life. In December of 1984, Chelino's
[18:23] brother Amanda, who was not only his brother but like his best
[18:27] friend as well, he went back to Tijuana and he was working for
[18:32] drug traffickers. I don't know, drug related
[18:35] business is all we know, but during that trip, Amanda was
[18:39] shot and killed in a drug deal gone wrong, which was so
[18:44] devastating for Chelino. I believe he actually went back
[18:47] to Tijuana in the aftermath of this.
[18:50] I'm not sure what there was to do over there, but I don't know.
[18:52] I guess that's kind of your instinct.
[18:54] If something horrible happens to someone you love and they're in
[18:57] a different place, you just want to get there.
[18:59] Even if there's nothing you can do to save them or to fix it,
[19:01] you just want to be there. So Chelino goes to Tijuana and
[19:05] actually gets arrested himself very quickly.
[19:08] The exact reasons for a lot of Chelino's arrests of quite
[19:12] vague, you know, just like general drug stuff and petty
[19:15] crime. And so we don't actually know
[19:16] what he was arrested for at this specific point, but it was in
[19:20] Tijuana. While he was sleeping on the
[19:22] cold, hard, dirty prison floor for eight months, Chelena found
[19:27] his true life calling. He and the other inmates would
[19:31] kill time by chatting and telling stories and singing and
[19:35] playing this old beaten up guitar that one of them had.
[19:38] And after a while, Chelena began to fuse all of these different
[19:43] things. He would play the guitar and he
[19:46] would sing about someone else's life story.
[19:49] It was in prison where Chelino Sanchez began to write corridos.
[19:54] Corridos are Mexican songs about love, hardship and crime.
[19:58] They're usually sung over a guitar or a band, often telling
[20:02] a story in first person. Chelino sang more specifically
[20:06] in the narco corrido genre, which is just a corridor with
[20:10] the word narco in front of it. It's all about drugs.
[20:13] It's all about. Big drug organizations,
[20:16] operations, drug trafficking. But writing these corridors came
[20:20] very naturally to Chelino because, well, the lyrics were
[20:23] real. They were from his life.
[20:25] He had lived this shit. The first corridor that he ever
[20:28] wrote was actually about his brother Armando's murder, and he
[20:33] vowed in that song that he would get revenge for him.
[20:37] Chelino's corridos were a hit with the other inmates and a lot
[20:41] of them started to Commission him to write them a song about
[20:45] their life story. And among these prisoners that
[20:48] were requesting songs from him were like high level mafia and
[20:52] cartel leaders. This instantly put Chelena in
[20:56] the middle of some very powerful and dangerous circles.
[21:00] He now had the ceaseless responsibility to always stay on
[21:05] their good sides lest something happened to him.
[21:08] Chelena had always been around music as he was growing up.
[21:12] It was a big part of his family life life.
[21:14] But now that he was in prison, this was the first time he'd
[21:17] ever considered music in a career sense.
[21:21] While he was locked up. Writing corridors and using his
[21:24] talent in that way had become his currency, and he wondered if
[21:28] that could continue outside of the prison cell.
[21:31] Eventually, after the end of his eight-month sentence, Chelina
[21:35] was released from prison and he travelled back to California to
[21:38] go back to his wife and his son. But now he had this whole new
[21:42] reputation. Even in this other country.
[21:45] People had been talking about how good Chelino Sanchez's
[21:49] corridors were, and this news had gotten all the way back to
[21:53] the biggest narcos in California who were now ready and waiting
[21:57] for him to return to be able to write their life story into a
[22:00] song. So Chelino made this his
[22:02] business. He started to record and write
[22:05] different songs. He would put them onto cassette
[22:07] tapes and deliver them to these big mafia bosses.
[22:11] In the early stages of this business venture, Selena
[22:14] imagined that he would hire a singer to sing his lyrics on the
[22:19] songs for him. But the further into it he got,
[22:22] the more he realized that he was kind of the only guy equipped
[22:26] for the job. In order to sing these songs
[22:28] about gun carrying cartel members that do all these awful,
[22:32] heinous things, you needed to have a strong confidence in your
[22:36] voice. And this is when Chelino's
[22:38] famous motto, I don't Sing, I Bark began.
[22:42] He believed that to be able to sing about such dangerous men,
[22:46] your voice needed bravery. So the way it began is the way
[22:49] it continued. Everything was done by Chelino
[22:52] himself. Written, recorded and then sent
[22:56] out. At this point he had recorded 15
[22:58] different cassette tips for 15 different clients.
[23:02] By now, Chelino had connected with a producer who was going to
[23:05] help him to level up these songs.
[23:07] It wasn't going to be a one man job anymore and they were trying
[23:11] to figure out a way to get Chelino's music out into the
[23:14] world and make him a star. So as a next step, they decided
[23:19] to make 300 physical copies of new songs.
[23:22] Chelino went and handed these out all by himself at different
[23:26] places, car washes, flea markets, parking lots.
[23:29] And one of the things Chelina loved the most about this was
[23:33] that he was helping Mexicans that lived in California, just
[23:37] like he did, to reconnect with a genre that they'd heard growing
[23:42] up and might miss now that they don't live there anymore.
[23:45] He was helping other Mexicans to discover their love and their
[23:49] proudness for corridors. Chelina had breathed life back
[23:54] in into the genre of corridors and more specifically narco
[23:57] corridos. And he very quickly became a
[24:00] very distinctive person in the music industry.
[24:02] And he styled himself in such a way.
[24:05] He would wear suits and silk shirts, gold jewelry, the cowboy
[24:09] boots, the cowboy hat, obviously.
[24:12] And by 1989, he was 29 years old and Chelino Sanchez was earning
[24:17] a proper living through creating his music.
[24:20] He would play shows at these like small venues.
[24:23] He would get booked for par parties and events.
[24:25] He had a long running thing at a nightclub on Saturdays as well.
[24:29] But the most crazy thing we learned about his career is that
[24:32] he would sometimes do kids parties.
[24:35] What? I'm hoping he had some like PG
[24:37] versions of these narco corridos because what the hell, Maybe
[24:41] it's more of a thing for the parents.
[24:43] Maybe it was like a 2 year old's birthday, who's not going to
[24:46] actually hear it? But the parents were like,
[24:47] should we get Cholino Sanchez to this thing?
[24:50] There was actually 1 little girl's birthday party that had
[24:52] to be shut down by the police because her parents had gotten
[24:57] Cholino Sanchez to come and perform like in their back
[24:59] garden. And the whole neighborhood found
[25:02] out. And of course, everyone wanted
[25:04] to see Cholino Sanchez perform, so it incited almost a riot at
[25:08] this little girl's birthday party.
[25:10] Chelino's fame was growing insanely fast.
[25:13] And then one night in 1992, he was 31 years old, his music
[25:17] sales would go through the roof in one of California's most
[25:22] famous clubs in Coachella. Not the festival, but place.
[25:26] On January 24th, 1990, two 400 people squished into this
[25:30] nightclub dance floor. Chelino was playing with his
[25:33] band. He was singing all the classics
[25:35] and from the stage he could see all of the audience in their
[25:39] different elements. You know, there were couples on
[25:42] dates, there were families bringing their children, friends
[25:45] on a night out. There were likely cartel members
[25:48] sprinkled in the audience who really enjoyed hearing this
[25:52] authentic music that they could relate to.
[25:54] Chelino was so proud that his music could bring all these
[25:57] different types of people together under one roof to
[26:01] celebrate their culture. But on that particular night,
[26:05] the show wasn't going as any regular show would.
[26:09] There was this one guy in the audience that seemed very
[26:12] passionate about Chelina's music, and he had been shouting
[26:16] after every single song he had shouted to Chelina to play this
[26:20] one specific request that he had.
[26:22] Every time this guy had requested a song, Chelina had
[26:26] ignored him. I mean, singers often have a
[26:29] predetermined set and they don't, you know, switch things
[26:33] in and out because someone shouted it from the audience.
[26:36] But this fella didn't stop asking for this song.
[26:39] He was getting closer and closer to the front of the stage.
[26:41] He was getting louder, more aggressive.
[26:44] He was demanding that Chelino Sanchez play this damn song.
[26:48] This guy was ruining everyone else's experience of this
[26:51] concert. So he decided after 20 minutes
[26:54] he was just going to play the damn song so that he could move
[26:57] on with the concert. But in true Chelino style, no
[27:00] one was really going to get the upper hand on him.
[27:03] So instead he starts playing this song but singing completely
[27:07] different lyrics. It's a whole different story
[27:09] about a whole different person. And I mean, this guy in the
[27:12] audience had specifically requested this song because he
[27:15] wanted to hear about this one cartel leader.
[27:18] So Chelino starts singing about a different one.
[27:20] The guy in the audience was enraged and apparently very,
[27:25] very drunk, and he wasn't going to let Chelino get away with
[27:28] this. So he pushed his way right to
[27:30] the front of the stage and climbed up onto it.
[27:33] And within a split second, before anyone had realized what
[27:37] was going on, this man had pulled a gun out of his pocket,
[27:40] aimed at Chelino, and shot twice.
[27:44] It hit him in the lungs. But Chelino rarely went anywhere
[27:48] without his own gun. That included performing on
[27:51] stage. And so despite being quite
[27:54] severely injured, he was down on the floor covered in blood.
[27:57] Chelino managed to pull out his own gun, and he fired back at
[28:02] this deranged fan, hitting him in the lower back.
[28:04] It hadn't immobilized him yet, though, so the fan just jumped
[28:08] down off of the stage and tried to run out through the audience.
[28:11] And Chelino kept shooting at him.
[28:13] And at that point, he's risking the lives of his audience as
[28:17] well. He is literally shooting out
[28:18] into a big crowd of people aiming for this one guy that's
[28:22] sprinting out of the door. At least seven different
[28:25] audience members were injured during this shooting, and one
[28:29] person died. But in all of this commotion,
[28:32] the audience members had managed to keep hold of this man that
[28:35] had incited all of this. And he was arrested by the
[28:39] police. Chelino spent a long, long time
[28:41] in hospital after that. I mean, he was shot in the lung.
[28:44] That could have killed him, right?
[28:45] And despite having quite recklessly shot into his own
[28:49] audience, Chelino didn't get any charges.
[28:51] But of course, the same could not be said for the Heckler of
[28:55] the show, the man that pulled out his gun first.
[28:58] He was identified as Eduardo Gallegos.
[29:01] And weirdly enough, up until recent years, when Chelino had
[29:05] become a star, the two of them had had quite parallel lives.
[29:10] Eduardo had been working as an undocumented mechanic in
[29:13] California originally. Like Chelino, he had been born
[29:16] in the state of Sinaloa to a poor family of eight children.
[29:21] And just like Chelino, Eduardo had left his life in Mexico at
[29:25] quite a young age to go and make a different life for himself in
[29:28] California. And just like Chelino, he had
[29:31] met a wife out there, he had married and had kids only.
[29:35] Unfortunately for Eduardo, this is where the similarities
[29:37] stopped. He wasn't a successful rich
[29:40] musician like Chelino was. In fact, Eduardo's trajectory
[29:44] couldn't be more different from Chelina's at this point in time.
[29:47] He was actually divorcing his wife and it was a very messy
[29:51] one. Eduardo had little contact with
[29:53] his children because they were with his wife or his ex-wife.
[29:57] He was living in debt due to crippling drug and alcohol
[30:00] addiction. His life was honestly quite a
[30:03] mess. The whole day before the
[30:05] concert, Eduardo had been drinking.
[30:07] He'd apparently been doing hard drugs and spent quite a bit of
[30:11] the day watching different chicken fights, which is quite
[30:14] random. Like imagine having pre drinks
[30:16] for a concert and watching a chicken fight as well.
[30:18] Eduardo was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison and he
[30:23] was responsible for all of the damage that was done that night.
[30:27] Of course, the attempted murder of Chelina, the death of the
[30:30] audience member and all of the injured audience members.
[30:33] All of that responsibility was put on Eduardo.
[30:37] I'm not entirely sure if it was Chelino's bullets that hurt
[30:40] anyone or even killed that one audience member, but matter of
[30:43] fact is, all of it was put on Eduardo.
[30:46] And the weirdest thing of all of this is that for a long, long
[30:49] time, Eduardo never really gave a reason for why he went and did
[30:53] this. We'll tap more into that a
[30:55] little bit later. It's a theme throughout this
[30:57] video, don't you worry. But that same night that was the
[31:01] end of everything for Eduardo was surprisingly the night that
[31:06] made Chelino Sanchez Chelino surviving an attempted murder in
[31:12] front of an audience and even shooting back at the perpetrator
[31:16] while he lay on the stage bleeding out.
[31:19] This story made him sound like a hero, and he was overnight news
[31:24] gaining legendary status while he sat in hospital recovering.
[31:28] His record sales skyrocketed, his bookings tripled in fees,
[31:34] and his songs found thousands of new listeners across both
[31:37] America and Mexico. Cholino was now officially the
[31:41] King of Corridors because he was the real deal.
[31:44] I mean, clearly he meant what he sang in his songs.
[31:48] He was willing to get out gun when trouble was around.
[31:51] He wasn't a poser. This was evidence for the
[31:54] audience that he wasn't just singing about all these tough
[31:57] guys. He actually was one.
[31:59] About two months after this attack, Chelina was out of
[32:03] hospital and he was enjoying his new success.
[32:05] He received an incredible offer for a three night tour in his
[32:10] home state of Sinaloa. He would be offered $20,000 just
[32:16] to play three shows. And it seemed like a dream come
[32:20] true. I mean, he got to do a hometown
[32:22] show, which is probably one of the best experiences I imagine
[32:25] you can have as an artist. To be able to go back to the
[32:29] place where you came from and and kind of show them how great
[32:32] you are now. Be able to play on those stages
[32:35] that you once stood in the audience and looked up at.
[32:38] I imagine that's such an incredible feeling.
[32:40] But everyone around Chelina was telling him not to take this
[32:45] deal because his rise in popularity had only made his
[32:49] life in the criminal world or all the more complicated.
[32:53] By this point in his career. He was 31 years old.
[32:56] He'd been writing these corridos, narco corridos for
[32:59] years and years and years. So he had written about so many
[33:04] of these high up drug Lords and cartel members.
[33:07] And we're in the beginning in prison.
[33:09] When he first started writing these things, it would be very
[33:12] collaborative. Both him and the subject of the
[33:14] song would be writing about this life story together.
[33:18] But now it was Chelina in a studio, maybe.
[33:22] I don't know if he did it in studios, but it was him and his
[33:25] producer making these songs without any approval from the
[33:30] people he was singing about. And you can imagine that
[33:33] probably pissed off a lot of people.
[33:34] And it's not like he was just making his own mixtapes and
[33:37] selling them in parking lots anymore.
[33:39] This music was going out to the world.
[33:42] He was performing it live. People would come and stand in
[33:44] the same room as him and listen to these lyrics.
[33:47] And I guess the nature of touring is quite scary,
[33:50] actually. I think about quite a bit.
[33:52] I think because we covered the case of Christina Grimmie, who
[33:55] was an artist that was shot at her own show and killed the idea
[34:01] of letting the whole entire world know what room you're
[34:04] going to be in on what dates, it's very scary to me.
[34:09] Of course, concerts these days have so many safety measures
[34:13] that it feels less scary now. But imagine at the time in the
[34:17] 90s, Chelina putting out this like 3 tour dates back home in
[34:22] Mexico. Everyone there is going to see
[34:25] that and know where he's going to be on what nights.
[34:29] And if there are people that don't like his lyrics and don't
[34:32] like what he's about and want to bite him or even try to shoot
[34:36] him again the way that Eduardo had, they know exactly when and
[34:40] where to do it. With each piece he made, with
[34:42] each artwork he put out into the world, he was endangering
[34:45] himself more and more. He loved returning to Mexico,
[34:48] and he had actually done it quite a bit since he first left
[34:52] to go to California, so he wasn't scared about going back
[34:55] home by any means. Every time he'd gone back, he'd
[34:57] not really had any problems. People were excited to see him
[35:01] because, well, he was a hometown celeb.
[35:04] Especially a lot of the young kids where he was from really
[35:07] looked up to him because, well, he made something of himself.
[35:10] So, like I say, he didn't fear just going back to visit home.
[35:14] But playing a show is different to just visiting, isn't it?
[35:17] In order to understand why all of Chelino's friends and family
[35:21] and associates were warning him against playing these hometown
[35:24] shows, let's set the scene of Sinaloa at the time and the way
[35:28] that it was being run in the run up to Chelino's visit.
[35:32] Very, very harsh environment at the time.
[35:34] Crime rates were soaring. There was so much corruption in
[35:37] the police and in the government.
[35:39] Murder rates were soaring. Not to mention that in Sinaloa,
[35:43] almost every single person you come across could have some kind
[35:47] of connection to the cartel. They either know someone that's
[35:50] in it or someone that had been affected by the cartel in some
[35:53] way. It was that big, It was that
[35:55] powerful. It was that all consuming and
[35:58] Chelino's team were only getting more and more concerned for his
[36:02] safety in the run up to these three hometown shows.
[36:05] And the reason for their concern was way more than just the place
[36:09] is generally dangerous and the police are corrupt.
[36:12] They were actually very worried that people were looking for
[36:15] Chelena in his hometown. Again, this is a little
[36:19] complicated pocket of this story, but while Chelena had
[36:23] been gone in America, he had been blamed for the death for
[36:27] the murder of a hitman back home.
[36:30] I'm not entirely sure why this murder was pinned on Chelena and
[36:35] why a lot of people thought it was him because he is largely
[36:38] believed to be innocent. But this hitman that was
[36:41] murdered, his name was Reen Escobar and he was brutally
[36:45] murdered as well, like in the street.
[36:47] And for some reason, everyone in their hometown thought it was
[36:50] Chelina. All but Chelina had ordered a
[36:53] hit on this hitman. But Chelina had like hardly any
[36:57] connection to Reen Escobar and he had no motive to want to kill
[37:01] him either. But, you know, rumors can pick
[37:03] up a lot of weight sometimes, especially if it's in in an echo
[37:07] Chamber of a bunch of people that are thinking the same
[37:09] thing. And Reen Escobar's own brother
[37:13] believed that Chelino Sanchez was responsible for his
[37:16] brother's murder. And apparently this guy was mad.
[37:20] Like, he was going around the hometown bitching about Chelino
[37:24] and saying that he was going to get his revenge.
[37:26] And so This is why a lot of people were worried about him
[37:29] going back to his hometown, because it wasn't just like he
[37:32] had to look out for this one guy's brother.
[37:35] That guy's brother might have a bunch of friends and a bunch of
[37:37] associates. He might be part of a cartel or
[37:40] a mafia or something. So Chelina is being told by all
[37:43] of his associates, don't go back home.
[37:46] Don't perform this show. This guy is probably going to
[37:49] come and try and kill you. But Chelina was way too proud to
[37:52] cancel a show over something that he insisted was untrue To
[37:57] him. His honor and his reputation was
[38:00] everything. He had been raised like that
[38:03] since a boy and he or he maintained that he was innocent
[38:07] of this hit man's death and so why should he cower away as if
[38:11] he was responsible? He should stand up on that stage
[38:14] and sing as confidently as he would have, even if those rumors
[38:18] never existed, because that's all that mattered.
[38:21] He decided that he was going to put on these shows anywhere.
[38:24] He needed to go out there and show his face and not let
[38:28] people's assumptions and whispers ruin his career and his
[38:32] business opportunities and his 20 grand that he was going to
[38:36] get from three shows. But the most important thing to
[38:39] him was that he was an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he
[38:43] needed to show everyone that he was a powerful force not to be
[38:47] reckoned with. And so the show would go on.
[38:50] In preparation for the increased safety risk on this tour,
[38:53] Chelino hired some armed bodyguards that would follow him
[38:56] around the whole tour. So the time of the tour
[39:00] approached. It was May 1992.
[39:02] Chelino was 31 years old, and he left his wife Maricela and his
[39:07] son and his young daughter. He had a daughter as well now,
[39:10] but he left them all in California to go on this very
[39:13] quick tour of his hometown. Upon his arrival in Sinaloa,
[39:18] Chelino did like a bit of a radio tour to promote the shows
[39:22] that were upcoming and tried to sell a few more tickets.
[39:24] He told listeners that his very first performance would be on
[39:27] May 16th in the city of Kaliaka. And when the fateful day
[39:30] arrives, it's a hot, humid night, The sort of humidity that
[39:35] makes your hair frizz in double in size in a crowded nightclub.
[39:39] Chelina stood on that stage seven years after beginning his
[39:43] career. He's all suited and booted up.
[39:46] He's got his cowboy hat on, his cowboy boots.
[39:48] He is so Cholino Sanchez, and he began his set to a roaring
[39:53] crowd. He was singing all the classics,
[39:55] all the songs, all the corridors that had made him famous.
[39:59] A camera begins to film the concert through this, like,
[40:01] shaky, blurry old lens. But you can see all of the
[40:05] energy in the crowd. They're going crazy for their
[40:08] local hero. And as the songs go on and the
[40:11] more and more people are dancing and singing, Cholino could feel
[40:14] the audience kind of getting closer and closer and pouring
[40:17] onto the stage. That can happen at.
[40:19] Smaller venues. It's just when everyone is so
[40:22] desperate to get as close to the person as they can and to feel
[40:26] that energy, like people were reaching out to him, trying to
[40:29] touch him. And then with this mass of
[40:31] bodies that was moving closer and closer, an arm comes
[40:35] reaching out. The arm is anonymous.
[40:37] We still don't know who it belonged to.
[40:40] And you can't see in the video who it belonged to either.
[40:43] It was just such a sea of limbs that, yeah, the arm is
[40:47] completely anonymous still to this day.
[40:49] But the arm did. Angelino Sanchez note, He opens
[40:54] the piece of paper and for seven seconds he is reading the
[40:58] lettering on this tiny little note.
[41:01] And over those 7 seconds, the color, the smile, and the life
[41:06] drain out of Chelina as he lifts his free arm and wipes the sweat
[41:12] from his brow. The look on his face is
[41:15] specifically devastating. It's like his whole internal
[41:19] world just came crumbling down inside him, behind his superstar
[41:24] exterior that is currently mid performance on stage, and he
[41:27] needs to keep it together. So he pulls himself together as
[41:30] quickly as he can. But you can tell, especially now
[41:33] that we know what that note said and what it promised, you can
[41:36] tell that he is torn up. He is terrified.
[41:40] He looks around the room, trying to suppress this horrified look
[41:43] that you can just tell really wants to come out.
[41:46] It's almost like he's trying to make eye contact with people
[41:49] that he trusts and knows that he's safe with.
[41:52] But very quickly, he realizes that he is Chelino frickin
[41:55] Sanchez. He is on stage.
[41:57] All of these people have paid to come and sing his songs back to
[42:01] him, and he needs to keep it together.
[42:04] So he turns to his bandmate and he says, I don't sing, I bark.
[42:08] But the people like it. He dropped the note that he read
[42:12] onto the floor, and it was lost forever.
[42:15] Then it must have just gone under people's feet and that's
[42:19] it. And for that exact reason, we
[42:21] don't actually know what the note said.
[42:24] We don't have any specific wording.
[42:26] Still to this day, no one knows what it said.
[42:29] But from what was about to happen after the concert ended,
[42:33] we can take a pretty accurate guess that it was promising his
[42:37] death. But despite receiving such a
[42:39] brutal threat in front of hundreds of eyes, Chelino didn't
[42:43] cower. He completed the show.
[42:45] The crowd roared and he completed his first night of his
[42:50] hometown tour. After the show, him and all of
[42:54] his team and all of his friends were in such great spirits they
[42:58] all left the concert venue together.
[43:00] It was Chelina, his brother and two women that they were with
[43:04] and they set off to an after party, a party that Chelino
[43:08] would never arrive at because while they were driving down the
[43:11] highway, about halfway to this party, Chelino's car was pulled
[43:15] over. Now, reports differ on this
[43:17] little section of the case, but the point is, a few cars came
[43:21] and pulled him over as if they were cops.
[43:23] Some sources say that they were dressed like cops.
[43:25] Some say that they had cop cars and cop plates.
[43:29] Point is, people pulled him over pretending to be police.
[43:34] A man got out of one of these cars and came over to Chelena
[43:37] and all of his friends in the car and immediately started
[43:40] screaming at all of them to get out.
[43:43] Chelena first responded by telling the officer I have
[43:46] money. Assuming that this was just like
[43:48] a standard shakedown, which happened quite a lot at the
[43:51] time, the police or unofficial police would pull someone over,
[43:56] accuse them of something, and if you give them money then it's
[43:59] all resolved and it can be forgotten.
[44:02] So Chelena is trying to do that, but the officer backs back at
[44:05] him. No, get out of the car.
[44:07] He made it very clear to the whole group that they were there
[44:10] for Chelino only. They didn't care about money,
[44:13] they didn't care about the rest of them.
[44:15] They wanted Chelina. So not wanting anyone else to
[44:18] get hurt and maybe even knowing something that no one else knew,
[44:22] Chelino Sanchez got out of the safety of his car by himself and
[44:27] willingly got into one of those cars that had just come and
[44:30] pulled him over. The rest of his entourage sat
[44:32] still in the car and just watched as Chelino was driven
[44:37] away. And they never saw him again.
[44:39] They had no idea where he was going.
[44:41] They had no idea who he was going with.
[44:43] They didn't even know that the police officer that just came
[44:46] over was even legitimate. And even if it was the real
[44:49] police, that still didn't mean Chelino was safe.
[44:52] I mean, remember, there was so much police and government
[44:55] corruption at that point in time that he could have been in just
[44:58] as much danger with officials. And whoever had taken Chelino
[45:02] Sanchez that night proved everyone's worst fears to be
[45:07] true. The next morning at 6:00 AM, two
[45:10] farmers found Chelino Sanchez's body in a shallow canal of Hwy.
[45:14] 15. We think his body was found
[45:17] about an hour or so away from where he had just performed at
[45:21] the concert venue. And the way that his body was
[45:23] found made clear the harrowing ordeal that he must have gone
[45:27] through in those hours. His dead body was found still
[45:31] blindfolded. There were marks on his wrists
[45:34] where he had been tied up and he'd been fatally shot twice in
[45:39] the back of the head. He was just 31 years old,
[45:42] leaving behind a wife, an 8 year old son, A5 year old daughter,
[45:47] and such a promising music career.
[45:49] His daughter was actually only a year older than Chelino was when
[45:53] he lost his father when he was young.
[45:56] And from the minute Chelino's body was found, theories and
[46:00] stories of what could have happened that night began to
[46:03] spread like wildfire. From the very start, those
[46:07] closest to Chelino suspected one obvious reason.
[46:11] Reen Escobar. Remember the hit man that
[46:14] everyone thought Chelino had murdered somehow, but it turns
[46:17] out he was wreaking havoc from beyond the grave of Maybe he had
[46:22] associates here still on earth to carry out his revenge.
[46:25] After all, this is the reason that so many people were so
[46:28] worried about him going back and doing these shows in Sinaloa.
[46:32] People had seen this is coming. Some rumors started to spread of
[46:36] some farmers that had apparently witnessed Cholino's murder first
[46:40] hand. They said that they had seen him
[46:43] on his knees in a ditch, beaten, bleeding and crying.
[46:47] Cholino's capturers were accusing him of murdering Reen
[46:51] Escobar and they were taunting him, calling him a fame hungry
[46:55] traitor, saying that he chose his music career over his
[46:58] responsibilities in the narco world.
[47:01] They said he was basically disrespecting all of the men
[47:04] that had put him on the map by commissioning corridors to begin
[47:07] with. They basically just thought he
[47:09] was too big for his boots. He was disrespectful and he
[47:13] needed to be put in his place permanently.
[47:16] The killers went over to them and told these farmers to tell
[47:20] the papers that Chelino had knelt in that ditch sobbing and
[47:24] begging for his life. They wanted the world to know
[47:26] that he wasn't the hard tough guy that he presented himself to
[47:30] be to the world. They said that he was a coward
[47:34] at the very end and that's how the world should remember him.
[47:37] People speculated that these kidnappers and murderers were
[47:40] people that knew Reen Escobar and they were trying to not only
[47:43] avenge him but also human humiliate Chelina and discredit
[47:48] his reputation as a fearless outlaw.
[47:50] Because again, honor is everything and especially when
[47:54] Chelino is not here to defend his honor anymore, they wanted
[47:57] to run his reputation into the ground.
[48:00] This theory actually has two different offshoots.
[48:02] People believe that it could have been Escobar's own friends
[48:05] and family and associates that did the actual killing got their
[48:08] hands dirty. But another version of this
[48:11] theory is that Escobar's family paid for a hitman.
[48:16] Take out the Cholino Sanchez. And this other theory, I
[48:19] actually feel like I don't believe it.
[48:21] I'll be so honest with you guys because, well, listen to the
[48:24] evidence that we have. So when this hitman had
[48:26] kidnapped him and taken him out to the middle of nowhere, he
[48:29] ordered Cholino to get out of the van and kneel down so that
[48:32] he could kill him. But before he did, the hitman
[48:35] supposedly said to Cholino Sanchez, sorry, I'm just here to
[48:40] do a job. I'm actually a fan of yours.
[48:42] To which Cholino apparently replied.
[48:45] I get it's all good, go for it, pull the trigger.
[48:49] Honestly guys, I don't believe it.
[48:51] I don't know. You can have your own opinions,
[48:53] of course, but I think it's just way too detailed of a back and
[48:56] forth and neither of them would be able to tell us about it.
[49:00] Chelino is dead. And the hitman obviously wasn't
[49:04] going to come forward and be like, actually, this is true.
[49:07] I was the hitman. The rumor mill was really
[49:09] working overtime for this case. And I think this is just a big
[49:12] loaf of rumor. But moving on from the Reen
[49:15] Escobar theories, because his associates weren't the only ones
[49:20] that were suspected of carrying out this murder.
[49:23] And for this next theory, we're going to have to rewind four
[49:26] months back to that concert in Cochell, the night that Eduardo
[49:30] Gallegos shot Chelina on stage. The night that fast tracked
[49:35] Chelinos fame and made him king of the corridors.
[49:38] A hero could have also made him a mortal enemy, the man that
[49:44] survived his gunshots. Rumors began circling that
[49:47] Eduardo was actually a failed hitman from four months ago.
[49:51] He was actually trying to kill Chelina.
[49:53] He had been paid to kill Chelina and he just flopped it.
[49:57] I think a lot of people believe this theory because Eduardo was
[50:00] never given a reason as to why he wanted to kill Chelino that
[50:04] day or as to why he shot him that day.
[50:07] Maybe This is why. Maybe he didn't actually have
[50:10] any good reason to want to shoot Chelina.
[50:12] It was just because he'd been handed a big wad of cash and
[50:15] told to do it. Although a lot of people do
[50:17] still put Eduardo's actions down to his drunken stupor that he
[50:22] was in that night and that is undeniable.
[50:25] He had been drinking all day and doing drugs, so I think that
[50:28] could be reason enough in his in itself.
[50:31] As to why he whipped out a gun and decided to shoot the singer
[50:35] on stage. That was ignoring his request.
[50:37] That is a huge part of it as well.
[50:39] This really, really intoxicated man is asking for something and
[50:44] being ignored, and maybe that built enough fury inside him for
[50:48] him to act. Well.
[50:49] In 2012, two decades after Chelino's death, Eduardo finally
[50:55] spoke on the topic in a parole hearing to determine his
[50:58] potential release. Eduardo said that he didn't get
[51:02] his gun out and get up onto the stage with the intention of
[51:05] shooting Chelino that day. He just wanted to hand him his
[51:09] gun. What?
[51:12] He said that he took his gun up there because he wanted Chelino
[51:15] to fire it, apparently just like they do in Mexico.
[51:18] But Eduardo claims that this plan went wrong and he
[51:22] accidentally pulled the trigger whilst aiming at Chelino's
[51:27] chest. And didn't he shoot twice as
[51:29] well? How do you accidentally pull the
[51:30] trigger twice? It just doesn't really line up
[51:33] with witness statements. You know of other people in the
[51:35] crowd saying that he was taunting Chelino and yelling and
[51:38] getting more and more angry as the show was going on.
[51:41] And he was definitely very drunk, very intoxicated.
[51:45] Everyone that was actually in that room at that show thinks
[51:48] that he acted out of nothing more than just intoxication and
[51:52] anger. Then ten years after that, so
[51:55] we're then in 2022, Eduardo gets another parole hearing and he
[52:00] finally gave what's believed to be the most plausible reason for
[52:03] the attack. He told police that before the
[52:05] concert, he had just been sat there at a table having a drink.
[52:09] And Chelino, the Chelino Sanchez, walks past his table,
[52:13] and he's starstruck. So he calls him over, gets his
[52:15] attention, tells him that he's excited for the show and
[52:18] requests that he play this one song, Eduardo's favorite song of
[52:23] Chelinos. And so he says that he will.
[52:25] But of course, when it came to the actual show, Chelino is not
[52:29] playing that song. And so Eduardo starts shouting
[52:32] it from the audience to, you know, remind him.
[52:36] But every song that happens is not the one that he requested.
[52:39] And so the more times he has to shout it to Chelino and then not
[52:42] get what he wants, he's getting angrier and angrier.
[52:45] In fact, he's offended. He takes it very personally,
[52:48] almost as if Chelino lied to him intentionally when they were at
[52:52] the bar and is now just mocking him on the stage, not doing his
[52:56] request. As I said earlier on, I'm sure
[52:58] there's a lot more planning and structure that goes into a show.
[53:01] I mean, there definitely is these days, but probably even
[53:03] still then he had a set list that all the the band had agreed
[53:07] on. He can't just throw another song
[53:09] in the middle. But Eduardo, yeah, took it very
[53:12] personal that Chelina didn't do that.
[53:14] Eduardo said in this parole hearing that all his life he had
[53:19] been ignored by everyone. His marriage was failing.
[53:22] His kids didn't want to know him.
[53:24] He only ever worked proper grueling undocumented jobs where
[53:28] he was abused. He was paid barely anything.
[53:31] He never had chance to grow a career.
[53:33] His life just sucked, honestly. Of course, police have looked
[53:38] into the idea that he could have been a hit man or he could have
[53:41] been acting on behalf of cartels, but Eduardo didn't
[53:44] really have any links to any of that world.
[53:47] It really did just seem like he was at breaking point with his
[53:51] life. He was already very mentally
[53:53] unstable, didn't have his wife and kids anymore, got very, very
[53:57] drunk, very intoxicated and then got mad at this singer.
[54:00] And that was his final straw. He was made to feel like a loser
[54:05] in front of the rest of the concert crowd, and so he shot
[54:10] Chelina. Of course, it can't have been
[54:11] Eduardo that did eventually kill Chelina four months later
[54:15] because Eduardo was in prison, But some people do think that he
[54:19] was a first attempt at a hitman at an assassination.
[54:23] So could the actual murder have been a successful second attempt
[54:27] from someone else? And so it begs the question, who
[54:30] else would have Chelino Sanchez on their hit list?
[54:33] Well, one theory is that it could be revenge from when a
[54:36] very young 15 year old Chelino shot and killed that mafia boss
[54:41] at a house party. Although he was defending his
[54:44] sister and avenging her for the attack that supposedly took
[54:47] place, he still killed a man. And there's going to be a lot of
[54:52] people that don't like that. That event had him running from
[54:56] the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life.
[54:59] He knew that people would be mad at him in his hometown, that's
[55:03] why he ran up into the mountains.
[55:04] So who knows, maybe now by the time that he has come back and
[55:08] he's advertised these hometown shows, maybe it was finally time
[55:12] for them to get a long-awaited revenge.
[55:14] People think this theory doesn't quite add up though, because
[55:17] like I said, Chelino had gone back to Sinaloa several times
[55:21] since he first moved away and he'd never really had an issue.
[55:24] If the associates of this mafia boss wanted to exact revenge on
[55:28] Chelina, surely they would have done it before now?
[55:30] Like they've had plenty of opportunities over the years.
[55:33] I guess maybe it had to do with the fact that he was famous now.
[55:37] Maybe that pissed them off. You know, this person that had
[55:40] managed to get away and flee the country after murdering one of
[55:43] their friends is now a superstar coming back to town.
[55:47] Maybe it made all of those men angry that the whole world seems
[55:51] to love this guy that had murdered their friends when they
[55:54] were teenagers. So maybe they waited until they
[55:57] got exact confirmation, an announcement in fact, of when
[56:02] Chelino was going to be back in town and they planned their
[56:05] belated revenge. We have another theory that
[56:08] Chelino's murder could have been done with official support,
[56:12] which means that someone high up either wanted or allowed Chelino
[56:17] to be killed. Now, the reason that this is a
[56:19] theory is because American police were working on the case
[56:23] of Chelino's attempt scented murder.
[56:24] You know, the Eduardo shooting took place in Coachella.
[56:27] So it was American police working on it.
[56:30] And they would get in contact with Mexican police quite often
[56:34] to ask things and, you know, ask more things, I guess.
[56:37] And months and months and months down the line, they got in
[56:40] contact with the Mexican authorities and asked if they
[56:43] could have a copy of Chelino Sanchez's death certificate.
[56:47] And they said, no, you can't. I think there's a bit more to
[56:50] this than we've been able to uncover.
[56:52] But the American authorities thought that this was very
[56:56] weird. An investigator told the media
[56:59] that was potentially and apparently some official
[57:02] involvement in the death of Chelino Sanchez, which caused
[57:05] the Sinaloa authorities lack of cooperation with American
[57:09] officials investigating his death.
[57:11] And could be an explanation. I don't know.
[57:13] The fact that the authorities were blocking people from
[57:17] investigating getting Cholino's death is a bit suspicious to me,
[57:21] and especially considering it had been an alleged state police
[57:25] officer that had pulled Cholino over and then made him get in
[57:29] the car and drive away with them.
[57:30] But maybe the theory is seeming a little bit likely.
[57:33] I don't know. Sinaloa's minister even did an
[57:35] interview with the press where she blamed Cholino for his own
[57:40] death. She seemed just very angry at
[57:43] him without an ounce of sympathy at all.
[57:46] It kind of seemed like she was on the cartel's payroll because
[57:50] bear in mind, Chelino Sanchez is a superstar from her state and
[57:55] you would think that a minister would be proud to boast such a
[57:59] successful native. I don't know, it gives me a
[58:02] weird vibe for sure. To this day police are still
[58:06] refusing to release Chelinos case files, which I think could
[58:10] point to just more potential government and police corruption
[58:14] because why go to such great lengths to hide information if
[58:18] nothing to hide? So who could the Sinaloan
[58:22] authorities be working with or covering up for and why?
[58:27] Well, the cartel kind of works on a you scratch my back, I'll
[58:30] scratch yours basis. If you can offer them something
[58:33] then they'll let you in on a bit of that drug money and their
[58:37] protection. Allegedly, a lot of people in
[58:39] public positions of power have deals with the cartel or the
[58:43] mafia or whatever, because these can be very mutually beneficial
[58:48] relations. The public official gets a lot
[58:51] of protection from the mafia. They can allegedly help to like
[58:54] rig votes. They can, of course, get rid of
[58:57] anyone that the person might want and they can make it look
[59:00] like an accident. They can do so much for these
[59:02] public officials. And in return, the public
[59:06] officials will turn a blind eye to what the mafia are doing.
[59:10] They will ensure that their criminal activities do not get
[59:12] investigated. And that's where a lot of
[59:14] corruption comes from, doesn't it?
[59:17] It's all making sense now. But if the authorities are being
[59:20] controlled by someone, it's hard to know who.
[59:23] Because Chelino Sanchez wrote so many corridos, so many narco
[59:28] corridos. And it really could be like any
[59:31] of the men that he wrote about, because they're all dangerous,
[59:35] they're all powerful, they're all violent.
[59:37] All of this could have just been payback for a bad lyric, like a
[59:42] verse that one of these men didn't like.
[59:44] Seeking revenge for unfavorable lyrics is actually a very real
[59:49] thing in the narco corrido genre even up until today.
[59:53] And it was for this exact reason that 25 year old Peso Pluma was
[59:57] warned with a death note only last year in 2023.
[1:00:01] If you don't already know who Peso Pluma is, to give you an
[1:00:04] indication of how famous this man is, he only released his
[1:00:08] first song in 2020 and now he is Mexico's.
[1:00:11] Most streamed artist His music varies between rap, reggaeton,
[1:00:17] authentic corridors, but more often than not he smashes all
[1:00:20] three of those things together. But Peso Pluma is a narco
[1:00:24] corrido singer first, his verses saying about drug Lords,
[1:00:27] cartels, crime and his music videos don't try to hide it
[1:00:31] either. And it was these sorts of lyrics
[1:00:33] that got him served with a public death note across a
[1:00:37] bridge in Tijuana. It was a direct message for him
[1:00:41] from the Tijuana Cartel, and it was all because they were
[1:00:44] offended by one of his lyrics. The bit that they didn't like
[1:00:48] was basically where Peso Pluma was singing the praises of an
[1:00:51] old drug Lord, saying that they were good to the people of the
[1:00:54] city, but he had since retired or something.
[1:00:57] And when the new cartel that was running that city heard this
[1:01:01] song from Peso Pluma, they kind of took it as Peso Pluma saying
[1:01:05] that the old drug Lord was better, he ran the city better.
[1:01:09] He hadn't even said a word about the new people that that were
[1:01:12] running it. It was nothing to do with them.
[1:01:13] It was just a comment on the old guy that run it.
[1:01:16] But they took it so, so personally.
[1:01:18] It's actually giving that meme, you know, that you can't say I
[1:01:21] like pancakes because some bitch is going to come in like, so you
[1:01:24] hit waffles. It's like, no, those are two
[1:01:25] completely separate statements. And he'd never made a statement
[1:01:29] on the new people running it. But still, they were pissed.
[1:01:31] And so they decided to publicly confront Peso Pluma with a big
[1:01:35] banner on a bridge. And luckily authorities acted
[1:01:38] very quickly. They ended up arresting a guy
[1:01:41] who was putting up a second banner in a different part of
[1:01:44] the city. He was working on behalf of the
[1:01:46] cartel. That's how we know exactly where
[1:01:49] these warnings have come from. He was arrested.
[1:01:53] The banner that he was putting up was practically the same as
[1:01:55] the other one. But maybe this modern tale of
[1:01:58] death notes and angry drug Lords can shed some light on Chelino
[1:02:02] Sanchez's murder. Maybe it could have just been
[1:02:05] over some song lyrics. Maybe Chelino had pissed off the
[1:02:08] wrong person, a person who had the power to see him dead.
[1:02:13] And when he wrote so many songs about so many different drug
[1:02:16] Lords, like I say, it's very hard to pinpoint who it could
[1:02:20] have been. Chelinos band have a theory that
[1:02:23] the whole Sinaloan tour, you know the three day hometown
[1:02:27] tour, they think it was just it, it was a trap to get Chelino
[1:02:32] back into the city so that these people back at home could get
[1:02:37] him. Maybe some drug Lord paid to
[1:02:40] have these concerts put on, give Chelino a reason to want to come
[1:02:44] and show his face. But the whole time as Chelino
[1:02:47] was counting down the days of Tor, a drug Lord was counting
[1:02:51] down the days until he finally had Chelino Sanchez dead.
[1:02:55] Maybe even Chelino himself could have known it was a trap.
[1:02:58] But he was a very proud man. He lived by his honor and his
[1:03:02] word and he was never going to cower from a trap or from a
[1:03:07] threat. He had promised a three show
[1:03:10] tour in his hometown and three shows he was going to give.
[1:03:14] In the wake of his death, Chelino left behind a young
[1:03:17] family and a huge impact on the rise of the narco corrido genre.
[1:03:22] In 2002, Chelino's son and Sanchez actually grew up to be a
[1:03:27] musician and he paid homage to his father on a mixtape where he
[1:03:31] mixed both of their vocals so that it sounded like they were
[1:03:34] singing together. Sadly, 2 years after that, in
[1:03:38] 2004, Aiden died in a car accident a month before his 20th
[1:03:43] birthday. But the strangest part is the
[1:03:46] car crash that he died in was in Sinaloa, the same place that his
[1:03:51] father died. And remember, Aiden was born and
[1:03:54] lived his whole life in California.
[1:03:56] It just seems like too much of A coincidence that he was back in
[1:04:00] his hometown just like his dad was, and they were both killed.
[1:04:04] But cue the rumor mill. The people of Sinaloa actually
[1:04:07] have their own theories and they believe that Aiden was shot,
[1:04:11] murdered. There are rumors that his body
[1:04:14] had bullet wounds, but his autopsy was kind of covered up.
[1:04:19] It was a secretive job, and his case files are never going to be
[1:04:22] released, just like his father's.
[1:04:24] And so for that reason, just like his father's murder, I
[1:04:28] doubt we'll ever have 100% accurate information.
[1:04:32] While Cholino's concert in Sinaloa in May 1992 was his last
[1:04:36] in body, he did make it back to the stage at Coachella one more
[1:04:40] time in Spirit, this time on Coachella Festival's Mainstage
[1:04:45] in July 2024. Peso Pluma paid tribute to his
[1:04:49] idol, plastering Cholino's picture on the board behind him
[1:04:52] as he made his entrance. He was clearly so proud to not
[1:04:56] only share a connection with Cholino Sanchez in music, but
[1:04:59] also so now a connection in the shared experience of Death
[1:05:03] Notes. As you guys know, we like to
[1:05:05] call attention to a charity towards the end of my videos and
[1:05:08] today I'd like to bring attention to the undocumented
[1:05:11] people that make the very scary journey across the Mexican US
[1:05:14] border, specifically children. To have to go through a legal
[1:05:19] system that determines your future is terrifying at any age,
[1:05:23] but for a child it's traumatizing.
[1:05:26] Kind is a charity that stands for Kids in Need of Defence.
[1:05:30] They protect unaccompanied children who enter the US
[1:05:33] immigration system alone from Mexico.
[1:05:36] They ensure that no child appears in court without an
[1:05:39] attorney and they continue to support the child, seeing that
[1:05:42] they are looked after and not neglected by the system.
[1:05:46] So if you'd like to find out more information and please do
[1:05:48] consider donating, there's a link to Kind down below in the
[1:05:52] description of this episode, or you can go to supportkind.org.
[1:05:56] In all honesty, Chelino Sanchez's murder seems like a
[1:06:00] case that is not allowed to be solved, leaving us to speculate
[1:06:05] and theorize the most likely cause.
[1:06:10] Thank you so much for listening to usual disclaimer.
[1:06:13] At this point, I just want to say that if you've been affected
[1:06:16] by any of the topics we discussed today, please check
[1:06:19] the description where we've left some helpful resources.
[1:06:22] If you want to hear more cases like this one, make sure to
[1:06:25] follow Usual Disclaimer on your podcast app so that you get
[1:06:28] notifications when we post new episodes.
[1:06:30] And if you really enjoyed, I'd love it if you could leave a
[1:06:33] rating and a review too. Usual Disclaimer with Eleanor
[1:06:37] Neil is an Audio Boom Studios production.
[1:06:39] See you next time.

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