A journalist who told Mexico's president that she feared for her life was shot dead in Tijuana. She is the 3rd journalist to be killed in Mexico this year.

• Journalist Lourdes Maldonado López was shot dead in Tijuana, Mexico, on Sunday.
• López is the third Mexican journalist reporting on corruption and crime to be killed this year.

Mexican journalist Lourdes Maldonado López was shot and killed in her car in Tijuana, Mexico, on Sunday night, several years after telling President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that she feared for her safety due to her job.

López, who covered corruption in politics for a host of outlets over the course of her career, was the second journalist from Tijuana and the third Mexican journalist to be killed so far in 2022.

According to the Los Angeles Times, at a Mexico City press conference in 2019, López told Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that her situation was dire.

"I fear for my life," López told Obrador. She explained that she faced threats and was owed wages by Jaime Bonilla Valdez, who owned the media company formerly she worked for, and who was also the Baja California governor from 2019-2021.

During the press conference, the president made a promise that he would have his staff follow up with López when she returned to Tijuana.

The president's office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

López's killing comes days after Tijuana crime photographer Margarito Martinez was shot outside of his home on January 17. According to the LA Times, officials are investigating both killings, and the motives both were not immediately clear or made public. Reporter José Luis Gamboa, who also covered crime and corruption, was fatally stabbed in the state of Veracruz earlier in January.

The Baja California Attorney General's Office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on the killings.

In September 2021, the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists Jan-Albert Hootsen told Mexican freelance journalist Luis Chaparro — writing for Insider about threats he faced reporting in his country — that, "The most dangerous situation for journalists is when they touch in any way the interests at the crossing of organized crime and politics."

Mexico topped the Committee to Protect Journalists list for most dangerous countries for reporters in 2021. The organization registered three confirmed murders in Mexico throughout last year.

After López's death, photos circulated on social media showing her dog sitting stoically in front of the reporter's door, with the house wrapped in police tape.