Who was ‘El Piturris,’ the Mexican influencer killed in Sonora?

Years before he was killed in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora, the influencer José Luis Esparza Güicho came to be known as “El Piturris.” The nickname originated from one time during his childhood when Esparza’s father came home drunk, Luis Antonio Escalante, the producer of Esparza’s podcast, told CNN. His father tried to call Esparza by the name “Pirruris,” a famous television character at the time. Instead, he drunkenly called him “Piturris.” “Then, as a joke among the other family members, ‘Piturris’ stuck,” Escalante said. Many years after that story, this would still be the nickname by which Esparza was known — not only within his family, but also on social media and on his podcast La Guarida, which had launched one year ago. Luis Alberto González, who is called “Huicho,” is the show’s co-host and Esparza’s friend for more than two decades. He says it was always easy to work with Esparza to record the episodes, in which they shared their life experiences and exchanged jokes. “It was easy because Piturris, more than anything, wasn’t a character. He was a person whose anecdotes, stories and everything he told on the podcast were real; they were people’s lived experiences,” González told CNN. “I think we were successful because things happen to all of us in life, but we look at them differently by laughing at what happens to us. You tell what happens to you every day as a joke, and people identify with it,” he said. The latest episode of La Guarida featuring both hosts was posted on YouTube on Wednesday and received more than 34,000 views. On Thursday night, hours after Esparza was killed, Escalante said in a video that they had already recorded two more episodes, which will be released in the coming days. From the family business to social media Esparza was 37 years old and the father of a young boy. He was active on Facebook and Instagram, where he shared images of his family, humorous content, and videos of himself singing banda music or visiting public places. Over time, his content gained traction, reaching a combined audience of 130,000 followers on both accounts as of Saturday. González says Esparza was very outgoing from a young age and liked spending time with older people. Escalante says that when they began developing plans to launch La Guarida, they thought of Esparza as a host because he was “easygoing” and people liked him. Before becoming an influencer, Esparza worked in the family business: a taco restaurant located in downtown Ciudad Obregón, a city in the southern part of Mexico’s Sonora state. Esparza’s family ran the restaurant, called Los Güichos, for about 50 years, as it became very well known among locals, Escalante said. Even while growing as a content creator, Esparza continued working at the restaurant. The business would also become the site of his killing. On Thursday morning, an armed man arrived at the establishment and shot Esparza, before fleeing on a motorcycle with another person, according to the Sonora Attorney General’s Office. On Friday, the Attorney General’s Office said it was investigating a possible connection between Esparza’s death and another killing that occurred Wednesday in the nearby town of Cócorit, in which the target was a relative of Esparza by marriage who allegedly wrote songs for a criminal organization. “Based on this information, one of the main lines of investigation is that the homicide may be related to a confrontation between criminal groups linked to drug trafficking. The Attorney General’s Office is continuing its investigation to determine the involvement of those responsible,” the office said in a statement. ‘Keep your spirits up’ Esparza’s death is the latest case in a series of murders of Mexican influencers over at least the past two years. There is no official record of how many influencers have been killed in Mexico. According to a CNN tally, there have been nine cases in the state of Sinaloa alone since 2024, while others have been recorded in states such as Baja California, Jalisco and Morelos. As the investigation into Esparza’s killing moves forward, a memorial Mass was held on Friday. His friends and colleagues continue to express their condolences. In a video posted to social media on Thursday night, Escalante offered his condolences to Esparza’s family and said that the La Guarida team would take some time off. “What we did was spread joy, and we need to heal and be well before we can continue our work,” he said, his voice breaking as he recalled a phrase Esparza often used to end his videos: “Keep your spirits up.” González also remembers those words, which he considers emblematic of the friend with whom he shared the microphone. “His motto was ‘Keep your spirits up.’ That was his motto, because he was a taco vendor… he was a taco vendor who looked at life and lived like someone who lacked nothing, even though he did face hardships,” he said. “On every podcast, he would crack open a large bottle of beer, and his motto was to keep your spirits up, you don’t need much to be happy. You can have 99 problems, and if you have just one reason to be happy, that’s enough,” González said.