Death may be swift to some people, but how they die sometimes matter a lot to the living.
Especially when it involves murder, and criminals.
Landy Milena Párraga Goyburo, the beauty queen from Ecuador, was only 23 years old, when she was gunned down by assassins in a restaurant.
The former Miss Ecuador contestant who represented Los Ríos Province in 2022, was also an social media influencer with more than a million followers across her social media accounts.
The police who investigate the case, working to discover the motive and identify the assailants responsible, found that Párraga was linked to gangster boss.
Because of this, she had to pay with her life.
In a harrowing footage circulated heavily on social media, Párraga was with a man at restaurant in Quevedo, a city in Ecuador located in the Los Ríos Province.
The pair was standing, casually talking, when two men sneaks into the restaurant.
What follows looks like a series of premediated actions, one of the men stands by the door to keep a lookout, while another walks fast to approach Párraga and the man she was talking to, charging towards them with a weapon in hand.
The assassin then quickly opens fire, shooting towards both Párraga and the man.
After seeing Párraga collapsing, the man fired yet another round of bullets to her body.
After seemingly emptied his handgun, the two men fled the scene.
The beauty pageant queen is left motionless on the floor, lying in a pool of her own blood.
Everything was caught on camera.
Investigators recovered Párraga’s body, and began investigating the murder case, trying to connect the dots, by looking at how Párraga lived her life.
It's apparent, that she was involved in something that put her life at risk.
The woman who also has her own sportwear line, made headlines back in December 2023, when her name was clearly mentioned in a chat between slain drug trafficker Leandro Norero and his accountant, Helive 'Estimado' Angulo, by the Attorney General's Office as part of a major organized crime case it is investigating.
Born in 1986, Norero was considered one of the "invisible drug traffickers" who operated in Ecuador, and had built a powerful organization dedicated to money laundering.
During Angulo’s trial, prosecutors revealed that Angulo told the drug trafficker, whose assets he managed, that the police had asked him about Párraga.
Norero the "El Patron," responded by begging Angulo in a 2022 message to help keep his connection with the beauty queen hidden.
Norero was arrested in a so-called 'Metastasis Case'.
"If my wife comes across anything about her, I’m screwed," Norero wrote.
"My friend, her name cannot come out anywhere. Otherwise, my world will come crashing down."
In other words, Párraga was linked to drug trafficker Leandro Norero, after the gang leader's accountant asked about their connection.
Párraga was never prosecuted for any crime relating to the drug lord, who was killed in prison in 2022, six months after his incarceration.
Párraga also had never publicly commented on the case.
Because of this link, investigators deduced that the gangster went after her.
The investigators who work to discover the motive and identify the assailants responsible, think that the murder didn't happen solely because of her relationship with the gangster leader, but because there were money transfers made to Párraga's bank account.
Long story short, investigators revealed the darker truth behind the glamorous lifestyle Párraga portrayed on social media when she was still alive.
In her final Instagram post made at the beach on Wednesday, Párraga wrote: "The world is an echo, what you send into it, you get out of it."
The shocking daylight murder happened as the once peaceful Ecuador's murder rate has spiked more than 250% since 2020.
During the span of just a few years, murder rate has soared to record levels as Mexican drug cartels take over the territory.
From beheadings, port massacres, to public hangings and torture, the South American country is suffering a serious wave of loss of human lives.
Before this, there has been several gang-related murder cases.
From the case of a 17-year-old YouTube murdered by a notorious Mexican drug dealer, and another YouTuber who was killed by cartel members.
Then, there was the case, where a female gang leader, a social media influencer and model, was murdered.
