Beauty pageant winner 20-year old Maria Susana Flores Gamez was killed when she was caught in a gun battle between the military and drug traffickers in the Mexican state of Sinaloa according to authorities.
The beauty queen was killed and when authorities found her she was laying at the side of a road with an assault rifle next to her according to boston.com.
CNN reported that Gamez had some connection with the gang and in the deadly shootout two other men were reportedly killed.
''She was with the gang of criminals, but we cannot say whether she participated in the shootout,'' state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said. ''That's what we're going to have to investigate.''
Mr. Higuera said that Gamez was travelling in one of the vehicles that engaged the soldiers what followed was a lengthy pursuit on Saturday between the gang and Mexican law enforcement.
Higuera said that gunmen opened fire on a Mexican army patrol in the municipality of Mocorito. Mexican soldiers detained four and seized six vehicles, drugs and weapons from the bandits.
Gamez won the 2012 Woman of Sinaloa in a beauty pageant in February and had entered in another state beauty contest, Our Beauty Sinaloa but didn't win.
Paying tribute to her life were pageant organizers who came out to talk about the promise Gamez had.
"We are dismayed by the news -- a beautiful young person, happy, and with a big future ahead of her, " the pageant organizers said. "Rest in peace Susy."
