CIUDAD JUAREZ – Five women were murdered in northern Mexico and a woman was beheaded in the southern beach resort of Cancun, authorities reported Monday.

Three women were murdered in Ciudad Juarez, on the border with the US state of Texas and ground zero for drug-related violence: one was shot ten times, another was beaten to death with a baseball bat and a third, a schoolteacher, was also beaten to death.
In Baja California state, two women were found shot to death in Mexicali, also on the US border, the Attorney General's office said.

In the Caribbean tourist mecca of Cancun, a 19-year-old woman was found beheaded in a sports stadium. The victim, a suspected prostitute, had a relationship with a police officer who was murdered last week, the office said.

Mexico is in the throes of a drug-related crime wave, chiefly in the north, that has killed 2,300 people so far this year, and more than 14,000 since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and deployed 50,000 troops to fight violence.