Law-office shooting in Mexico claims 7 lives

A seventh victim gunned down in a private law office in central Mexico died at a hospital Friday as police investigated whether the assault was linked to organized crime, state prosecutors said.

Five men and a woman died Thursday in the attack in the city of Guadalajara, according to the Jalisco state Attorney General's office.

Three were lawyers and the others were employees, and some of the victims were found with their hands tied. Authorities had not made any arrests.

Another victim, a 27-year-old attorney, was shot in the head and died the following day, the office said in a statement. A 23-year-old female employee was wounded and being cared for at the same hospital, but there was no word on her condition.

Several leading Mexican newspapers reported, citing anonymous state judicial sources, that one of the lawyers may have been defending Archivaldo Ivan Guzman — the son of alleged Sinaloa drug cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The elder Guzman escaped from federal prison in 2001 in a laundry cart after bribing guards.

The son, also known as "El Chapito" — or "Little Chapo" — was sentenced in February to five years for money laundering.

Authorities were combing the lawyers' files for evidence of links to organized crime but could not confirm or deny the media reports.

In recent years, Mexico has suffered a wave of organized crime and drug-related violence that killed more than 2,500 people last year alone.