The preferred form of cruelty by drug cartel henchmen is to capture enemies and behead them, a once-shocking act that has now become numbingly routine.

Since March 22, authorities have come across four separate grisly scenes of beheaded bodies, in one case with several heads placed neatly in a row.

Dozens of people have been decapitated in recent months, most of them apparently members of rival drug gangs locked in turf battles over narcotics routes, betrayals of loyalty and territorial influence.

One morning earlier this week, four bodies were thrown on a sidewalk along a service road of radiator shops and garages abutting the main highway leading from Mexico's capital through this city to the south and on to Acapulco, the Pacific beach resort. One of the bodies was missing its head.

As is usual in drug-related beheadings, a sign was left next to the bodies. It was addressed to Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a Mexican-American drug trafficker known by the nickname La Barbie because his light complexion makes him look like Ken, the companion of the Barbie doll. "Here are your homosexuals," the note began. "This will happen to all the traitors and those who support you."

Within hours, government workers had carted away the bodies and scrubbed the scene nearly clean of bloodstains. Locals declined to talk.

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