Police Find 5 Bodies in Rural Area Near Mexico City

MEXICO CITY – A phone call to a relative of a missing person led police to excavate a corn field in a farming town not far from the capital, and discover the decomposed bodies of five people, authorities said Sunday.

A man, who has not been identified, told the family of the disappeared person that 23 bodies were buried in a field at Almoloya de Juarez, a town about 60 miles from Mexico City, Mexico state attorney general's spokesman Alfredo Albiter said.

The excavation ended Sunday, and the forensics team found only five bodies, Albiter said. The bodies hadn't yet been identified and he didn't know if the body of the missing person was in the grave.

Mass graves have become an increasingly common discovery in Mexico's brutal drug war, which has claimed more than 35,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug traffickers in late 2006. Others put the dead toll at 40,000.

Several Mexican regions have seen a surge in violence often related to the drug business.

In the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, police found the decapitated body of a 25-year-old woman in the trunk of a sedan parked outside a home Sunday, Guerrero state police said. The motive for the crime were not clear.

Elsewhere in Acapulco, three men were shot dead in two separate incidents and their bodies left in public view in residential neighborhoods.