Twenty years after the murder of Valentín Elizalde, his cousin Tano Elizalde—the sole survivor of the attack—has broken his silence in the HBO Max docuseries *Valentín: La muerte del Gallo de Oro*. For the first time, he recounts in vivid detail the moment the singer and his companions were killed during an armed attack in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, in the early hours of November 25, 2006, shortly after a concert.
This testimony appears in the second episode of the production, directed by Ida Cuéllar and released on the streaming platform on November 12. Tano, the singer’s cousin, reconstructs the events leading up to the attack, the shooting itself, and his subsequent escape—all while addressing the suspicions that have, for nearly two decades, pointed to him as a potential orchestrator of the ambush.
According to Tano’s account, on the night of November 24, 2006—as the group sat inside their SUV following the concert—he was “feeling a bit unwell” and suffering from vertigo, though he never mentioned it aloud. “I never complained—not at all—I just kept pushing forward,” he says in the docuseries.
He describes how, as they were leaving the venue, another silver Suburban blocked their path. Two men stepped out, one approaching each side of the vehicle.
“They reached Valentín and said, ‘Valentín, come with us,’” Tano recounts. The singer’s response, according to his [Tano’s] account, was blunt: “No, sir, I’m heading out now”—as if to say, “I’m leaving in my own vehicle; we’ll just follow you.”
Following that exchange, the men pulled away, stopping 200 or 300 meters down the road and pretending to urinate on the roadside, while Valentín’s vehicle continued moving behind them.
Yani Camarena, Valentín Elizalde’s representative in the United States, casts doubt on Tano’s version of events. He asserts that, on that particular night, Tano was not sitting awake next to Valentín as he usually did; instead, claiming he felt unwell, Tano had moved to the very back row of seats and was lying down. “That day, Tano went and lay down in the back seat of the Suburban,” he notes.
According to Tano’s account, the attack began when one of the individuals returned toward the singer’s vehicle. “Raymundo Ballesteros rolled down the window as the person approached, and the individual fired shots from above—he [Valentín] fell dead,” Tano recounts, reenacting the scene with a car. A second assailant immediately opened fire on the entire vehicle, “spraying the SUV with gunfire in a sweeping motion,” he describes.
Tano claims that his reaction during the barrage was instinctive: “At that moment, I just threw myself down—I curled up into a ball inside the vehicle.” He admits that, at the time, he couldn’t process what was happening: “I truly couldn’t grasp what was going on in that instant. I didn’t know if it was a movie or what was actually happening.”
Once the assailants had retreated, Tano says he reacted immediately: “As soon as I heard the other vehicle driving away, I got up and jumped [into the front seat].” “So I jumped over and grabbed Valentín,” he recounts.
According to his account, he held the singer by the back and told him not to leave, but the body was no longer responding. “That’s when he slumped to one side, and my arms just went limp. I leaned in, gave him a kiss, and my head started spinning,” he says—one of the most raw moments in the docuseries.
After confirming that Valentín, Mario Mendoza, and Raymundo Ballesteros had died, Tano describes getting out of the vehicle amidst the chaos and flagging down a taxi on the highway. He asked the driver to take him to Monterrey, but changed his mind, feeling he wouldn’t be able to endure the journey. “I’ll take you to a clinic instead,” the driver replied, according to his account.
