Francisco Antonio Manzanares, aged 77, and Juana de Manzanares, aged 75, parents of Radio Venceremos co-founder and recognized FMLN militant Marina Manzanares, were brutally tortured and murdered in their Suchitoto home early on the morning of July 1. Their death squad style assassinations have sent shockwaves through the Salvadoran left. Radio Venceremos was the FMLN's underground radio during the war

The elderly Manzanares couple and their daughter Marina, known during the war as Mariposa, had received death threats in recent months because of their political work. On Sunday, the parents were brutally murdered after they were beaten, stabbed, and burnt by a group of heavily armed men dressed in civilian clothing who then proceeded to scatter oil all over the floor to cover up any evidence.

The gruesome killings are the latest in a string of repression and violence against activists. While Mariposa's parents owned a small store, nothing of value was stolen, re-enforcing a hypothesis that the killings were inspired by political motives. "They stole everything that was red. FMLN t-shirts and posters, the ones of Schafik [Handal], also the ones of Monse