Mexico’s first openly non-binary magistrate — a vocal LGBTQIA+ activist — was found dead in their home Monday in an apparent murder-suicide, officials said.

The bodies of magistrate Jesús Ociel Baena, 39, and their partner, 37-year-old Dorian Herrera, were found on the ground floor of their residence in the state of Aguascalientes yesterday, local prosecutor Jesús Figueroa told Milenio.

Baena appeared to have been fatally stabbed by Herrera, who then took their own life with the same weapon, Figueroa claimed.

“The magistrate’s body has 20 wounds, one fatal in the jugular, and his partner has wounds on his fingers that are caused, according to experts, precisely by the use of the knife (…) it is used as an instrument of aggression,” the local official said of the troubling crime scene.

“We found footprints, both left and right, that correspond to the magistrate’s partner and we believe that according to the mechanics of the commission of the facts, the magistrate was deprived of [their] life on the ground floor…on [their] back,” FIgueroa continued.

Security cameras only showed the couple entering the home around 1:16 a.m. local time Monday – which preliminarily ruled out the possibility of an outsider intruder being involved in the killings, the prosecutor noted.

“There is no scientific information that allows us to establish that someone else entered, the only two people who were on the [property] are the two of them,” he noted.

“We see that the items of clothing they were wearing correspond to those they were wearing at the time they arrived at the [home], we see that these items of clothing are found in the bedroom where the blood prints were found.

“We believe that in the first moment there is a difference between them because the bodies were found on the ground floor.”

Authorities previously confirmed that the two deaths appeared to be the result of a “personal matter.”

Baena became the first openly non-binary person to hold a judicial position in Mexico in October 2022, when he was sworn in as magistrate in front of a rainbow LGBTQIA+ flag.

On Monday night, thousands of people marched in Mexico City to demand justice for Baena, whom many credited with breaking down barriers to queer and non-binary Mexicans in government and beyond.

“They were a person who received many hate messages, and even threats of violence and death, and you can’t ignore that in these investigations,” Alejandro Brito, director of the LGBTQIA+ rights group Letra S, said of Baena.

“They, the magistrate, was breaking through the invisible barriers that closed in the nonbinary community.”

One protestor, Nish López, said they came out as nonbinary in March this year in part thanks to inspiration from Baena.

“I loved them because they made people uncomfortable, but they knew what they were doing. Through institutions, they showed that you can inspire change regardless of your gender identity,” López said.

Baena regularly shared photos and videos of themselves in high heels, skirts, and makeup for their legions of social media followers.

“I am a nonbinary person. I am not interested in being seen as either a woman or a man. This is an identity. It is mine, for me, and nobody else. Accept it,” they wrote on X in June.

That same month, Baena was among the first group of people to receive a gender-neutral passport.

With Post wires