Emilio franco biography

Early one morning last November, Emilio Franco and his wife awoke to the noise of men breaking into their Downey home.

When the two intruders burst into the couple’s bedroom, Franco was prepared.

Years earlier, someone had threatened to kidnap his son, and ever since he’d kept a loaded .45-caliber pistol by his bed, his attorney says. According to family members, Franco scuffled briefly with the strangers before gunfire erupted.

Police arrived to find one of the intruders critically injured and Franco dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. Franco’s wife survived. The second attacker escaped and has not been found.

The slaying generated little notice in English-language media. But Franco’s death stunned many in the Mexican immigrant community in Los Angeles and across the border in Mexico.

Franco was a nightclub owner and showman who helped promote the wildly popular narco-corrido music scene that took root in Southern California. Singers launched careers at Franco’s clubs, belting out corridos -- ballads with a polka beat -- about drug smugglers.

The b

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