A CHILLING picture shows the horror final moments of five kidnapped students before one was forced to behead his own pal.
Childhood friends Roberto Olmeda, 20, Diego Lara, 20, Uriel Galván, 19, Dante Cedillo, 22, and Jaime Martínez, 21, were last heard from on August 11 in the town of Lagos de Moreno in Jalisco, Mexico.
The five men met up last Friday for a festival and were on their way home when they vanished.
Witnesses said a gang of armed men grabbed the group from their car and forced them into a white pick-up and a van with blacked-out windows.
A shocking photo later showed the terrified men on their knees with duct tape over their mouths with bloodied and bruised faces.
Footage showed three of the victims lying face down next to each other, while another is lying down in the background as his pal is forced to kill him.
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He was reportedly ordered to beat, stab and behead him.
The horrifying video of the beheading was broadcast on national TV in Mexico – with the brick wall behind the five men showing the logo of the cartel's enforcement unit.
The families of the students said the clothing and appearance of the men in the photos and video matched their missing relatives.
Four burned human skulls were found in an abandoned property in Jalisco on Wednesday.
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Cops found scattered trainers and blood stains – suggesting it was the grim location where the five men were held and murdered.
Two cars belonging to the missing men were found the day before – with one of them burnt out with the remains of a person inside.
Governor Enrique Alfaro has linked drug cartels to the case.
"What we are seeing here is an act clearly linked to organised crime," Alfaro said.
"These are irrational, violent and direct attacks against the stability of Jalisco state, and they demand a reaction from the government."
Officials in Jalisco said they were investigating the grisly video, but called for federal prosecutors to take over the case.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave no indication that the government would take over the investigation.
In 2010, the old Zetas cartel abducted men from buses and forced any who refused to work for the cartel to fight each other to the death with sledgehammers.
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The tragedy came to light in 2011 when officials found 48 graves containing the bodies of 193 people in the northern state of Tamaulipas.
Most of their skulls had been crushed with sledgehammers.
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