Teenage Honduran beauty queen found murdered days before Miss World competition

A beauty queen has been found murdered with her sister just days before she was due to compete in the Miss World pageant in London, Honduras police have announced.

Maria Jose Alverado, 19, and her sister were found buried near a river in the mountainous Santa Barbara region, around 110 miles from the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, the senior police officer investigating the murder said.

Interior Minister Arturo Corrales told Honduran media that Plutarco Ruiz, the boyfriend of the beauty queen's sister, was responsible for the crime. Police arrested Ruiz and another man on Tuesday, confiscating two pistols.

The teenager and her sister had been missing since 13th November, when they were last seen leaving a party in a mysterious car.

Alverado was crowned Miss Honduras World in April 2014, beating 18 others to the coveted title. She was a student who had plans on forging a career as a diplomat, Reuters report.

Chairman of the Miss World competition Julia Morley issued this statement:

Honduras has a reputation as the world's most violent country with a murder rate above 90 people 100,000 - roughly double that of Venezuela, El Salvador and Belize.

A recent expansion of drug cartels from Mexico has also seen an increase in violence in the South American nation, and the country is now a major trafficking port for cocaine into the United States and Europe.