A 20-year-old state beauty queen was killed during a running gun battle between soldiers and the gang of drug traffickers she was traveling with in northern Mexico, the chief prosecutor of the state of Sinaloa said Monday.

It was at least the third instance in which a beauty queen or pageant contestants have been linked to Mexico's violent drug gangs.

"They are disposable objects, the lowest link in the chain of criminal organizations, the young men recruited as gunmen and the pretty young women who are tossed away in two or three years, or are turned into police or killed."