The Matamoros Devil Murders (Part 2)

Summary

MORBID PODCAST: DETAILED EPISODE SUMMARY
THE MATAMOROS DEVIL MURDERS (PART 2)
Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
Released: May 25, 2026

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OVERVIEW

In this intense final installment on the Matamoros Devil Murders, Ash and Alaina dive deep into the horrifying and infamous 1989 cult killings led by Adolfo Constanzo on the Mexican border. Continuing from part one, they recount the details of the investigation surrounding Mark Kilroy’s disappearance, the ensuing discovery of ritualistic murders connected to drug trafficking, and the cult’s apostate use of religion as a guise for violence. The episode balances heavy research, chilling details, and the hosts' candid, sometimes irreverent conversational tone, providing thoughtful warnings on the graphic nature of the case and reflecting empathetically on its impact.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. Recap of Part One & Case Breakthrough [10:22]

• The previous episode ended with Mexican authorities raiding the Hernandez ranch and detaining multiple suspects. Most detainees were uncooperative except caretaker Domingo Bustamante, who revealed details about a captured American youth, verifying Mark Kilroy’s identity and tipping off investigators to a wider and more sinister case.
• "Domingo Bustamante’s statement broke the case wide open." – Ash [11:06]
• Seraphine Hernandez (“Little Seraphine”) is interrogated, pressured by Commander Benitez who dispels the group’s sense of ‘divine protection’, leading Seraphine to confess.

2. Gruesome Rituals & Mark Kilroy's Fate [13:58-24:32]

• Seraphine’s confession details the cult’s practices, asserting their actions were extensions of their perverted religion—he references (wrongly) “voodoo” but the hosts clarify the actual origins are in Palo Mayombe, an Afro-Cuban faith warped into violence by Constanzo.
  • "He told the commander it was our religion, our voodoo. We did it for success. We did it for protection. He told us kill would bring us power. He told us our souls were dead. When that happens, you can do anything to anyone, but you shouldn't want to." – [13:53]
  • Ash & Alaina emphasize this is not representative of true voodoo or Palo Mayombe, but instead a cult distortion.
• The hosts issue graphic content warnings before describing:
  • How Mark Kilroy was lured, kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and ultimately killed by a blow to the head from a machete in a shack used as a temple.
  • Constanzo removed parts of Kilroy's brain for use in a ritual cauldron, the nganga.
  • The cult planned to retrieve Kilroy’s decomposed vertebrae to make a necklace.
• "Mark's grave was marked by a wire sticking out of the ground… so when his body had completely decomposed, the cult could pull out the vertebrae to make a necklace." – Alaina [24:01]
• The hosts emphasize the sheer loss of humanity and empathy at the root of these killings, repeatedly expressing their horror and sorrow for the victims.

3. Discovery of More Victims and Forensic Evidence [25:44-29:46]

• Upon return to the ranch, authorities unearth 14 bodies, all brutally murdered in similar ways. One was a Hernandez family member, accidentally sacrificed in the chaos.
• "They would do whatever [Constanzo] wanted, no matter how heinous and especially if there was something they thought was to be gained from the brutality and the cruelty." – Alaina [49:49]
• Anthropologist Dr. Anthony Zavaletta helps law enforcement identify the nature/pattern of the rituals. Zavaletta, who had studied such religions for 40 years, was deeply disturbed:
  • "I've… been to places and seen things that ordinarily would make your hair stand on end. But I was not ready for what I encountered that day." – Zavaletta [28:45]
• Detailed evidence from the shack: remains of ritual "slop" in the nganga, a mix of human brains, animal parts, and bones. [29:18]

4. Adolfo Constanzo – The 'Godfather' and Cult Leader [30:10-40:56]

• Background: Born in Miami to a Cuban immigrant, raised Catholic with exposure to Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices. Known for being unsettlingly meticulous, retaliatory, and charismatic.
• Early warning signs: Animal heads left as threats. Local community saw “a divine gift”, but many were frightened.
• "If you teased him, he left a bloody animal head staked outside your door." – Alaina [32:08]
• Grows up to run spiritual services and modeling in Mexico City. Attracts wealthy clients for fortune-telling and curses (especially drug cartels), which draws him to the Hernandez gang.
• His high priestess, Sarah Maria Aldrete, was once an anthropology student—a jarring transformation noted by Dr. Zavaletta, who had known her as a smart, normal student. [42:10]

5. Cult Dynamics, Internal Victims, and Reckless Violence [47:14-49:02]

• Violence escalates, rationalized as part of rituals. Sometimes victims were selected randomly—one particularly shocking case involved a 14-year-old nephew of a cult member sacrificed by accident.
• Chilling point of no return as followers lose touch with reality, dehumanizing strangers and even kin in the quest for “protection” and power.

6. Law Enforcement Confronts Folklore & Cleansing the Crime Scene [51:03-53:49]

• Commander Benitez, drawing from indigenous traditions, halts investigation until a curandero ("white witch") neutralizes the lingering ‘black magic’. The ritual includes burning the shack and smashing the nganga, blending forensic procedure with respect for local spiritual beliefs.
• Discussion of cultural context and the need for police to accommodate spiritual rites when investigating cult crimes.

7. Aftermath – Capture, Sentencing, and the Kilroy Family's Response [54:31-61:05]

• Authorities identify three more victims; some others remain unidentified. After a convoluted manhunt, Constanzo is cornered and orders an accomplice to shoot him and his right-hand man, dying by murder-suicide. Other key cultists are arrested or (in a few cases) evade capture.
• Sarah Aldrete, Seraphine Hernandez, and other principals are sentenced in Mexico to decades in prison (ultimately 50-year sentences after reductions), while some—like Aria Ocoa—die in custody.
• Mark Kilroy’s family struggles with grief but establishes the Mark Kilroy Foundation, focused on substance abuse education for youth. His mother underscores the need for ongoing vigilance and street-smarts wherever you travel.
  • "They need to realize that they have to be aware of what is going on around them anywhere, not just in a foreign country." – Helen Kilroy [60:15]

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• “How are you this devoid of humanity?” – Ash, grappling with the cultists’ detachment after hearing how bodies were desecrated [24:06]
• “This is a human being who was going out for probably his last spring break with his best friends from high school who got snatched off the streets, and this is what happened.” – Alaina [24:10]
• “It’s so scary to me… Like, there’s one person involved in this [Sarah Aldrete]… she was just normal… and it seems like overnight.” – Alaina [24:32]
• “Some people just aren’t equipped with those emotions… that’s humanity. That’s empathy. That’s sympathy.” – Alaina [50:32]
• “The word is untethered—from humanity and reality.” – Ash [50:09]
• “You don’t know if they have good intentions. You don’t know anything.” – Ash, emphasizing street smarts in the aftermath [60:33]

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TIMESTAMPS FOR KEY SEGMENTS

• Case recap & confession breakthrough: [10:22–13:23]
• Description of Mark Kilroy's ritual murder: [17:03–24:01] (Graphic)
• Evidence at the ranch, discovery of 14 bodies: [25:44–27:33]
• Dr. Zavaletta’s horror & forensic insights: [28:45–29:46]
• Constanzo’s childhood and early signs: [30:10–34:22]
• How cult members were recruited (Sarah Aldrete): [39:53–42:10]
• Wider cult murder spree and gruesome error: [47:14–48:38]
• Law enforcement’s spiritual cleansing: [51:03–53:49]
• Apprehension of cult members, Constanzo’s demise: [56:22–57:57]
• Mark Kilroy Foundation & family’s message: [59:26–60:28]
• Reflection on evil, empathy, and resilience: [61:05–61:38]

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CLOSING & FUN FACT [61:50]

• To close, the hosts share a palate cleanser: “Sharks have been swimming in Earth's Oceans for about 400 million years, making them roughly 50 million years older than the earliest trees.” [61:50]
• Ash and Alaina discuss how the ocean's mysteries are still unsolved—ending the harrowing episode on a note of wonder at the natural world.

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SUMMARY

This episode delivers a meticulous and compassionate account of a truly monstrous true crime case, blending well-researched details with an accessible and authentic style. Ash and Alaina never shy away from the horror but balance it with context, empathy, and frequent reminders about the importance of vigilance and critical thinking. The episode serves both as a cautionary tale and a tribute to the victims and the survivors who turned tragedy into advocacy.

Transcript

[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

Some stains are downright frightening.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

You know your kids are always coming

[Ash]

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[Elena]

They always come home with those too.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

You can send your kid to school

[Ash]

in the same shirt they wore yesterday. As long as you've used this, it's great. I was making pastina the other day. If you know anything about me, I'm always making pastina. And one thing about that is there's turmeric in there. I splash turmeric all over myself like the broth, the turmeric broth.

[Elena]

And I was like, oh God, this

[Ash]

is never coming out of my shirt. Of course I was wearing a white freaking shirt that day.

[Elena]

I immediately put one of my Tide

[Ash]

Evos in there and ripped my shirt off, threw it in the laundry and prayed to the laundry gods. But I probably could have saved the prayer to the laundry gods because I think Tide Evo is the laundry gods. It's incredible. Stain came out. Shirt not ruined.

[Elena]

I was so happy.

[Ash]

Remember, even the creepiest stains don't stand a chance when Tide Evo is on the case. Try new Tide Evo.

[Elena]

Real laundry magic.

[Morbid Host]

Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena.

[Elena]

I'm Ash.

[Morbid Host]

And this is morbid.

[Elena]

Did you just hear my stomach grumble?

[Morbid Host]

Grumble, Lumble. It said it's usually my stomach that's going on.

[Elena]

I know. I don't know what's going on. Mine's loud. I just had a tuna sub.

[Morbid Host]

You did?

[Elena]

So I'm dad just.

[Morbid Host]

It looked wild, but I.

[Elena]

It wasn't good.

[Morbid Host]

Wasn't good? No. So we'll see how that pans out.

[Elena]

I know it wasn't bad. It was just like.

[Morbid Host]

It just didn't hit like you wanted it to.

[Elena]

No.

[Morbid Host]

That's the worst.

[Elena]

Yeah, I know.

[Morbid Host]

I hate that.

[Elena]

Hopefully I don't have to run out of here in the middle of this.

[Morbid Host]

Hopefully.

[Elena]

Imagine.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

You won't know. Listener. Yeah. So that's my lunch. That's.

[Morbid Host]

That's my lunch.

[Elena]

This over here. Shoveled some cheese fries in. She said, whatever. I'm having cheese fries.

[Morbid Host]

I did.

[Elena]

Said I won't be joining you.

[Morbid Host]

I really wanted some. I was craving some since I've been sick and I was like, give me it.

[Elena]

She wasn't sure how soon she could have cheese fries. Post naro.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. So I just. I went for it. I feel good about it, you know,

[Elena]

not only that, can I just call you a full. Full blast spicy chicken nuggets.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Who is she? How do you live this life? Who lives this way? I would if I could, but I cannot. I got a 6 inch tuna sub and I'm like, hopefully that's chill. Hopefully that's all right. Hopefully that's haze there. Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

I don't know. I. I'm like my dad.

[Elena]

I know that can eat anything.

[Morbid Host]

I'm just my dad. I can just eat things at all hours of night.

[Elena]

I know. You're crazy, girl.

[Morbid Host]

Spicy doesn't really bother me too much.

[Elena]

I love spicy, but spicy does not love me.

[Morbid Host]

And that's the saddest thing I know I've ever heard. I did.

[Elena]

I do go spicy sometimes. Like last night, but you pay for it. I got these little like. Like tater top Mac and cheese things that had buffalo sauce on them. They were good.

[Morbid Host]

That sounds good.

[Elena]

Know what, though? I paid for that.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, you pay.

[Elena]

I had to order Tums at 11pm Damn. But they make chewable Tums.

[Morbid Host]

Which.

[Elena]

Hey, and let me tell you, when I got those, Drew said, aren't they all chewable? And I said I meant chewy.

[Morbid Host]

Like chewy, like, like gummy.

[Elena]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're so good. I had to stop myself from eating the whole thing.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, you can't just eat tubs as a snack.

[Elena]

No. There's a whole warning label on the back.

[Morbid Host]

There's a whole warning that you can't eat.

[Elena]

You're not supposed to have more than six in like a 24 hour period.

[Morbid Host]

I had three in case were wondering.

[Elena]

It's like that Melissa McCarthy and bridesmaids. I took nine.

[Morbid Host]

I took nine. I think I've overcommitted me with chewy tongs.

[Elena]

I took nine.

[Morbid Host]

So in business, buy the Butcher Legacy. You can pre order it anywhere you want to pre order it.

[Elena]

I'm going to finish it this weekend.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, there's a lot of. There's some, there's some little announcements and little fun things that might be happening in the pre order space. So keep an eye on my socials next week.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

Because there's some cool stuff I get to tell you.

[Elena]

Perhaps a new series started.

[Morbid Host]

Perhaps a new series that I'm gonna do on socials. I don't know. Maybe.

[Elena]

Could be.

[Morbid Host]

Who could be? Sure.

[Elena]

We're really good at Easter eggs.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, yeah. So just, you know, keep an eye. Keep an eye. You know, keep two. And maybe it'll make you want to pre order because some incentives might be coming your way to pre order. So period.

[Elena]

Give a try. Give it a try.

[Morbid Host]

Hold on to that receipt.

[Elena]

Maybe.

[Morbid Host]

I don't know. But yeah, just go pre order it wherever you want.

[Elena]

Butchylegacy.com yeah, it's really, really good.

[Morbid Host]

Like you.

[Elena]

And I know I'm biased, but like, I'm not even being biased right now. I like this one. I love the first two. I like this one a million times more.

[Morbid Host]

That honestly, I love hearing that.

[Elena]

I like.

[Morbid Host]

It's.

[Elena]

The vibe is perfect. Yay. And we're back in New Orleans. I think that's important.

[Morbid Host]

We are back in New Orleans.

[Elena]

We're back in New Orleans. Like, it's the vibe and it's like how exciting time.

[Morbid Host]

I'm excited.

[Elena]

It's the fall time. Like, these are the things you got to tell people.

[Morbid Host]

It's true. I know I'm not good at selling my own book.

[Elena]

I'll help you.

[Morbid Host]

I appreciate it. That's why I need you.

[Elena]

Yeah. And because we're in the morgue a lot in this one.

[Morbid Host]

It feels there's a lot of morgue in this one. There's a. This one was the one I Had a lot of fun writing this one.

[Elena]

You can tell it. It comes through.

[Morbid Host]

And this one. And that's. I love hearing it.

[Elena]

It does.

[Morbid Host]

And yeah, this one was really fun. This one was, like, a long time coming. A lot of weird research for this one, I'm sure. Yeah.

[Elena]

I have to admit something. I love Jeremy. Honestly.

[Morbid Host]

That's okay.

[Elena]

I feel so wrong. I kind of wanted that.

[Morbid Host]

I wanted people to love him, but,

[Elena]

like, I want to punch him.

[Morbid Host]

Like, I wanted people to not want him to go away.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

But, like, hate him.

[Elena]

I'm, like, a little upset that he's behind bars.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Like, just let him live.

[Morbid Host]

Just let him live.

[Elena]

You know, don't, obviously, like, don't.

[Morbid Host]

But yeah, but he's fake, so just,

[Elena]

like, don't get mad at me for saying that.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. He's not real.

[Elena]

And I'm rooting for Ren at the same time.

[Morbid Host]

Of course.

[Elena]

You're like, I want her to kick him in the kneecaps.

[Morbid Host]

Who wouldn't? We love Ren.

[Elena]

I love her so much.

[Morbid Host]

My girl.

[Elena]

She's such a baddie.

[Morbid Host]

And she's friends with K. Scarpetta, so. Guys, did you hear that?

[Elena]

I know.

[Morbid Host]

Did you hear that?

[Elena]

Like, I'll never get over that.

[Morbid Host]

That Patricia Cornwell is like, I think Kay and Ren are really good buds.

[Elena]

I think they are too.

[Morbid Host]

And honestly, like, maybe that's true.

[Elena]

Maybe.

[Morbid Host]

And maybe if you pre order the

[Elena]

book, you can find out more about.

[Morbid Host]

Maybe you can find out more about that.

[Elena]

All right. I think we plugged the shit. That was the best plug.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, I think we did good.

[Elena]

I think we need to plug a little more like that because a lot of times we're just like, order it. Yeah, I know, but we. We don't have any detail.

[Morbid Host]

And I realize that's not good enough of an incentive to do anything is to just be like, pre order this.

[Elena]

Do it.

[Morbid Host]

You're probably like, shut the fuck out. What do you mean? Like, I get it. So hopefully that tickled your pickle a little bit.

[Elena]

I hope so.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Mikey said it didn't tickle his pickle. Mikey doesn't like. He gave us a thumbs up. I think that phrase is so funny.

[Morbid Host]

I do too.

[Elena]

What do you, like, tickle your fancy? Oh, he. Big eyes. He said, yes.

[Morbid Host]

Or like, blow your skirt up. Does that Blow your skirt?

[Elena]

Who loves to say that?

[Morbid Host]

I like that.

[Elena]

That didn't really blow my skirt up.

[Morbid Host]

I love that a lot.

[Elena]

What are you gonna say? Tickle your pickle.

[Morbid Host]

Sounds really kind of perverse to me. It makes me Uncomfortable when you say it out of your mouth.

[Elena]

I'm gonna keep doing it then.

[Morbid Host]

I love that a lot.

[Elena]

It does sound weird.

[Morbid Host]

It does.

[Elena]

Another thing that we should probably plug. Don't stop your timer just yet, Carl.

[Morbid Host]

Not yet.

[Elena]

We're still going. Not yet.

[Morbid Host]

Jason.

[Elena]

Is it actually Jason. I don't know. We are doing a fucking Radio City show.

[Morbid Host]

Yes. In case you didn't know.

[Elena]

In June. June 27th. June 27th. I should say that confidently. That's the date of my show and yours.

[Morbid Host]

It's gonna be awesome.

[Elena]

We just booked a special guest and I fear you're gonna shit your dicks. Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

So you gotta get excited.

[Elena]

You gotta book your tickets. We just booked. Can I just say something? We're having dresses made in Romania. Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

And we've never done anything like that.

[Elena]

We're getting Romanian dresses up in this bitch. And we're gonna shout out the maker once everything is, like, settled. Coolest people. Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

Coolest people. Truly.

[Elena]

I can't wait to, like, sing their praises.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. Honestly. Because let me tell you, Booktok, girlies and friends, you'll love this gal. You'll love her. So, yeah, just. It's just putting it out there.

[Elena]

I don't want to say too much, but you. So you need to get your ticket.

[Morbid Host]

Yep.

[Elena]

Book your hotel.

[Morbid Host]

There's not too many tickets left, so go get them.

[Elena]

Yeah. And you know what? You don't even have to stay in New York for the night. You could take a train.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, you can back. The train is nice.

[Elena]

I don't know how late it runs, but.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, whatever, you know, wander the streets a little bit.

[Elena]

I wouldn't go that far. That's insane.

[Morbid Host]

Wander the streets until dawn and then leave?

[Elena]

What the fuck? Actually, everything we tell people not to do, but.

[Morbid Host]

I'm just kidding.

[Elena]

All right, Carl. Jason, hit him.

[Morbid Host]

All right, Tell them the number. Yeah.

[Elena]

Let's go. So we finished part one, and the Mexican authorities had raided the Hernandez ranch and took multiple people into custody. Everybody was being very cocky. Seemed to kind of think they were untouchable. What? Like, weren't really saying anything? Aside from the caretaker.

[Morbid Host]

Yes.

[Elena]

Domingo Bustamante. He pretty quickly folded and told investigators everything he knew, including the fact that a young American man had been held at the ranch. And when he was shown a photo of Mark Kilroy, he confirmed, yes, that was the man he was talking about.

[Morbid Host]

I fear this is going to get really bad.

[Elena]

I would like to warn you at the top, this is a very. And I will. I'll Give you another little warning right when we're about to get into it. This is a very gruesome game.

[Morbid Host]

Yes. And from what I remember. Yes.

[Elena]

What happened to Mark Kilroy is unimaginable. It's heartbreaking. And I hate that his family has to know that. Yeah. Like, it's awful. But I do think, like we were saying in part one, it's such an important story to tell because these cases do become cautionary tales. And if it helps one person be a little more, you know, vigilant while they're traveling and just have more knowledge going in. Yeah. So Domingo Bustamante's statement broke the case wide open. Less than an hour later, little Seraphine was dragged from his cell and he was brought into one of the interrogation rooms. If you remember, he was the one who blew through the checkpoint.

[Morbid Host]

Yep.

[Elena]

This time Commander Benitez was in no mood for the 20 year old's cocky attitude and self certainty. He had had enough.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, I can't say blame them.

[Elena]

So after slamming the soda water and hot sauce concoction down on the table, he started rattling off every single detail they had learned about the operation at the ranch. From the moment that little Seraphine had blown through that checkpoint, all the way up to what had just happened in Domingo Bustamante's interrogation, he was like, we know everything, so you might as well talk.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Like you're not having divine protection.

[Morbid Host]

No.

[Elena]

It might have been the bottle of soda water and the hot sauce on the table. Or it might have just been Benitez's unwillingness to tolerate any more lies. Whatever it was, mystical protection or not, little Seraphine started talking.

[Morbid Host]

I feel like it was a good mix of all of it, but I really think that soda bottle. Yeah, maybe pushed it over the edge for me.

[Elena]

It would for sure be the hot sauce.

[Morbid Host]

That would be it.

[Elena]

The concoction of it all. So he started talking. He confirmed what the agents already knew, that they were running the drug smuggling ring out of the ranch. Moving drugs back and forth between Matamoros and Texas. And then he confirmed what they already suspected. They had murdered Mark Kilroy at the ranch. He told the commander it was our religion, our voodoo. We did it for success. We did it for protection. He told us kill would bring us power. He told us our souls were dead. When that happens, you can do anything to anyone, but you shouldn't want to. No. And I want to point out I know that what we're talking about here is not voodoo. I'm not super educated. That's A quote in voodoo at all. But that's a quote. And I know that. I'm sure this is vastly different, what we're talking about today than actual voodoo.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. Like that. This is. This was a quote from this person.

[Elena]

Exactly. So the interrogation took a little over five hours. And in that time, Benitez and the other agents in the room, they learned everything that they wanted to know about the smuggling operation, but also a lot of stuff that they were not prepared to hear. So the interrogation took a little over five hours, and in that time, Benitez and the other agents, they learned things that they needed to know, like about the smuggling operation and everything going on in that department. But they also learned a lot of things that they were not prepared for. Yes.

[Morbid Host]

Which I'm sure we are also not going to be prepared for.

[Elena]

I'm going to do my best to prepare you, but even that will not be enough.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So after the death of his uncle Saul and his father, Seraphine, little Seraphine, and the remaining members of his family's organization, they ended up joining forces with another gang led by El Padrino. That might sound familiar.

[Morbid Host]

Yes.

[Elena]

El Padrino was referenced in that wiretap call. Yep. So El Padrino happened to be Adolfo Constanzo, who we kind of touched on briefly in part one, but we'll get more into who he is in this part.

[Morbid Host]

Okay.

[Elena]

And this is the final part, just so you guys know. So it was Constanzo who forced them to adopt his religious practices, which were. It was like a bizarre perversion of Palo Mayombe, which was an Afro Cuban religion. It honors the dead and engages in rituals that involve human bones and some other things.

[Morbid Host]

Okay.

[Elena]

Now, Serafine told the agents Adolfo is very powerful, very smart. He runs our business in Matamoros. He has connections all over Mexico. Movie stars go to him. Congressman. So this is like a well connected guy. I don't know if Congressman actually went to him. That was alleged by. Not mean.

[Morbid Host]

And when you hear that, you're like, oh, okay, Period.

[Elena]

Got it. And just to be clear, again, like I'm describing, I'm like naming specific religions. This what we're talking about today. It's not these religions. Yeah. I don't know a lot about these.

[Morbid Host]

And these are religions that they reference, not us exactly.

[Elena]

But this is what they're saying it is. I'm sure it's not that at all. Like I said, it's like a perversion. But just I don't want anybody to think that I think that's what it is. Yeah, for sure. Or you either. So it was clear to Benitez and the others that Seraphine had a lot of respect for Constanzo, but there was also a lot more to it. It seemed like he almost worshiped him and also was terrified of him all at the same time.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, does seem like that.

[Elena]

Yeah. He kept on telling investigators we did whatever he asked, it's our religion, and if we didn't do as he said, he would kill us. Or worse.

[Morbid Host]

That's so scary to hear. Like, it's our religion. So we did it without being. Without question. It's like, that's not what religion is. No, not at all. It's not what it's supposed to be.

[Elena]

And for me, the scariest part of that is he would kill us. Or worse.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. It's like, what the fuck does that mean?

[Elena]

What's worse? Now, among the things Constanzo asked of his men was to procure sacrifices for Allegua, which is that trickster God that we referenced in part one. And that God would give powers and protections for in exchange for offerings, which I wonder.

[Morbid Host]

And again, I don't know anything about this, so this is me just wondering out loud. A trickster God, to me, seems like you can't trust that. I would think, because a trickster God is usually, like, tricky.

[Elena]

Tricky.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. Like, they're tricky.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

Like they're. You don't know if they're being for real or not. So it's just. It's an interesting thing here.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

That they're relying so heavily on it.

[Elena]

I know. Well, and that's the thing. Like, Adolfo Constanzo, he. He modeled his whole life over what he thought was appeasing this God.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. It's just interesting.

[Elena]

Now, one of those quote unquote offerings ended up being Mark Kilroy.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, that's awful.

[Elena]

According to Seraphine, Constanzo had instructed him to go into Matamoros the night that Marco missing, and he was to find somebody to sacrifice to the gods. This was not the first time they had done this. He said, Adolfo told us we had to go get a white male, a young white male, like a spring breaker.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, wow.

[Elena]

So they were, like, legitimately on the hunt for Mark Kilroy. It was getting late, and Hernandez and another gang member, Malio Torres, still hadn't found anybody. And then the bars let out, like I talked about, and the streets were flooded with people. Seraphine was standing on the street, and he actually saw Mark get separated from

[Morbid Host]

his friends because when he had to, like, relieve Himself.

[Ash]

Yep.

[Elena]

And they pounced on that. They pretended to sympathize with him. They offered, oh, we'll drive you back across the border. We will get you back to your friends, no problem. And this is where things start to get really rough. But there's another part where they do too. So I'm gonna warn you for both. So this is when they kidnapped Mark. They jumped him. They tied a blindfold around his eyes, they duct tape his mouth shut and just wrestled him into the Chevy Suburban. And as they stood there catching their breath, he actually managed to get out of the car and make a run for it.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, my God.

[Elena]

Which I think is one of the worst parts of this story. But they chased him down and dragged him back to the truck. So they brought Mark back to the ranch, and as Bustamante, the caretaker, had indicated, they left him in the truck overnight. And they promised him that as long as he complied with their demands, he was not going to be hurt. Which was never the truth. No, he was kidnapped to be a sacrifice. This is where it's going to get really bad. Just so everybody knows, like trigger warning. The next day, Adolfo Constanzo arrived at the ranch with about 12 of his followers. And they assembled inside the shack that they used as kind of like a makeshift temple. Like, according to them, the outbuilding was actually so innocuous that agents who were involved in the raid and who had been to the property passed by it countless times when they'd gone to the ranch and they had no idea what had taken place inside.

[Morbid Host]

And if they'd only gone in there, they would have seen he.

[Elena]

Sure, they may have. They would have found evidence of what had occurred. Yeah, that's what I mean.

[Morbid Host]

Like they would have seen that something happened in there.

[Elena]

Yeah, foreign. I think a lot of times when

[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Ash]

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[Elena]

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[Elena]

eligibility vary by state. So once everybody was gathered in the shack, somebody brought Mark from the car. They threw him down onto a tarp that had been laid out on the inside. He stayed blindfolded with his mouth taped shut, but they stripped him nude and then Constanzo beat, raped and tortured him before finally killing him with a Brutal blow to the head using a machete.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, my God. This is.

[Elena]

It's. We're still not past the worst of it.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

When Mark was dead, Constanzo reached into the wound that the machete had made in his skull and pulled out pieces of his brain.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, my. This is what they mean when they say killed or worse.

[Elena]

Yes. So the pieces of his brain were then placed into a metal cauldron like receptacle that Constanzo referred to as the nganga. According to Seraphine, this was where the gods received their offerings. He told investigators he wanted to put his brains in because he was going to give the spirits more power.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

I'm sure that this religion is not this.

[Morbid Host]

I really hope anything about it, but holy shit.

[Elena]

Now. When they had finished the quote unquote ritual, Constanzo instructed the men to remove Mark's body and bury him on the property. They dismembered the body before the burial, and when Seraphine was asked if that was part of the ritual, he was very blunt and told them no, it just made his body easier to bury.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, yeah. Jesus.

[Elena]

Mark's grave was marked by a wire sticking out of the ground, and the other end of that wire was tied to his spinal column so that when his body had completely decomposed, the cult could pull out the vertebrae to make a necklace.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

This is a human being.

[Morbid Host]

How are you this devoid of humanity?

[Elena]

This is a human being who was going out for probably his last spring break with his best friends from high school who got snatched off the streets, and this is what happened.

[Morbid Host]

I just don't get how you get here. Like, I don't get how you get so devoid of anything that makes a human being a human being. I don't understand how that just seeps out of you or was never there to begin with.

[Elena]

It's so scary to me. Like, there's one person involved in this who will talk a little bit about who she was before she got involved in this, and she was just normal. Like she was somebody that you might have hung out with after class or known or, like a friend of a friend.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit. And it's.

[Elena]

That's the thing. It's like, how do people become this deranged? What?

[Morbid Host]

I like it.

[Elena]

The time frame that it seems like overnight.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

It's so incredible.

[Morbid Host]

Like, how do you just start seeing your fellow human being as a sacrifice, as nothing, as something that's not you? Like, I don't. I don't understand that. I'll never understand that.

[Elena]

I Think it's power. And I think in this case, drugs.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

So the next day, Benita sat down with Seraphine again. And this time he recounted the details with the details of his confession for a video camera. When the interview came to an end, he told the investigators, you won't be able to keep us here. You'll see.

[Morbid Host]

Okay.

[Elena]

Really?

[Morbid Host]

I don't know about that.

[Elena]

You really think that your God's just gonna get you out of here for ripping somebody's brain matter out?

[Morbid Host]

So chilling, though, how confident they are that this is real.

[Elena]

Yep.

[Morbid Host]

And that they will not be punished for this. Yup.

[Elena]

So later that afternoon, the Fed swarmed the ranch for a second time, arresting anybody who was found on the property. And they set up a perime to search for more bodies. Because it turned out that while Mark was definitely the most high profile victim of the cult, he was not the only person who had been killed by these deranged animals. By the time they finished searching the property, investigators would exhume 14 bodies.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

14 bodies of other men, all of various ages. So they stood back while Seraphine worked at gunpoint, digging up one body after another from shallow graves. Like Mark Kilroy, a lot of the other men had been chosen mostly for their physical traits or characteristics that Constanzo believed would please the spirits. Including one boy who was a member of the Hernandez family who had been sacrificed when he was mistaken for somebody else.

[Morbid Host]

Wow.

[Elena]

One of their very own family members. And we'll get into that a little bit. Wow. According to the medical examiner, all of these 14 boys and men had been killed within the last nine months. And in each case, the cause of death had been a blow from a sharp object, which was presumably that machete.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

Everybody showed signs of having been tortured and sexually assaulted. And all had similar wounds to the ones that Mark Kilroy had.

[Morbid Host]

Jesus.

[Elena]

Now, while several agents guarded Seraphine and Martinez as they worked to unearth the bodies, countless others combed over the property, just collecting any evidence they could when they came to the shed. Apparently even the most hardened detectives who had spent years hunting down Mexico's most dangerous criminals, they were all shocked by what they described unanimously as a human slaughterhouse.

[Morbid Host]

That is the scariest thing I've ever heard. Yeah.

[Elena]

Now, Benitez, I think I mentioned it in part one, briefly. He had grown up in a traditional indigenous community, so he was aware of some of the characteristics of these different religions and whatnot and folklore and stuff. And folklore, yeah. So he had. He grew up hearing about all this, and that included all manner of spirits, magic, you name it. Yeah. A lot of times he was teased at the precinct for having such a strong belief in the supernatural. But this was the one time that most of the men who were working under him were incredibly grateful for his superstitious upbringing. When he learned of the potential cult related activity in the murders, he actually called on a doctor, a professor of anthropology, Dr. Anthony Zavaletta. And he was an expert in Afro Caribbean religions. So if anybody was going to help them navigate this whole unfamiliar world, it was going to be him. Yeah. Now, even with all of his experience, Zavaletta was horrified by what he saw on the ranch that day. Oh, I can imagine, he told a reporter. I've. I have 40 years studying Roharia, or witchcraft, and I've been to places and seen things that ordinarily would make your hair stand on end. But I was not ready for what I encountered that day.

[Morbid Host]

I don't think anybody could be.

[Elena]

How I. That's how you ever prepare yourself for that.

[Morbid Host]

This sounds completely out of the realm of anything you could conjure.

[Elena]

It really does. So, like the agents on scene, Zavaletta was most disturbed by the shack where Constanzo and his cult members performed their, I hate to even call them, rituals, because where they murdered people is what we should say. They're murders. Yeah. In the cauldron situated in the center of the shack, there was what still appeared to be brain matter, along with, quote, other organs and a mixture of slop and blood just still sitting there.

[Morbid Host]

This is like shit you would hear about in a horror movie that you're like, that's too far.

[Elena]

Yup.

[Morbid Host]

But this is real. Like this really happened.

[Elena]

This is real. Now, later, when the contents were analyzed, they would be identified as a combination of human brains, animal parts, chicken bones and other natural debris.

[Morbid Host]

Wow.

[Elena]

Upon leaving the shack, Zavaletta approached Benitez and told him, this is Palo Mayombe. You need to look for a Cubano. This is a Cuban doing this. It's not a Mexican.

[Morbid Host]

Oh.

[Elena]

And that was actually valuable information.

[Morbid Host]

Okay.

[Elena]

Now, like we know from part one, the local authorities in Matamoros, they were familiar with the Hernandez family, and we went over that. So when they learned of the activity at the ranch that involved Seraphine and the other members of the gang, most, if not all of the names were known to them. Yeah, all except one that kept coming up over and over again, especially after Seraphine gave his confession. Adolfo Canzonzo.

[Morbid Host]

El Padrino.

[Elena]

El Padrino, exactly. So Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo. He was born November 1, 1962, in Miami, Florida, to a 15 year old single mother.

[Morbid Host]

15 year old.

[Elena]

Her name was Delia Gonzalez and she was a Cuban immigrant. So obviously he too is Cuban. Yeah, so. So it's exactly what the. The doctor said.

[Morbid Host]

Sorry, there might be a plane landing on my house.

[Elena]

I know that was low, so. Like many single parents, Delia spent a lot of her life just struggling to support her family. Of course, because she didn't just have Adolfo as a son, she had two other children, too. She baptized and raised her kids as Catholics, but she also exposed them to voodoo and other Afro Caribbean language or religions that would eventually have, as we know, a very profound effect on Adolfo. Specifically, as a child, he was remembered as a very serious boy. People said he never laughed and that he was obsessively neat, like, kind of like ocd. It seems like he had. Author Jim Shoots wrote, even as a very little boy, he was meticulous in ways that seem strange to the adults around him.

[Morbid Host]

So I'm sure he was not getting a lot of support for that.

[Elena]

No, I don't think so.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

At an early age, he had a preoccupation with his clothing and his appearance specifically. And everybody, from neighbors to strangers, though they were constantly commenting on his looks. They thought he was beautiful. Oh, wow. Obviously he was not. As he grew older, the obsessive behaviors and his fixation on his appearance kind of became one of the things that he got teased for the older he got, which inevitably brought on the more spiteful and aggressive side of his personality. That's when it really started to come out. Jim Shoots wrote, on a few occasions when fellow students made the mistake of teasing Adolfo about his weird habits, the response was swift and unnerving. No one in Cuban Miami needed more than a few seconds to figure out the meaning of bloody animal heads and other signs that appeared the next day at the front door of the offending schoolmate's home.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

So if you were.

[Morbid Host]

I know I'm saying that a lot, but that's really, like, I'm just incredulous.

[Elena]

If you teased him, he left a bloody animal head staked outside your door.

[Morbid Host]

And was anybody thinking that, like, hey, these are red flags?

[Elena]

I guess it was the 60s question mark.

[Morbid Host]

Whoa.

[Elena]

I don't know. I don't know what the excuse is here for that.

[Morbid Host]

I don't know what decade. That would not be a red flag to me.

[Elena]

I don't know.

[Morbid Host]

Holy.

[Elena]

I'm sure it was a red flag

[Morbid Host]

to Others, Middle Earth, like, that's the Game of Thrones is really only where that would be acceptable, I think.

[Elena]

And even then, it was kind of red flag.

[Morbid Host]

And even then, you're like, oh, something's wrong here. Yeah.

[Elena]

I feel like this is going to go awry.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And it sure does.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

Now, under normal circumstances, his strange behaviors, aside from his retaliation, just, like, the fact that he was very meticulous and that kind of thing. Yeah. May have just been written off as, like, a phase that kids go through, but to his devoutly religious mother and the superstitious community that she was kind of specifically steeped in, it was something else. They saw his uncommon beauty and his ability to catch the attention of strangers and his organization and all of it as some kind of divine gift. That's what they always said. He had a divine gift.

[Morbid Host]

Okay.

[Elena]

But at the same time, shoots noted, most of the people in Cuban Miami who are around Adolfo and his mother for any length of time knew exactly what this little boy's demeanor meant, and it frightened them. So there weren't. There were people who saw these red flags, like.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. There were people who were like, this is not right.

[Elena]

It wasn't going unnoticed. But apparently they had a strong community around them that was willing to protect him and maybe was unwilling to believe that he was responsible for these kinds of things.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Also, neighbors had always thought that it was a little suspicious how Adolfo's father just disappeared one day about a year after they arrived in Miami. Huh. Yeah. His mother and his grandmother said that the father had just run away. But there were always whispers of Delia's practices of black magic, like how her new husband's business had gone from failing to prosperous seemingly overnight. And how that same husband seemed to be afraid of his eldest stepson, Adolfo, and the spiritual role that his mom almost seemed to be grooming him for. This was all talk in the town.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So when Delia's successful husband died from a sudden, mysterious illness in 1960, 1973, he left her and the children with a pretty decent inheritance. That meant that they didn't really have to work anymore to support themselves. Now, that didn't mean that Adolfo was now free to just, like, focus on regular things like schoolwork or spending time with friends. His mother assured him that he was much too special to worry about those mundane things. Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

We don't need to bother ourselves with things like friends.

[Elena]

Yeah. No.

[Morbid Host]

Why would you do that? Other human things, you know?

[Elena]

Now, here's the thing. For the worst thing Like, I want to know what she considered mundane and, like, not mundane, because she always loved movies, especially since she was, like, a kid in Cuba. She was. Was very obsessed with, like, movie stars and going to the movies, that kind of thing.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

And she loved how American movie stars, in particular, like, commanded attention and wielded power with the public. She found that fascinating. And, like, movies aren't mundane to you, but friends are, like.

[Morbid Host]

Well, I know that doesn't make sense. You know what? There was this era, though, that I feel like movie stars were otherworldly.

[Elena]

Yes.

[Morbid Host]

You know what I mean? Like, it was a totally different kind of era thing.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Well, she was confident, though, that her son Adolfo could command that same power. She said, movie star vibes just stop. Stop putting bloody animals.

[Morbid Host]

I was gonna say. There is that one little thing, though.

[Elena]

She wasn't worried that it was, like, gonna be a hindrance, though. Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

She's not worried about that.

[Elena]

Yeah, don't worry about that. Don't worry about the mundane things, you know? Now, by the time he was in his mid teens, Adolfo was providing spiritual services to the more superstitious believers in the Miami Cuban community, which, if he wasn't who he was, would be quite fascinating.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, for sure.

[Elena]

Like, I'm into spiritual services. Yeah. Not these kind, for sure.

[Morbid Host]

No.

[Elena]

Delia assured everybody that her son had great powers, and he could see things others couldn't. He could communicate with the spirit world. At first, it was just like the occasional housewife who went by Delia's to sit with Adolfo and have her fortune told, which, like, cool. But as months passed and word got out, the visitors became more frequent, and they brought money. So he was really making money at doing this. Now, when he graduated high school in 1980, with all his supposed gifts. Gifts. He saw no reason to go to college. He's gifted.

[Morbid Host]

No. That's mundane.

[Elena]

Yeah. College. But instead, he worked occasional odd jobs to make a little extra money beyond what he got from the fortune telling. But he mostly spent his time hanging out with his growing group of followers and exploring his sexuality with men and women. Now, on a trip to Mexico City in 1981, he was actually arrested for shoplifting, which is wild, because he had money.

[Morbid Host]

You're making money.

[Elena]

Not only is he making money, he was left an inheritance where he really didn't have to work anymore.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, yeah, that's.

[Elena]

That's. That's like thrill. He just liked money.

[Morbid Host]

Thrill.

[Elena]

And it also. It is the thrill of it, because it became a regular habit throughout the

[Morbid Host]

80s because remember, he doesn't like mundane. And he's been told all his life, you are not on this earth for mundane.

[Elena]

Right.

[Morbid Host]

So he's looking for that extra thing.

[Elena]

Well, and you're gifted, you're talented. Like you're not. You're. You're protected. I'm sure he thought by these, these gods that you're speaking to. So even though he had this like, shoplifting scent that he was. Was actually arrested for, he still managed to find success in Mexico, especially when he was offered a modeling job. To Delia, the job was further confirmation that he had the power and influence she always thought. So she moved with him to Mexico City in hopes that he would fulfill his destiny and she could be there to watch.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Of course. Now he actually did find a lot of success as a model. But it was his supposed supernatural abilities that he really became known for in Mexico City first, before he became known for what he's known for now. Eventually he started to offer his fortune telling services to the wealthy and elite of Mexico City. So when little Seraphine earlier was saying, like movie stars and congressmen. Yeah, it could have been right here.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, there you go.

[Elena]

Now, his most popular services actually weren't his fortunes, but instead became his curses. He offered to put curses on people's enemies for a price. That's such a.

[Morbid Host]

Bad vibes.

[Elena]

It is.

[Morbid Host]

It's bad vibes.

[Elena]

But this, this service became particularly popular and it makes sense. Among the local drug dealers and the cartels.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

[Elena]

It makes perfect sense. Now, it's unclear how he really eventually connected with these criminal gangs along the border, but it was probably the, the services that he was offering and his supposed gifts that drew everybody to him. And he found them to be easily manipulated through superstition.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So he saw his niche. Yeah, of course, it's a horrible thing, niche, but he identified it.

[Morbid Host]

He's jumping into it now.

[Elena]

In 1988, after Saul Hernandez and Seraphine Senior were killed and the Hernandez operation was in danger of falling apart, Elio Hernandez became the new de facto leader. He was pretty much as ruthless as his brother had been. His brother Saul. But he was still taking over an organization that was on the brink of collapse. Yeah. So he needed help. And he figured what they really specifically needed was good protection. And there was no better protection than magic. So Ilio set out to find the one that could guarantee their safety. And it seems that he likely met Adolfo Constanzo through Sarah Maria Adrete, who I mentioned was Adolfo's high Priestess? Oh, yes. In part one, she was a friend of Elio's who dabbled in black magic. And of course, as we know, she knew Adolfo. Now, at 22 years old, she was a college student and just living in Brownsville, Texas, when an unexpected divorce had her move back to Matamoros to live with her parents. She always talked about wanting to become a teacher.

[Morbid Host]

Oh.

[Elena]

So like I said, she was just a regular girly, going to college, wanting to be a teacher. And then she met Adolfo Constanzo.

[Morbid Host]

She's just gonna mold young minds.

[Elena]

She was going to mold young minds.

[Morbid Host]

Whoa.

[Elena]

Adolfo and Sarah met one afternoon in the summer of 87 when he stopped his car in the middle of a crowded street, causing a traffic jam just to meet.

[Morbid Host]

Whoa.

[Elena]

Apparently, this was like a thing in Matamoros. Like, men would put these big displays of affection on for women that they wanted to end up being with.

[Morbid Host]

It's like a peacock situation.

[Elena]

Yeah, very much so. Exactly. So she was familiar with this and she always found it kind of, like, repulsive.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. She's like, no, thanks.

[Elena]

But for some reason, there was something about Adolfo that she liked. She saw that he was gifted and talented. I guess now she didn't find him brash or overconfident. She said he was, or she felt like he was just magnetic. And it didn't take long before she was brought into the fold and familiarized with the ways of his religion, his quote unquote religion. But she probably didn't know that she wasn't the first woman to join his group. There had been actually two before her that served as high priestess.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, yeah. Where'd they go?

[Elena]

They mysteriously vanished within a year of meeting Adolfo Constanzo.

[Morbid Host]

You know what? It's not my business.

[Elena]

Isn't it weird how people just mysteriously vanish when they know him or his family?

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. There's a lot of mysterious vanishing happening here, and it's making me very uncomfortable.

[Elena]

Alina, it's just magic.

[Morbid Host]

I have anxiety listening to this.

[Elena]

It's a lot.

[Morbid Host]

Just because this world is like, everything about all of this, it's so dark. Feels so scary to me. Like I'm so anxious just thinking about it.

[Elena]

Yeah. Now, at first, what brought the Hernandez's and the Constanzo and Constanzo's followers together were the drugs and the money, not the religion. But in time, that changed because the deeper that they all got into Payo Mayombe, the more the spiritual practices and beliefs took over their lives. Now, to Tony Zavaletta, the doctor who Actually knew Sarah well. Wow. Her rapid transformation from a straight A student in his class. So literally the. The doctor that was brought in as an expert on this religion ended up knowing one of these followers because she was in his class that he taught.

[Morbid Host]

That's incredible. In the worst way.

[Elena]

It really is. He found her transformation to be almost unbelievable.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

He said she sat in miam anthropology class all semester. An A student, always present, always friendly. I never saw her wear an emblem, an amulet, a talisman, any sign of black magic. And I am trained to watch out for such things. I never heard her ask a weird question, even when we talked about weird religions.

[Morbid Host]

So it really was like night and day.

[Elena]

Switch. Yeah, light switch.

[Morbid Host]

Do you know that feeling when working out finally clicks? When you finally feel like you get in a routine, when you can see the results not just physically, but also like emotionally, mentally, all of it.

[Elena]

I don't know. Tell me about it.

[Morbid Host]

I'm gonna tell you about it because finally when it clicks for me is when I get that clear headed feeling I can. I actually look forward to my workouts because I feel like they're kind of like a reset for me.

[Elena]

Oh, heck yeah.

[Morbid Host]

Heck yeah. It's honestly, it's worth it. You're. It's worth it. It's an investment in yourself, in every

[Elena]

way that it can be.

[Morbid Host]

So I'm telling you, one way you can do this is with peloton. Peloton helps you unlock all the expansive, joyful feelings that somebody gets through movement. With the peloton cross training Tread plus, powered by peloton iq, Peloton IQ builds a workout roadmap that's completely yours. So you can stop overthinking and just move which is the hardest.

[Elena]

I love that.

[Morbid Host]

Peloton IQ provides intelligent strength coaching so you can stay in the moment. You can track every single rep, you can read every movement and guiding form in real time. So there's no second guessing because that's always my thing is I'm like, am I doing this right? And they're like, no, you're not. This is how you do it.

[Elena]

Don't second guess yourself, girl.

[Morbid Host]

Don't do it. So spin the swivel screen too and feel what's possible. Moving from running to strength seamlessly without breaking any flow. Because we don't want to break that flow.

[Elena]

Reach your flow state there.

[Morbid Host]

Honestly, honestly, the clarity that comes when you stop negotiating with yourself. I'll just do it tomorrow. I'll. I'll start it next week. Maybe if I get in this routine I'll feel better.

[Elena]

Don't talk about it. Just do it. Don't talk about it. Be about it.

[Morbid Host]

And take it from me, because I'm the person who will continue negotiating with myself until I'm 80 years old that I've yet to step on any single exercise equipment. So finally when I stopped and I just got on my peloton, I'm telling you it's an investment. It's a worthwhile investment in yourself. So let yourself run, lift, fail, try and go. Explore the new peloton cross training tread [e-mail] period.

[Elena]

Getting scared is one thing.

[Ash]

Getting a thrill is.

[Elena]

Well, you want more of those in your Life.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

Oh my God.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

to talk about that.

[Ash]

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[Elena]

Now, there's no way of knowing exactly how many people, unfortunately, were murdered by the cult between 88 and 89. But according to Gary Cartwright, the earliest victims were, quote, selected from the ranks of enemies, rival drug dealers or dirty cops who had gone back on an agreement. Yeah. Now, to Elio Hernandez, this made sense. He could appease Constanzo and also get rid of his enemies and rivals at the same time. Yeah, it was perfect for him.

[Morbid Host]

It makes sense in that way.

[Elena]

Right. But soon the murders became much more cruel, much more sadistic and very reckless. This is horrific. And we lightly touched on this earlier.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, boy.

[Elena]

In one instance when Elia was forced to shoot the man they planned to sacrifice before the ceremony began. So things went wrong. He sent out three of his henchmen to find a replacement. And any replacement would do. They said they just needed somebody stacked. So the followers did as they were told. And they grabbed a 14 year old boy.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, my God.

[Elena]

He had gone out in the night to look for a lost goat.

[Morbid Host]

Oh.

[Elena]

It was only later, when the sacrifice, AKA the murder, was finished, that Elio realized he had murdered his own nephew.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, my God.

[Elena]

Because before that, they had a hood over his head. But once they lifted the hood, he realized they had sacrificed, quote, unquote, his own nephew.

[Morbid Host]

What are the fucking odds of that?

[Elena]

And also, how do you put your head on the pillow at night doing what you do anyway? But it's so reckless now that you've accidentally shot your own family off the street.

[Morbid Host]

Street you have to be so detached from. Because anything even slightly resembling humanity, they

[Elena]

also continued on doing the same thing.

[Morbid Host]

That's the thing. Like, that didn't. That wasn't like a wake up call, like, shit's getting way too chaotic, like we need to take a step here.

[Elena]

It's insane. Now, by the time they killed Mark Kilroy, all of Adolfo Constanzo's followers had come to see him himself as some kind of God, like some kind of divine being. He commanded their respect. They were afraid of him. And as a result, they would do whatever he wanted, no matter how heinous and especially if there was something they thought was to be gained from the brutality and the cruelty. Because that's the thing. The more cruel, the more brutal, the more horrific these things, these. These murders were. They thought they were getting more benefit from that, more protection. I don't know how you rationalize that in your brain.

[Morbid Host]

That's the thing I. You have to be. So I keep going back to it. I'm like, how does this happen?

[Elena]

You have to lose total grip on reality.

[Morbid Host]

Like, you don't have any empathy for another human being. Like, I just. Like, I can't wrap my brain around

[Elena]

that and just like to be that untethered. I think, like, that's the word untethered

[Morbid Host]

from humanity and reality. Because, like, there's are people I can't stand.

[Elena]

Of course. Absolutely.

[Morbid Host]

But if I saw something horrible happening to them and they, like, cried or were upset, something in me would feel empathy and intervene and have to like, not be a part of that and like, not let that happen. It's like, people I hate. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's. I can't.

[Elena]

Because that's humanity. Like, that's empathy. That's sympathy. But some people just aren't equipped with those emotions. And a stranger. Yeah, too.

[Morbid Host]

That's the other thing. It's like you know nothing about this person's life or who loves them or who they love or what they're going through or what they had planned in your.

[Elena]

Just don't care.

[Morbid Host]

Intervening and removing it.

[Elena]

And you. And you feel entitled to do so.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, you feel entitled and you feel like you get something out of that.

[Elena]

It's like, that's so gross. I can't make sense of that.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Now, as soon as Commander Benitez saw the signs of witchcraft at the ranch. And his suspicions were then confirmed by Dr. Zabalett, he called the investigation actually to an immediate halt. The search would not continue, he said, until the black magic on the property had been neutralized.

[Morbid Host]

Because he knows about this.

[Elena]

He knows about this. And it's. It is taken very seriously in the. In these particular cultures. Yeah.

[Morbid Host]

You don't want to around with that. Honestly.

[Elena]

I know it sounds a little out there like. Yeah, what are you talking about? Magic? You have to neutralize the scene before you investigate. And I do think there were some things that were done that probably weren't great as far as investigation goes, but it works out. But like. Like, this is a deeply ingrained thing in these cultures.

[Morbid Host]

Well, you have to. That's the thing. And when a culture believes something to that extent and, like, the energy is put into it like that. You have to take it seriously and you have to do the correct steps to make sure you're doing everything right.

[Elena]

Right. Like, you have to allow them to do what they need to do for sure at the end of the day.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So Benita has contacted again. I hope I say this right. I know I'm just a little white girl girl, a curandero, which is a white witch, to come to the property and cleanse the area. But they wanted to wait until Sunday, which is the Lord's day, when the cleansing magic would be the most powerful.

[Morbid Host]

Okay.

[Elena]

So in the meantime, Benitez and the American authorities poured over Constanzo's journals and other evidence that they were able to get from the scene. They managed to round up several members of his gang, but he himself, El Padrino and his high priestess Sarah were still unaccounted for and presumably at this point, on the run. The journals indicated that his activity was obviously not confined to the ranch. There were other altars, quote unquote, around Mexico where sacrifices had been performed. Agent Rafael Martinez said another murder to appease the spirits and keep the fugitive free is not only a possibility, it's a probability.

[Morbid Host]

Damn.

[Elena]

Now, when Sunday finally arrived, the agents all gathered back at the ranch with. With several of their irritable American counterparts. And they watched as the white witch set about cleansing the property. The first step was to destroy the shack where the rituals had occurred. I could understand if you weren't familiar with this religion or this culture, being like, why would you burn down crucial evidence? Well, that's the thing that would be like, you're just like, I wouldn't quite understand that, but you're on their soil, and you have to do what you have to do.

[Morbid Host]

Can you do here.

[Elena]

Now, once the flames had died and the structure itself was just a pile of ash and rubble, the white witch crept up to the cauldron with a 2x4 in one hand. Humes wrote, he approached the thing as if it was a wounded animal capable of attacking anybody who entered its den. And then, to everybody's surprise, he rushed forward and smashed the cauldron with the club and then leapt back, almost like he was waiting for a corresponding attack,

[Morbid Host]

something to come at him.

[Elena]

Retaliation. When nothing happened, he seemed satisfied that the black magic had been neutralized. He spent a few more hours at the property, cleansing with holy water and performing other rituals, and then gave Benitez the all clear. That allowed them to continue on with the investigation. Now, as soon as the investigation really got back on track, the story hit the newspapers. And all the sensational and salacious details would continue to be front page news in the weeks that followed. Obviously, in the days after the story broke, Brad Moore, who was Mark Kilroy's, one of his closest friends, told a reporter, I'm still really in shock about it. I know he's in a better place. I know that he was a very good person. Just breaks your heart.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah, that's awful.

[Elena]

Now, in the days that followed, investigators were able to identify three more bodies that were unearthed at the ranch. There was Valenta del Fierro, a local man in his 30s who had been shot with a 9 millimeter. There was Gilberto Garza Sosa, a railroad security guard whose name, neck, bones were all broken from what the medical examiner believed was a hanging. And there was Cesar Saceda, who was a former Matamoros police officer. And his body showed signs of torture.

[Morbid Host]

Holy.

[Elena]

It was Ceseda, actually Saseda, who Elio had shot prematurely, which required them to find a new victim. And that obviously resulted in the death of his own nephew. His 14 year old nephew, 14 years old. But unfortunately, many of the other victims would remain unidentified.

[Morbid Host]

Died. That's really sad.

[Elena]

It is. Now, while his family, Mark Kilroy's family, struggled to process the revelation that he was dead, that he wasn't coming home. And the press had a field day playing up all the shocking aspects of the story, authorities on both sides of the border got to work just trying to apprehend everybody who was responsible and obviously doing their best to hunt down Adolfo Constanzo. By the time the agents were searching the ranch, they had many of the members of the gang in custody. But like we said, as soon as he heard Adolfo Constanzo of the raid, he and Sarah escaped to Brownsville along with cult members Martine Quintana Rodriguez, Omar Francisco Aria Ocoa, and Alvaro El Dubi de Leon Valdez. And they were all wanted for murder. Now, believing that Constanzo and the others might be hiding out at like a hotel or something like that in Brownsville, federal agents in the US Assembled a team and they raided the hotel. But by the time they arrived, the group had already caught a flight out of Texas to Mexico City. And that's where Constanzo actually had an apartment.

[Morbid Host]

Wow.

[Elena]

He had multiple places to stay on both sides of the border. It took several weeks, but Mexican authorities finally caught up with the fugitive cult members in Mexico City at the end of April, when they raided Constanzo's apartment. They found altars, they found candles and other cult objects inside, but they didn't find any evidence that a violent crime had been committed there.

[Morbid Host]

In that location.

[Elena]

In that location. So that was a little tough.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Now, a week later, on May 6, a resident of an apartment complex in Mexico City called the police to report a domestic disturbance. Now, the police thought that might have been Constanzo and the others, so they brought reinforcements. And the report actually ended up being unrelated to Constanzo.

[Morbid Host]

Oh, wow.

[Elena]

But it did result in gunfire between the suspect and the police. Police. And in a buzz, in a bizarre coincidence, Constanzo was staying in an apartment complex nearby. What? And when he heard the gunfire between the police and the suspect in the domestic dispute, he assumed that the authorities had caught up with him.

[Morbid Host]

What are the odds?

[Elena]

One of his followers, who was on the run at the same time said he went crazy. Crazy. He grabbed a bundle of money and threw it and began shooting out the window.

[Morbid Host]

Holy. Holy.

[Elena]

Now, believing that he only had a matter of minutes before he was caught, he ordered one of the other cult members of Alvaro Valdez to shoot him and his henchman, Martin Rodriguez. Rodriguez, excuse me. Who was also on the run.

[Morbid Host]

Whoa.

[Elena]

The story was later confirmed by Sarah, who told police Adolfo had made the order, quote, because it was the end and he wanted to die with Martin.

[Morbid Host]

This is wild.

[Elena]

It's bonkers. So with Adolfo, Constanzo and Martin Rodriguez now dead, police took Sarah Eldrete, Omar Francisco Oria Ocoa, and Alvaro de Leon Valdez into custody, bringing the manhunt for Mark Kilroy's murderers to an end.

[Morbid Host]

A bizarre, wild end.

[Elena]

One of the strangest ends, I think, that we actually had in morbid history.

[Morbid Host]

Holy shit.

[Elena]

So it took some time to sort everything out, but eventually, everybody who played a role in the murders of those discovered buried at the ranch were punished for their crimes.

[Morbid Host]

Good.

[Elena]

Not long after his arrest, Aria Okoa was hospitalized and diagnosed with AIDS as a result of the advanced stage of his virus. He spent the rest of his life in a hospital and died in February of 1990. Alvaro Valdez. Excuse me. Was found guilty of the murders of Adolfo Constanzo and Martin Rodriguez and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Sarah Aldrete, Seraphine Hernandez, Elio Hernandez and Sergio Martinez were ultimately convicted of multiple crimes, including the murders of Mark Kilroy and the others found on the ranch, and they were sentenced to 67 years in prison. Wow. I don't know exactly why, but in 1998, a judge did reduce their sentences to 50 years each.

[Morbid Host]

Why?

[Elena]

I don't know if it was good behavior. Yeah, I'm not sure. Seems crazy now. As of today, only Ovido Hernandez and Malio Palmer Hans Torres have managed to evade capture.

[Morbid Host]

Wow. Yeah.

[Elena]

As for the Kilroy family, they continue to support each other in the years that have followed since Mark's death. A few years after the tragedy, they established the Mark Kilroy Foundation. And that's an organization dedicated to the prevention of substance abuse among young people, which I think is really incredible that they were able to do something with it. Exactly. Since starting the organization, they provided countless teens and young adults with the education and opportunities to avoid falling into addiction. And even though Mark himself never struggled with drugs or alcohol, they obviously saw the connection to addiction and what happened here in 2009, Mark's mother, Helen, said a lot of people weren't even alive when this happened to Mark. So we do talk to people about Mark's story. They need to realize that they have to be aware of what is going on around them anywhere, not just in a foreign country.

[Morbid Host]

Exactly. Because that really is. This kind of can happen anywhere.

[Elena]

And you just, like, stories like this are so shocking. But, yeah, it's such proof that you do not know what's lingering around the next corner.

[Morbid Host]

And you don't know strangers are strangers. You don't know them.

[Elena]

You don't know what they're about.

[Morbid Host]

You don't know if they have good intentions. You don't know anything.

[Elena]

Unfortunately, a lot of times people don't want to help you.

[Morbid Host]

No.

[Elena]

They want to hurt you. And, like, that's a horrible thing to have to believe. Leave. But.

[Morbid Host]

But you have to at least have that in the front of your mind now. Yeah.

[Elena]

And if now we have the information, Let them.

[Morbid Host]

Let them prove to you that they're not that.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Morbid Host]

Before you fully trust them.

[Elena]

But honestly, like, we were talking about this the other day with just a group of friends. Anytime I've ever been helped, like, get it or offered help, like getting my groceries into my car or something like that, I. No, thank you. Yeah, no, I'm all set. I got it.

[Morbid Host]

I never want the help.

[Elena]

A ride? No, you don't need a ride anymore. Definitely. Obviously not. Not at this point, like, when this story happened. But now Uber. Nope.

[Morbid Host]

Don't need it.

[Elena]

It's just. It's sad. Awful.

[Morbid Host]

Awful story.

[Elena]

It's just awful that human beings are capable of doing this to other human beings.

[Morbid Host]

That's honestly the thing that my brain just never Ever can even conceive of.

[Elena]

No, truly. But I really do commend his family for, like, making something positive. Something positive.

[Morbid Host]

Come on.

[Elena]

Such a tragic loss because.

[Morbid Host]

Holy.

[Elena]

Yeah. It's a horrific story.

[Morbid Host]

It really is.

[Elena]

Do you have a fun fact for us as a palette cleanser?

[Morbid Host]

I think it's your fun fact.

[Elena]

Is it my fun fact?

[Morbid Host]

I did fun fact last time.

[Elena]

I'll find a fun fact for us then.

[Morbid Host]

Okay.

[Elena]

Sharks have been swimming in Earth's Oceans for about 400 million years, making them roughly 50 million years older than the earliest trees.

[Morbid Host]

That's so scary and incredible all at the same time. It really is. Like, that's. The ocean. Isn't my business.

[Elena]

No.

[Morbid Host]

Though. It's just not.

[Elena]

I also just find it so scary that we just stopped exploring the ocean

[Morbid Host]

because I think we were like, we have. We have more business up in space than we have down here. Yeah. And I fully believe that freaks me out. But we also Scary ocean. Scarier, unthinkable.

[Elena]

But also like, that's where our wi fi comes from.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Make it make sense.

[Morbid Host]

I know. Yeah.

[Elena]

Mikey's looking at me like, what the Comes from, like, tunnels and shit underwater. It's weird. Fall into a rabbit hole. About that on Tick Tock.

[Morbid Host]

Let's go, girls.

[Elena]

Let's do it. Do that. That's how you palate.

[Morbid Host]

Yeah. Fall into that rabbit hole.

[Elena]

Fall into, like, a creepy rabbit hole. But like, that's like, technological and chilling

[Morbid Host]

and we'll probably scare you as well.

[Elena]

Yeah, but like, in a.

[Morbid Host]

For sure. Yeah.

[Elena]

In a fun way. So with that being said, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird, but also weird that you don't go down a rabbit hole.

[Morbid Host]

One that makes you feel good.

[Elena]

Yeah. Or a little bit scared.

[Morbid Host]

Spooky.

[Elena]

Spooky rabbit.

[Morbid Host]

Holy sam. Sa.

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