The Final Manhunt and Aftermath

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Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there Ryan Reynolds here from MintMobile, with a message for everyone paying Big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just fifteen dollars a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment? Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile d. com slash switch. Upront payment of forty five dollars for three month plan, equivalent to fifteen dollars per month required, introate for three months only, then full price plan options available. taxes and fees extra, CFL terms at mintmobile. com Hey Weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash, and this is Morbid you just he my stomach Fr a lumble, it's a It's usually my stomach that's cry. I. I don't know what's going on. Mine's loud I just had a tune of sub You did, so dad just It looked wild, but I It wasn't good. wasasn't good? No. So we'll see how that pans. fuck. I know. It wasn't bad. It was just like it just didn't hit like you wanted it to. No. That's the worst. Yeah. I know. I hate that.opefully I don't have to run out of here in the middle of this. hopefully Imagine Yeah, you won't know, listener Yeah, so that's my lunch. That's my lunch. This bitch over here shoveled some cheese fries and She said, whatever, I'm having cheese fries. I did said I won't be joining. I really wanted some. I was craving some since I've been sick. and I got giveive me it. She wasn't sure how soon she could have cheese fries post Naro. Yeah, so I just I went for it I want feel good about it You know, not only that, can I just call you a f full blas, Spicy chicken nuggets? Yeah, who is she? How do you live this life Who lives this way I would if I could. but I cannot. I got a six inch tuna up and I'm like, hopefully that's chill. Hopefully that's sry. Hopefully that stays there. Yeah I don't know. I'm like my dad. I know. My motherfucker can eat anything. I'm just my dad. I can just eat things at all hours of night Ire crazy girl. Spicy doesn't really bother me too much. I love sppicy, but sppicy does not love me. And that's the saddest thing. I know. I've ever heard. I did. I do go spicy sometimes like last night. pay for it. I got these little like, u Tater top mac and cheese things that had buffalo sauce on them.it, they were good. That sounds good. You know what though, I paid for it You pay. I had to order tums at eleven PM. Damn. But they make chewable tums, which hey And let me tell you when I got those. Drew said, areren't they all chewable? And I said I meant chewy, like chewy like like gummy. Yeah. ye. Yeah, they're so good. I can't stop myself from eating the whole thing. You can't just eat tums as a snack. No There's a whole warning label on the that. There's a whole warning that you can't you're not suppos have more than six in like a twenty four hour period. I had three. In case you were wondering, It's like that Melissa, McCarthy and brridesmaids, I took nine. I took nine. I think I've over committed? with Cheewy top. Yes. I took nine Oh so I mean in business, buy the Butcher Legacy. You can pre order it. I where you want to pre order. I'm to finish this weekend. Yeah, there's a lot of there's 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 nextext week. Yeah, because there's some cool stuff I get to tell you. Perhaps a new series started. Perhaps a new series that I'm gonna to do on socials. I don't know. maybe Could be, who could be sure? We're really good at Easter eggs. Yeah. So just you know Keep an eye You know, keep tune And mayaybe it'll make you want to preorder because some incentives might be coming your way to preorder. so period. giveive a try ive it a try. Hold ont to that receipt, maybe. I don't know Uh but yeah Go preordder it wherever you want, But your leegacy. com Yeah. It's really, really fucking good. L you. 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. That honestly, I love hearing that. I like it's The vibe is perfect. Yeah. And we're back in New Orleans. I think that's important. We are back in New Orleans. We're back in New Orleans. it's the vibe and it's like ha excing time. I'm excited. It's the fall time. Like Th these are the things you gott to tell people. It's true. I know, I'm not good at selling my own book. I'll help you. I appreciate it. That's why I need you. Yeah because we're in the morgue a lot in this one it feels There's a lot of morgue in this one. There This one was the one, I had a lot of fun writing this one. You can tell it comes through. And this one and that's I love hearing. It does And yeah, this one was really fun. This one was like u a long time coming A lot of weird research for this one. I'm sure. Yeah. I have to admit something. I love Jeremy Honestly, that's okay. I kind feel so wrong. I kind of wanted that. I want to make sure to love him, but like I want to punch him. Like I wanted people to not want him to go away. Yeah. but like hate him You know, I'm a little upset that he's behind bars. Yeah. L just let him live. Let him live, you know? De, obviously. L Doe, but ye, but he's fake, so just like, don't get mad at me for second Yeah. He's not real. And I'm root for Ren at the same time. Of course I want her to kick him in the kneeca. I wouldn't. We love Ren. I love her so much. My girl. She's such a baddy. And she's friends with Kay Scarpetta D guys, did you hear that? I know. Did you hear that? Like I'll never get over that that Patricia Cornwell is like, I think Kay and Ren are are really good buds. I think they are too. And honestly like Maybe that's true Maybe And maybe if you pre orer the book, you can find out more about. Maybe you can find out more about that. All right, I think we plugged I That was That was plug ye. I think we didn get I think we need to plug a little more like that becausecause a lot of times we' just like order it. Yeah. I don't know, but we didn't have any details. And I realize that's not good enough of an incentive to do anything. It just be like preordder this, like do it. I could probably like shut the fuck out. What do you mean? Like I get it. Hopefully that tickled your pickle a little bit. I hope so. ye Mikey said it didn't tickle his pickle. Mikey doesn't like he g give us a thum That phrase. I think that phrase is so funny. do too. What do you like tickle your fancy o, big ey He said yes, or like blow your skirt up Does that blow your skirt? Who loves to say that? I like all that didn't really blow my skirt up. I love that a lot. What are you gonna say? Tickl your pickle sounds really kind of perverse to me. It makes me uncomfortable when you say it out of your mouth. I'm gonna keep doing it. I love that a lot. It does sound weird. It does. Another thing that we should probably plug. Don't stop your timer just yet, Carl. you' still going. Not yet, Jason, the J Wh is it actually Jason? I don't know. I so. We are doing a fucking radio City show. Yes, in case you didn't know in june, june twenty seventh Jun twenty seventh, I should say that confidently, that's the date of my show. It' gonna be awesome. We just booked a special guest and ye Fear you're gonna shit your neck. Yeah. You gott to get excited. You gott to book your tickets. We just booked U canan I just say something? We're having dresses made in Romania. Yeah, and we've never done anything like that. We're getting Romanian dresses up in this bitch. And so we're gonna shout out the maker once everything is like settled Coolest people. Yeah, coolest people. I can't wait to like sing their praises. Yeah, honestly. because let me tell you Book talkal, girlies And in France You'll love this gal You'll love Yeah. So yeah just it's just out there. I don't want tona say too much Yeah, but so you would need to get your ticket. Yep, book your hotel. There's not too many tickets left, so go get them. Yeah, And you know what? You don't even have to st in New York for the night. You could take your train. Yeah, you get them back. The train is nice. I don't know how late it runs, but yeah, it's okay. Yeah. whatever. You know wander the streets a little bit. I wouldn't go that far. That's insane Wander the streets until dawn and then like you fuck What the fuck. A actuallyually everything we tell people not to do, but I'm just kidding. All right, Carl, Jason hitem. All right, tellell them the number. Yeah let's go. So we finished part one And the Mexican authorities had raided the Hernandez branch and took multiple people into custody. Everybody was being very cocky, seemed to kind of think they were untouchable, weren't really saying anything Aside from the caretaker. Yes, Domingo Bustemante He pretty quickly folded and told investigators everything he knew includluding 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. I fear this is gonna to get really bad I would like to warn you at the top, this is a very and I'll give you another little warning right when we're about to get into it. This is a very gruesome Yes. And fromom what I remember, yes. What happened to Mark Kilroy is unimaginable heartbreaking and I hate that his family to know that. Yeah. Like it's awful But I do think like we were saying in partart one, it's such an important story to tell. Yeah. because theseese cases do become cautionary toails if it helps one person be a little more, you know, vigilant while they're traveling, have more knowledge going in. Yeah So Domingo Bustaanti's statement broke the case wide open. Less than an hour later, Little Serafine 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. Y This time, Commander Benitz was in no mood for the twenty year old's cocky attitude and self certainty. He had had enough. Yeah, I can't say but blame them. 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 sereraphine had blown through that checkpoint all the way up to what had just happened in Domingo, Bustom his interrogation. He was like, we know everything. know. Yeah. like you're not having divine protection. No. It might have been the bottle of soda water and the hot sauce on the table, or it might have just been Benitz's unwillingness to tolerate any more lies, whatever it was Mystical protection or not, Little Seraphine started talking. I feel like it was a good mix of all of it, but I really think that soda bottle. mayaybe pushed it over the edge. For me, it would for sure be the hob Yeah. That would be it 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 Madamoros 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 killing 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 And I want to point out, I know that what we're talking about here is not voodoo. I'm not super educated. 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. Yeah, like that this was a quote from this person. Exactly So the interrogation took a little over five hours, and in that time, Benitz 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, Benitz 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, which I'm sure we are also not going to be prepared for. Now I'm going to do my best to prepare you, but even will enough. Yeah So after the death of his uncle Saul and his father, Serapfine, 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.. El Padrino was referenced in that wiretap call. Yep. So El Padrino happened to be Adolfo Constanzo, who he kind of touched on briefly in part one, but we'll get more into who he is in this part. Okay. 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 Paolo Mombe, which was an Afro Cuban religion. It honors the dead and gaages in rituals that involve human bones and some other things. Okay. Serfine told the agents, Adolfo's very powerful, very smart. He runs our business in Madamoros. He has connections all over Mexico. moovie stars go to him, Congressmen So this is like a well connected guy. I don't know if Congressman actually went to him That was alleged by N me mean And when you hear that, you're like, oh Okay, period. 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 theseigions are religions that they reference, not us. Exactly. But like 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 Just I don't want anybody to think that I think that's what it is. Yeah for for you either So it was clear to Bu Benitz and the others that Serfine had a lot of respect for Constonzo But there was also a lot more to it. It seemed like he almost worsipped him and also was terrified of him all at the same time. Yeah, does seem like that. 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 That's so scary.. here like it's our religion, so we did it without being without question. It's like that's not what religion is. No. That's not what it's supposed to be. And for me, the scariest part of that is he would kill us or worse. Yeah. it's like, what the fuck does that mean? 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 God would give powers and protections for in exchange for offerings, whichich I wonder 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 Shady. Yeah, like they're tricky. Yeah. likeike they're you don't know if they're being real or not. So it's just it's an interesting thing here. Yeah that they're relying so heavily on it. I know. will and that's the thing. I just all focusstanzo. Yeah. he modeled his whole life over what he thought was appeasing this gog. Yeah, it's just interesting Now, one of those quote unquote offerings ended up being Mark Kilroy. Oh, that's awful According to Seraphine, Constanzo had instructed him to go into Madamoros the night that Markco went 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 brereaker. Oh wow. So they were like legitimately on the hunt for shit, Mark Hilroy. It was getting late and Hernandez and another gang member, Mileo Torres still hadn't found anybody And then the bars let out, like I talked about, and the streets were flooded with people Serapfine was standing on the street and he actually saw Mark get separated from his friends because when he had to like relieve himself, Yp 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 problems And this is where things start to get Really rough, but there's another part where they do too, so I'm going to warn you for both So this is when they kidnaaped Mark. They jumped him. They tied a blindfold around his eyes. They duct tape his mouth shut and just wrestled him into the Cheby suburban And as they stood there catching their breath, he actually managed to get out of the car and make a run for. Oh my God, 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 Boost Aemente, 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 kid to be a sacrifice. Yeah This is where it's going to get really bad just so everybody knows like trigger warning The next day Dolfel Constonzo arrived at the ranch with about twelve 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. And if they'd only gone in there, they would have seen H They may have they would have found evidence. Yeah what it. 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I checked in on my simimply safe app because we were away from home and our alarms were going off, like not the simply safe ones, but like the, I don't know, fire alarms, something like that. And I was able to text Elena and John and be like, hey, can you stop at my house and figure out what that is, please? But it's just so nice being able to check into your system from anywhere in the world Trust SimpllySafe, ourur listeners will get fifty percent off a new system when you sign up for professional monitoring and your first month is free by visiting simimpllysafe dot com slash morbid That's half off at simppllyafe d. com slash morbid. There's no safe, like simimplySafe R Brian Reynolds here from MidMobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for fifteen dollars a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities, so do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to MintMobile today told it's super easy to do at mintMobile d. com slash switch. Upfront payment of forty five dollars for per three month plan, equivalent to fifteen dollars fif per month required. intntro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. taxes and fees extra. Feful terms at mintMobile d. com. She loves it freezing. She loves it, hu Taod by Eat Sleep ends the artement for good, with independent temperature zones that keep both of you sleeping deeper eight sleep. com 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 tape 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. Oh my go This is it's we're still not past the worst of it. shhit. When Mark was dead, Constanzo reached into the wound that the machete had made in his skull and pulled out pieces of his brain. Oh my This is what they mean when they say killed or worse. Yes So the pieces of his brain were then placed into a metal cauldron like receptacle that Constanzo referred to as the Niganga. 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 I'm sure that this religion is not this. I really don't know anything about it, but holy shit. Now when they had finished the quote unquote ritual, Constanzo instructed the men to remove Markc'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 veryer blunt and told them no it just made his body easier to bury. Oh Jesus 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, quote The ct could pull out the vertebrae to make a necklace Holy shit This is a human being How are you this devoid of humanity. 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. I just don't get how you get here L 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 be 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, wow, known or friend of a friend. Holy shit. And that's the thing. It's like, how do people become this deranged What it The timefame that seems like overnight Yeah It's so inc How do you just start seeing your fellow human being as a sacrifice? nothing as something that's not you Like I don't I don't understand that. I'll never understand that way I think it's power and I think In this case, drugs. Oh shit. 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. Okay, really. I don't know about that. I really think that your dog's just gonna get you out of here for ripping somebody's brain matter out So chilling though, how confident they are. Yeah, that this is real. Y and that they will not be punished for this. Y So later that afternoon, the Feds formed the ranch for a second time, arresting anybody who was found on the property and they set up a perimeter 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 theyish finished searching the property, investigators would exume bodies Holy shit. fourourteen bodies of other men all of various ages So they stood back while Seraaphine 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. had been sacrificed when he was mistaken for somebody else one of their very own family members and we'll get into that a little bit. Wow acccording to the medical examiner All of these fourteen 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 I should. Everybody showed signs of having been tortured and sexually assaulted. and all had similar wounds to the ones that Mark Hilroy had Now while several agents guarded serfine and Martinez as they worked to unearth the bodies countountless 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. That is the scariest thing I've ever heard Now, Benitz, 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 like what folklore and folklore, yeah. So He had he grew up hearing about all of this And that included all mananner 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 Zaletta And he was an expert in Afro Caribbean religions. So if anybody was gonna 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. I can imagine. He told a reporter, I have forty years studying Buaria 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. I don't think anybody could be. How That's how you ever prepare yourself? Yeah This sounds completely out of the realm of anythingthing you could conjure. It really does. So like the agents on scene, Zaletta was most disturbed by the shack where Constanzo and his cult members performed their. I hate to even call them rituals becauseote unquote. whereere they murdered people as well I should say. their'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 This is like shit you would hear about in a horror movie that you're like, that's too far. Yp But this is real. likeike this really happened. 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. Upon leaving the shack, Zaletta approached Benitz and told him, This is Palo Maombe. You need to look for a Cubano. This is a Cuban doing this. It's not a Mexican. Oh. And that was actually valuable information. Okay now Like we know from partart one, the local authorities in Madamoros, they were familiar with the Hernandez family and we went over that So when they learned of the activity at the ranch that involved Seraaphine 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 Eespecially after Serapfine gave his confession. Adolfo Conzonzo. El Padrino. El Padrino, exactly So Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, He was born november first, nineteen sixty two in Miami, Florida to a fifteen year old single mother. fifteen. fifteen old. Her name was Delia Gonzalez and she was a Cuban immigrant Obviously, he too is Cuban. Yeah It's exactly what the doctor said Sorry, there might be a plane landing on my house. I know I slow 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 Adolpha 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 Caribbeanangu 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.k L Kind of like OCD, it seems like Yeah Author Jim Schutz wrote, even as a very little boy, he was meticulous in ways that seem strange to the adults around him I'm sure he was not getting a lot of support for that. No, I don't think so. Yeah. 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 known 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 Shoutz wrote On a few occasions, when fellow students made the mistake of teasing Adelpho 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 schoolmates's home. Holy shit So if you were I know I'm saying that a lot, but that's really like I'm just incredulous. If you teased him He left a bloody animal head staked outside your door And was anybody thinking that like H. These are red flags I guess it was the sixties question mark. Whoa. I don't know. I don't know what the excuse is here for that. I don't know what decade that would not be a red flag to me. I don't know. Holy shit. I'm sure it was a red flag to middle Eth. Like that's Game of Thrones is really only where that would be acceptable, I think. And even then it was kind of red And then you're like, Oh Something's wrong here. Yeah I feel like this is gonna go awry. Yeah, and it sure does. Holy shit Now under normal circumstances, his strange behaviors aside from his retaliation, just like the fact that he was very Miculous 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. Okay. But at the same time, Soutz noted, most of the people in Cubbean, Miami who were around Adolpho 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. L yeah, there are people who were like, this is not right. 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. Yeah. Also, neighbors had always thought that it was a little suspicious how Adelfo's father just disappeared one day about a year after they arrived in Miami Yeah. hisis 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, Adolpho. And the spiritual role that his mom almost seemed to be grooming him for. This was all talk in the town. Yeah So when Delia's successful husband died from a sudden mysterious illness in ninet nineteen seventy three 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 Adolpha was now free to just like focus on regular things like school work or spending time with friends His mother assured him that he was much too special to worry about those mundane things. Yeah, don' we don't need to bother ourselves with things like friends Yeah. No. why would you do other human things, you know? No. Now here's the worst thing. spepeaking 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 very obsessed with like movie stars and going to the movies, that kind of thing. Yeah. And she loved how American movie stars in particular, like commanded attention and wielded power with the public. I found that fascinating Movies aren't mundane to you, but friends are, I know. That doesn't make sense. You know what? there was this era though that I feel like movie stars were otherworldly. Yes. I know what I mean? Like it was a totally different kind of era thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she was confident though that her son Adolpho could command that same power. She said movie star vibes just stop putting bloody animals I was gonna say There is that one little thing though. She does. She wasn't worried that it was like gonna be a hindrance, though. Yeahah. she's not worried about that. Yeah.'s worried about. Don't worry about the Mana things, you know Now by the time he was in his mid teens, Adolpha 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. Yeah, for sure. Like I'm into spiritual services. Yeah. N these kind for sure. No 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 a dollphone 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 nineteen eighty with all his supposed gifts, he saw no reason to go to college. He's gifted. No, that's mundane. Yeah, college 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 nineteen eighty one, he was actually arrested for shoplifting Which is wild because he had money. you're making money. Not only is he making money, he was left an inheritance where he really didn't have to work anymore. Oh yeah, that's like thrill. He just liked money thrill. And it also, it is the thrill of it because it became a regular habit through eighties. Because remember, he doesn't like mundane shit and he's been told all his life You are not on this earth for mundane shit. R. So he's looking for that extra thing. Well, and you're gifted, you're talented. Like you're not 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 stint that he was actually arrested for, he still managed to find success in Mexico Especially when he was offered a modeling job. T 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. Yeah, of course Now you 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 Serapfhine earlier was saying, like movie stars and conongressmen. Yeah. It could have been right here. Yeah, there you go Now, his most popular services actually weren't his fortunes. but instead became his curses. Oh He offered to put curses on people's enemies for a price. That's such a bad Vibes. It is. It's bad vibes. But this this service became particularly popular and it makes sense. among the local drug dealers and the cartels. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. It makes sense Now it's unclear how he really eventually connected with these criminal gangs along the border, but it was probably the services that he was offering and his supposed gifts drew everybody to him And he found them to be easily manipulated through superstitionion. Yeah. So he saw his niche. Yeah, of course. It's a horrible niche Yeah He identified it. He's jumping into it. Now in nineteen eighty eight, after Saul Hernandez and Serapfine Sr. were killed and the Hernandez operation was in danger of falling apart Ellliio 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 Adrette, who I mentioned was Adolfo's highigh priestess. Oh yes in part one She was a friend of Ilio's who dabbled in black magic, and of course, as we know, she knew it also Now at twenty two years old, she was a college student just living in Brownsville, Texas when an unexpected divorce had her move back to Madamoros to live with her parents Sheo always talked about wanting to become a teacher Oh So like I said, she was just a regular girly going to college, wanting to be a teacher. And then she met Aolpho Constanzo. She's just gonna mold young minds She was going to mold young minds, so Adolpho and Sarah met one afternoon in the summer of ' eighty seven, when he stopped his car in the middle of a crowded street, causing a traffic jam just to meet her. Wha Apparently this was like a thing in Madamoros. L men would put these big displays of affection on for women that they wanted to end up being with. It's like a peacock situation. Yeah, very much so, exactly. So she was familiar with this and she always found it kind of like repulsive. Yeah, She's like nothing. But for some reason, there was something about Adolpha that she liked. She saw that he was gifted in Tom 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 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 highigh priestess Oh yeah. whereere'd they go? They mysteriously vanished within a year of meeting Adolfo Constanzo You know what? my business. Isn't it weird how people just mysteriously vanish when they know him or his family? That's very there's a lot of mysterious vanishing happening here and it's making me very uncomfortable I mean, it's just magic. I have anxiety listening to this. It's a lot. just because this world is like everythingthing about all of this. It's so dark. feeles so scary. It's to me like I'm so anxious just thinking about it. Yeah t first, what brought the Hernandezes and the 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 intoome the more the spiritual practices and beliefs took over their lives. Now to Tony's Aaoleta, the doctor who actually knew Sarah well, wow. herer rapid transformation from a straight a student in his class So literally 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.'s incredible in the worst way. It really is. He found her transformation to be almost unbelievable. Yeah. He said, she sat in my 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. 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You'll learn from real world experts who love what they do so that you can love what you do Go to Uuty. com for the skills to get you started and get set for your dream job Spring nights can't decide if they're hot or cold, and neither can you two The Pot byy Eight Sleep is a smmart mattress cover with dual temperature zones, so one side of the bed stays cool while the other stays warm Autopilot adjusts automatically as you sleep And it's clinically proven to boost deep sleep by twenty seven percent. Better sleep for both of you, no compromise and even. T the pod by eight sleep at eightsleep dot com Now there's no way of knowing exactly how many people unfortunately, were murdered by the cult between eighty eight and eighty nine But according to Gary Cartright, the earliest victims were quote seelected from the ranks of enemies, rival drug dealers or dirty cops who had gone back on an agreement. Now to Aliio 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 make sense in that way. 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. Oh boy. In one instance, when Elliia 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 sta. So the followers is dead as they were told And they grabbed a fourteen year old boy. Oh my God. He had gone out in the night to look for a lost goat. Oh It was only later when the sacrifice, AKA the murder was finished that. Ellio realized he had murdered his own nephew Oh my God, 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 What are the fucking odds of that 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 fuc accidentally your family off the street You have to be so detached from Because there'hing even slightly resembling humanity. They all continued on doing this same. That's the thing like that that wasn't like a wake up call. like It's getting way too chaotic. like we need to Take a step here. It's insane. Now by the time they killed Mark Kilbroy, all of Adolfa 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 murders were They thought they were getting more benefit from that, more protection. I don't know how you rationalize that in your brain. That's a they you have to be I keep going back to it. I'm like How does this fucking happen? You just does this happen? You have to lose total grip on reality. Like you don't have any empathy for another human being. Like I just like I can't wrap my brain around that and just like to be that untethered. I think like that's the wor untethered to Tetered from humanity in reality. because like there are people I can't fucking stand. Of course, absolutely. 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. not let that happen. It's like peopleeople I hate. like, you know what I mean? Like it's I can't because that's human imagine. L that's empathy, that's emmpathy. But some people just aren't with those emotions It a stranger Yeah, too. 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 and you just don't care. Intervening and removing it and you feel entitled to do something. Yeah you feel entitled and you feel like you get something out of that. It's like that's so gross. I can't make sense of that. Yeah Now, as soon as Commander Benita saw the signs of witchcraft at the ranch and his suspicions were then confirmed by doctor Zaoletta, 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 because he knows about this shit. He knows about this shit, and it is taken very seriously in these particular cultures. Yeah And you don't want to fuck around with it honestly I know it sounds a little out there. like ye, what are you talking magic? You have to neutralize the scene before you investigate. And 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 This is a This is a deeply ingrained thing in these cultures. Well you have 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 have to take it seriously and you have to do the correct steps to make sure you're doing everything right. Right? Like you have to allow them to do what they need to do for sure at the end of the day. Yeah So Benita has contacted again, I hope I say this right. I know I'm just a little white girl, a Cirandero, 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.. So in the meantime, Benitz 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 Raphael Martinez said another murder to appease the spirits and keep the fugitive free is not only a possibility, it's a probability. Damn Now, when Sunday finally arrived, the agents all gathered back at the ranch 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? crrucial evidence. Well, that's the thing that would be like you're just like, o, I wouldn't quite understand that, but you're on their soil and you have to do what you have to do. What can you do here 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 two by four in one hand Humes wrote he approach 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. going to come at him. 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 Benitas 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. And the days after the story broke, Brad Moore, who was Mark Hilroy, 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 It just breaks your heart. Yeah, that's awful. Now in the days that followed, investigators were able to identify three more bodies that were unearthed at the ranch. There was Valenta Delfiero, a local man in his thirties who had been shot with a nine millimeter. There was Gilberto Garza Soossa, a railroad security guard whose neck bones were all broken from what the medical examiner believed was a hanging. And there was Cisar Suseda who was a former Madamoros police officer and his body showed signs of torture. Ho shit It was S Seta actually, saw Seta who Ellio had shot prematurely, which required them to find a new victim and that obviously resulted in the death of his own nephew. hisis fourteen year old nephew. fourteen years old. But unfortunately, many of the other victims would remain unidentified. That's really sad. It is. Now, while his family, Mark Kilver'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 is responsible. and obviously doing their best to hunt down Adolpho Constonzo By the time the agents were searching the ranch, they had many of the members of the gang in custody Like we said, as soon as heard Adolfa Constonzso of the raid, he and Sarah escaped to Brownsville, along with cult members ine Quintana Rodriguez, Omar Francisco, Aria Al Coa Alvarro El Dubi de Lon Valdees. 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 Bronzeville Federal agents in the U.S 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 Constonzo actually had an apartment. Wow. He had multiple places to stay it 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 occult objects inside But they didn't find any evidence that a violent crime had been committed there in that location in that location. So that was a little tough. Yeah. Now a week later on may sixth, 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 Constonzo and the others, so they brought reinforcements And the report actually ended up being unrelated to Constonzo. Oh wow But it did result in gunfire between the suspect and the police And aiz in a bizarre coincidence Constonzso 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. What are the fucking odds? One of his followers who was on the rd at the same time said he went crazy, crazy. He grabbed a bundle of money and threw it and began shooting out the window. Holy shit. Now believing that he only had a matter of minutes before he was caught He ordered one of the other cult members of Elvaro Valdez to shoot him and his henchman, Marting Rodriguez, excuse me, who was also on the run. Whoa The story was later confirmed by Sarah, who told police Adolpho had made the order, quote, because it was the end and he wanted to die with Martin This is wild. It's ers So with Adolfo Constonzo and Martin Rodriguez now dead, police took Sarah Eldrete, Omar Franisco Oria Okoa. and Alvaro de Leon Valdez into custody, bringing the manhunt for Mark Hilroy's murderers to an end. A bizarre wild end. One of the strangest ends, I think that actually had in Morbitid history holy shit 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. Good Not long after his arrest, Arria 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 nineteen ninety Alvarro Vadeez was Valdez excuse me, was found guilty of the murders of Adolfo Constanzo and Martin Rodriguez and was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Sarah Aldrete, Serapfine Hernandez, Ellio 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 sixty seven years in prison. Wow. I don't know exactly why, but in nineteen ninety eight, a judge did reduce their sentences to fifty years each. Why? I don't know if it was Good behavior I'm not sharing them wass crazy Now, as of today, only Ovido Hernandez and Malio Pontons Torres have managed to evade capture. Wow. ye.