Episode 15- The Horrific Murder of Mark Kilroy

Join us as we talk about the horrific kidnapping, torture, and murder of Mark Kilroy (pre-med student and Spring breaker) in Matamoros, Mexico. The killers were involved in drug smuggling and human sacrifice. 

Today's episode was paired with a tropical cocktail called the El Padrino (The Godfather) which is accompanied by a flaming shot to represent the nganga set aflame by a Witch Doctor to help catch Adolfo Constanzo. Recipe below:

EL PADRINO

1 oz. grenadine
1 oz. rum
1 oz. pineapple juice 
1/2 oz. Grand Marnier
1/2 oz. lemon juice

Add grenadine to tall glass and fill with ice. Add the rest of the ingredients to a shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Pour into the tall glass. Garnish with flaming lemon. and sprinkle with cinnamon to shoot sparks.

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Transcript

Sources 

Buried secrets Edward Humes 1991: This information is drawn from court testimony, sworn declarations, and from interviews conducted by the author.

Murderpedia 

Oxygen show called deadly cults 

Texas Monthly Magazine 

Adolfo de Jesús CONSTANZO AKA El Cubano (The Cuban) or El Padrino (The Godfather) was born on November 1, 1962. Constanzo was born in Miami, Florida, United States. His mother, Delia Aurora González del Valle, was a widowed Cuban immigrant. She gave birth to him when she was just 15 years old, and she would eventually have three children in total, each with a different father. She moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, after her first husband died, and re-married. While in San Juan, Constanzo was baptized Roman Catholic and served as an altar boy, but he was also influenced by his mother's participation in Palo mayombe. The word Palo means "branch" in Spanish; "Mayombe" means "mysteries of the spirits" in CongoPalo is almost always linked to Santeria. And ritual music and dance is fundamental to both. There is one main distinction: Santeria comes from the Yoruba people from Nigeria and Palo Mayombe comes from the Congo. Since Congolese slaves were brought to the Caribbean much earlier than the Yoruba, it’s harder to trace their music and culture directly back to Africa. Palo mayombe is sometimes referred to as Santeria’s 'evil twin,' and is considered the darkest and most feared of all the black magic practices. There's grave robbing to get access to bones to use in rituals. Some practitioners will buy human skulls from legitimate warehouses that provide human bones to film students and medical researchers- didn’ realize that was a thing. In 2002 a skull could sell for $5,000 on the street, and an unbaptized skull can command even more. So if we were wondering if grave robbing was still a thing it is. One similarity in both Palo and Santeria is ritual sacrifice.Palo Mayombe would later become an  integral part of Adolfo’s drug trafficking operation later in his life. 

When he was ten years old when the family moved back to Miami, and his stepfather died a year later, leaving Adolfo and his mother financially well-off.  His mother soon re-married, and his new stepfather was involved in the local drug trade and the occult. They lived Little Havana and neighbors were wary of Adolfo’s mother Delia- some of them thought she was a witch, and apparently she would leave headless goats or chickens on your doorstep if you pissed her off somehow.Delia was certain that Adolfo was displaying psychic powers, and was able to scan the future to predict such events as the 1981 shooting of President Ronald Reagan Adolfo and his mother were arrested several times for petty crimes, such as theft, vandalism, and shoplifting. In 1981 he was arrested for shoplifting a chainsaw..As a teenager, he befriended a Haitian Palo mayombe priest who taught him the skills necessary to be a drug dealer and con artist, training him for a career "profiting from evil." He did go on to graduate hs but ended dropping out of junior college soon after.  

After hs Adolfo started to explore his bisexuality, and he had a strong preference for male lovers.And he was considered a good looking guy- he got a modeling assignment in Mexico City in 1983. He supported himself while he was there as a tarot card reader in Zona Rosa.While in Mexico City he recruited two younger men; Martín Quintana Rodríguez and Omar Chewe Orea Ochoa who were more than happy to be his servants, lovers and disciples.And thus the cult leader was born. He  returned to Miami , but decided to move to Mexico City in mid-1984 and  lived with both MArtin and Omarr. There is a lot of contention around this claim that he was bisexual and His mother and brother vehemently deny that Constanzo had any homosexual relations. These  accounts are  drawn from statements by Omar and another lover he would have later but the name of Sara Aldrete- remember that name because we will talk about her, and statements later filed in Mexican federal court. Adolfo’s sexual proclivities remain as mysterious as other parts of his life. His family denies he was a homosexual, saying he impregnated a young girl when he was fourteen, and another woman when he was twenty—though the children that resulted from these unions and the women who bore them have never come forward to attest to this dubious honor. Constanzo’s brother, Fausto, says he knew Omar and Martin well, and that neither was gay. But Omar and Sara both insist that Constanzo was bisexual, with a preference for men. When Mexican police searched several of Adolfo’s homes later, gay pornography, much of it depicting violent, sado-masochistic sex between men, were found.

While living in Mexico City Adolfo would collect other followers as word got out about his Black magic abilities people said that he could read the future, and he also offered limpias--ritual cleansings--for those who felt they had been cursed by enemies. Apparently as the years went on, Adolfo liked to keep journals just like our friend the Unicorn, and he documented thirty-one regular customers, some paying up to $4,500 for a single ceremony. Adolfo established a menu for sacrificial beasts, with roosters going for $6 a head, goats for $30, boa constrictors at $450, adult zebras for $1,100, and African lion cubs listed at $3,100 each. He went out of his way to charm wealthy drug dealers, helping them schedule shipments and meetings on the basis of his predictions. For a price, he offered magic that would make dealers and their hit men invisible to police, bulletproof against their enemies. one dealer in Mexico City paid him $40,000 for magical services rendered over three years.In mid-1985, dolfo and three of his disciples raided a Mexico City graveyard for human bones to start his own nganga--the traditional cauldron of blood employed by practitioners of palo mayombe. The Nganga would hold the remains of animal sacrifice as well as sticks which were used to capture a spirit or spirits. Then they would send the spirit to do whatever they wished. This could be a myriad of things, help with your business, help with your marriage. The Nganga is the central piece of the Palo mayombe religion. The rituals and air of mystery surrounding him were so powerful he drew disciples like physicians, real estate agents, fashion models, and several transvestite nightclub performers. He would go into a trance during a ritual, speak in an unfamiliar language, he acted wildly and allegedly it was the spirit who demanded these sacrifices. 

It was important that the offering die in confusion and pain and, most of all, in fear. A soul taken in violence and terror could be captured and used by the priest, turned into a powerful, angry servant that would wreak horrible revenge on the priest’s enemies. This was the essence of his witchcraft, the dark heart of the religion, Palo Mayombe. Mexico can be a very superstisuis place and people believed Adolfo because he was like every other fucking cult leader, charasmatic, and he knew how to exploit people. 

But scarily, he also drew in law enforcement officers. At least four members of the Federal Judicial Police joined his cult in Mexico City: one of them, Salvador Garcia, was a commander in charge of narcotics investigations; another, Florentino Ventura, retired from the federales to lead the Mexican branch of Interpol. And this went beyond pure bribery and corruption- they worshipped Adolfo as a god of sorts, and believed he was their living conduit to the spirit world.

In 1986, Adolfo was introduced to the Calzada family, one of Mexico's narcotic cartels. They started a very lucrative partnership and by early 1987, adolfo was able to pay $60,000 cash for a condominium in Mexico City, and even bought himself a fleet of luxury cars that included an $80,000 Mercedes Benz. He was even pulling off crazy scams too: he posed as a DEA agent to rip off a coke dealer in Guadalajara, selling the stash through his police contacts for $100,000. At this point Adolfo was happy to torture and kill total strangers-- and even close friends--in the name of spiritually assisting his clients- and he truly believed that his magical powers alone were responsible for the Calzada familys continued success and survival. In April 1987, he demanded a full partnership in the syndicate and was refused. And he was PISSED. You do not say no to El Padrino

On April 30, Guillermo Calzada and six members of his household vanished. They were reported missing on May 1, and police found noting melted candles and other evidence of a religious ceremony. Six more days later officers found mutilated remains in the Zumpango River. Seven corpses were recovered in the course of a week, all bearing marks of sadistic torture--fingers, toes, and ears removed, hearts and sex organs excised, part of the spine ripped from one body, two others missing their brains. The missing body parts, they would discover later, had gone to feed Adolfo’s cauldron of blood, meant to build up his strength for the future. 

In July 1987 enter 22 year old Sara María Aldrete Villareal. was born in 1964 and grew up middle class in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, near the border. She attended high school and went to college in Brownsville, Texas.  At Brownsville’s Texas Southmost College, Aldrete was a straight A student and a cheerleader for the soccer team. She was also fascinated by the occult and knew people in the Mexican drug trade through Serafin Hernandez Garcia, who attended Texas Southmost with her, and his uncle, Elio Hernandez Rivera, whom she dated

Adolfo charmed Sara with his line of bullshit, telling her how special she was because her birthday--September 6--was the same as his mothers. Sara was dating Brownsville drug smuggler Gilberto Sosa at the time, but she soon wound up all entrenched with adolfo-, so he made  an anonymous call to Sosa, telling him of Saras infidelity. With nowhere else to go at that point, she plunged full-tilt into adolfo's world, and would become the madrina--godmother or head witch--of his cult.  And as we will see, adolfo really needed a woman as an accomplice- so he was very thoughtful about this union. 

Smugglers had created a new mexican middle class during this time: entire families like the Calzada’s, entered the drug business, generation after generation. One such family was the Hernandez family of Matamoros. The family was made up of 4 brothers: Saul, Serafin, Elio, and Ovidio;

They were mid-level drug smugglers- one of hundreds of gangs  with connections to the city’s powerful crime and drug barons. The Hernandez were incredibly savage and ruthless- the main reason being that they were bound and determined to never be impoverished again. They built their drug business over the course of a decade until Saul was shot in 1987. For more than a year after that, their business took a nosedive. Just when they thought their business was kaput, they met Adolfo, and by the spring of 1989 they were living the life and the money was flowing. And so was the blood, Adolfo struck a deal with the Hernandez family. I get ownership of half the drug operation in return for protecting you and your business dealings with Palo mayombe. And they totally believed him because they started to make the money/

The hottest drug-trafficking spot on the border was the road from Reynosa to Matamoros.  These were two Mexican cities that marked the center and the eastern boundaries of the lower Rio Grande Valley, Here, the quickest route from the fields and the poverty is to take that road at night, to assume the time-honored role of contrabandista. Smuggler. In the ’30s, people would run tequila and whiskey from Chicago. In the ’60s, it was marijuana. And in the 80s,  the drug of choice was the polvo blanco, the white powder—cocaine—which was making a killing. 

AT this time, the head of the narcotics task force was Comandante Juan Beniyez ayala.HIs very first assignment had been to arrest his predecessor and all his agents, as well as the two federal prosecutors assigned to Matamoros, all for drug trafficking. The old comandante, Guillermo Perez, and his men had created a cottage industry out of seizing drugs on the highway, then reselling them to the powerful crime bosses who controlled Matamoros and its various police agencies. Benitez had Holed up in a seedy motel on the outskirts of town and under strict secrecy, had assembled a cadre of handpicked agents from other cities. They commandeered three squads of army troops, then stormed the Antinarcoticos headquarters early one morning to make the arrests. Perez had been warned and managed to escape barely in time. He departed so hastily, though, that he left five million dollars in cash and two jewel-encrusted Rolex watches stuffed in a desk drawer. It represented but a fraction of his profits over the past year.

Camandante benitiez had agents set up an impromptu checkpoint on the road to Matamoros to search passing cars and trucks for narcotics. Smugglers liked to pull off the road and take drugs across the Rio grande. In April 1989, Serafin Hernandez drove a red pickup truck right past mexican federal drug agents without stopping. Like blew past them. Knocking over the cones and shit,  After this incident, the agents followed him to a ranch called Rancho Santa Elena which belonged to the Hernandez family  - They found 200 lbs of marijuana tere so they arrested 4 or 5 guys and serafin hernandez. 

Every March college students from all over the US would go to Brownsville texas and matamoros, mexico for spring break. Crossing the border into Mexico meant freedom, no age limit on drinking, and 50,000 young people would do this every year. 

Mark Kilroy, born 1968 to Jim and Helen Kilroy he was described as humble, smart, and a good friend. He wanted to be a doctor and he was a junior pre-med major at the University of Texas. He was raised in Santa fe texas and he was close with his family who were devout christains, as was Mark. Mark was not a big partier, he did not do drugs, he was serious about his school - he was a 21 year old on spring break who wanted to have some fun and hang out with his friends. They spent a few days at the Sheraton in south padre texas. On Sunday night they headed for Matamoros which is about 1 hour away. They parked both cars on the Brownsville side of the international bridge and walked across. They spent the whole evening at a place called Sgt. Pepper’s. The returned to the US side and on Monday they decided to go back to Matomoras- again they parked on the brownsville side and walked across to matamoros. That night the border town had gone bonkers. There were spring-breakers everywhere, and 15,000 young people jammed the narrow sidewalks and spilled into the streets. The boys went to the London Pub, which had been renamed Hardrock Café over spring break. It was loud and wild and people were throwing beer cans from the balcony. Mark met some girls, and for a while the others didn’t see him. At 2 am Bill Huddleston suggested that they head back to the island. When Bill, Bradley, and Brent walked out of the bar, they saw Mark leaning against a Volkswagen, talking to the girl from the Miss Tan Line contest.

All up and down Avenida Alvaro Obregon, people were leaving the bars, most of them heading back to the bridge. Making progress in any direction was like swimming in a whirlpool. Brad and Brent had walked ahead of the other two boys and were waiting in front of Garcia’s gift shop, which was adjacent to a wooded area. Mark stopped in front of the steps of a private home to say goodbye to the girl from the Miss Tan Line contest, then waited for Bill to catch up. MArk said he had to use the restroom- and when Bill joined Brad and Brent in front of Garcia’s two minutes later, Mark had vanished.

They searched for Mark until long after the bars had closed and no one was left on the street. It was as though Mark Kilroy had dropped off the face of the earth.

His friends went to the police in brownsville and were like our friend is missing we are really worried. At first police thought he could have left with a girl yadda yadda but they said no he is not like that he would not just blow us off like that without saying something. Mark’s father James also went to Broansillve and spoke to police and by this time Mark had been missing for 72 hours. And this is spring break people are coming and going - they are only there for a week so tracking down witnesses was very difficult. After 2 weeks the investigation was going nowhere and no one was talking. Brownsville police spoke with local police in matamoros and there were no leads. If this was a kidnapping there was no ransom call and no signs of foul play. After 30 days, the investigation stalled. But on April 30, 1989 there was a break. And it was because of dumbass Serafin who blew through the police checkpoint. After the police brought him in, They also brought in the caretaker of the ranch who cared for the goats to see if maybe he knew anything. WHile sitting in the police station he says hey I know that kid- I was giving him water and bread because they had him tied up in the back of a suburban back at the ranch. They asked who had him tied up? 

Benitez calls investigator George Gavito from the brownsville police and tells him they have found Mark Kilroy. Gorge gathers his investigators and they go down to the ranch and while they are there they see this Shack in the middle of property. This shack was so frightening- it smelled putrid and when they walked in they immediately saw a large pot, like a cauldron with bones sticking out of it. He said it was so full and soupy you could hardly yell what was in it. The federal police were like nah don;t want to go in that shack don;t even want to deal with that shack. And Benitez was telling them this looks like brujeria which means witchcraft. This is 4 weeks after Mark's disappearance- and now they finally have a lead. George Gavito calls Dr. Tony Zavaleta, anthropology professor, has studied folk religion, folk medicine, cults, and is an expert of Brujeria He asks him to come to the ranch. Feels evil- and he tells george gavito this is palo mayombe. 

SO now they start talking to serafin, and serafin was 20 years old and a college student in brownsville texas. He spoke perfect english- seemed just like a regular college kid Except he was part of the hernandez family drug smugglers. And he started talking. Oh Mark Kilroy- yea he’s buried on the ranch- he just talked like this was no big deal. They take Serafin out the ranch and he starts digging. And he unearths a body. Dental records would confirm the body was that of Mark Kilroy. Serafin says I don;t know why they are making such a big deal over this one because there is another guy over there and another guy over there.Serafin said he didn;t kill anyone he just buried them. When asked what killing the men would do he said the blood would go into the cauldron and give them all protection and good luck. And this is why he blew through that checkpoint he literally believed that he was invisible. The sacrifices continued to escalate - a goat is better than a chicken, a cow is better than a goat and so on and so forth. They uncovered 13 victims on the ranch- some without brains, some without muscles, all terribly mutilated. 

At one point Adolfpo had wanted to give the Nganga strength so he had told Sara to find me a muscular man. SO she found a bodybuilder and they sacrificed him and placed his muscles in the nganga. Sara would invite men over to the house and when they arrived Adolfo was also there and would kill them for the sacrifice, In the case of Mark, Adolfo said the ngnanga was demanding a smart, handsome, american. And so he tells his people to bring him one. And this us whyMark was targeted. They interrogated Serfin for over 5 hours and he spoke freely and almost happily about the muder of Mark Kilroy. He said They were essentially hunting for a brain because it would make the spirits think better. They rode around and spotted Mark And called out to him. They offered him a ride to brownsville and he accepted and told them he had been drinking a lot and would appreciate the ride. Other cult members showed up in another vehicle and Mark most likely sensed that something was up- he started running towards the border and they chased him in their cars. Mark got to the border and they told him FREEZE your drunk you're under arrest. And mark being a rule follower did as he was told. The handcuffed him and put him in the car- and they took him to the ranch, They park the truck and just leave him in the back tied up with heavy duct tape because fucking adolfo is not in town. In the morning the caretaker notices Mark and he gives him bread and water and then puts the tape back on and leaves him there. WTF Later that day here comes Sara and adolfo. They took Mark inside the shed and Constanzo beat, tortured, sodomized, and mutilated him, then murdered him with a machete blow to the top of his skull. He then scooped out the brain and placed it in the ngnanga. When Mark was buried a wire had been attached to Kilroy’s spinal column so that when his body decomposed members of the cult could pull out the vertebrae to make into a necklace. When Kilroy’s body was uncovered comandante benitez noticed that his legs had been cut off above the knees and asked Serafin if that was part of the ritual. “No,” Serafin said. “It just made him easier to bury.”

Police had 4 members of this cult but they did not know where Sara or Adolfo was. But the hunt was on at this point. They searched an old address he had with no leads- they got a tip he was at a holiday inn and he was not there. And of course the 80s- so much easier to disappear. A month later, comandante benitez calls Investigator George Gavito and tells him the witch doctor advised him that the way to find Adolfo was by killing his ngnanga and maybe he will react to it. So it's worth a shot- so the witch doctor pours gasoline all over the shack and then places a picture of adolfo in the nganga and pours gasoline over it. SO what Adolfo had been doing to protect himself from the police, the witch doctor was essentially reversing. Undoing his spells. They brought the mexican media and filmed the entire thing for TV. Adolfo was seeing this on TV and went bonkers bananas. He put a shit ton of money on the stove and started burning it he was saying that’s it we are done my power is gone. At some point Sara went to get groceries and someone saw her- so they reported it to police. Tick tock bitch. Police found their little hidey hole. They surrounded the apartment and Adolfo had a machine gun- he was shooting at police, tossing handfuls of money out the 4th floor window.  

Adolfo had apparently ordained one his followers, Alvaro de Leon Valdez, aka El Duby, and transfered the power to make human sacrificesto him. And he commanded El Duby to perform the ultimate ritual — Adolfo wanted to die with his lover and bodyguard, Martin Quintana Rodriquez. El Duby hesitated, but adolfo slapped him and warned him that failure to carry out this last assignment would make it hard on him in hell. Adolfo sat on a stool in the closet with Martin next to him, and when he nodded, and El Duby squeezed shot him with his machine gun. When police stormed the apartment a few minutes later, El Duby, and three others surrendered. They also find Sara hiding in the next room. And that whiny bitch was like I was passing out flyers too I am innocent blah blah. Goodbye. 

No final tally for Adolfo’s victims is known, but twenty-three ritual murders are well documented, and Mexican authorities point to a rash of unsolved mutilation-slayings around Mexico City and elsewhere, suggesting that there are many many more we don;t know about. 

When police told Mark's parents that he had been found, and he was murdered, his mother asked George Gavito if he had had time to pray. And Gavito told her yes he had multiple hours in the back of the truck prior to his murder. And that gave her comfort. His father said “We feel like Mark was killed 12 hours after he was captured,″ Kilroy said. ″He had 12 hours to pray

Sara aldrete received a 64 year prison sentence. Serafin and Elio hernandez along with theother cult members received a 67 year senstcne.2 cult members still remain at large to this day. The Mexican federal judge explained that the reason Aldrete received fewer years in prison than the rest was because she was not charged with using weapons that were military-exclusive, which carries a 5-year maximum sentence. He also stated that the maximum conviction a person in Mexico can receive for capital murder is 50 years. Since Mexico's judicial system does not have parole, it allows for prisoners to file motions at an appeal court to reduce their sentences after several years.

The San Antonio Express-News did an interview with Sara in 2004 where she 

rolled up her sleeves and hiked her pant legs, showing scars and bumps that were there because of the torture by federales when she was first placed in prison. 

She says she was stripped, blindfolded, hung upside down, beaten, had her toenails yanked out and was burned inside and out -- so severely a doctor told her she'd never have children, even if released.She also recalled how police shoved her hands into Constanzo's autopsied body at a morgue and told her to yank out his heart.

" 'There is your devil. There is your prince. Kiss him. Kiss him,' they screamed," she said.

Police deny they tortured Aldrete. It is difficult to verify her claims.

Torture had for years been an interrogation tool here, and Mexican President Vicente Fox has spoken out against it. Other members of the cult also claim to have been tortured.

There are no juries in Mexico and testimony is given in written declarations. Aldrete was convicted behind closed doors.

Aldrete also said in that interview that: 

"I am at peace in my soul," she said. "I am clean."

Aldrete denies committing the murders. 

In the early 2000s, she published an autobiography that details how she she met Adolfo and her her mistreatment by authorities. Her story is that ]she visited adolfo in Mexico City and was then taken hostage after he decided to not let her go because he believed that she would go to the police and tell them where they were hiding. She claimed that adolfo and the rest of the group were unaware of the killings that occurred in Matamoros until they found out that the police were looking for them, but went into hiding because they feared for their lives.  Her version of adolfos death was different than the official one; she stated that adolfo was executed by the police when they raided the apartment. 

In an interview with the press in 2014, Serafín proclaimed his innocence too. And that he had been tortured by the Mexican and U.S. police in Matamoros to confess his participation in Kilroy's murder and in the killings at Santa Elena. He said he was a student of Texas Southmost College and knew who Aldrete was, but did not have any connection with her. Serafín also stated that he had never met Constanzo and had no idea his family ranch was a gathering place for his cult. He said that he had never dug up the bodies and had been taken to the ranch after the bodies were already exhumed.  Ok buddy 

In 2020 The U.S. Department of State has assessed Matamoros as being a CRITICAL-threat location for crime directed at or affecting official U.S. government interests. Violent crime, such as murder, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, extortion, and sexual assault, including gun battles and blockades, are widespread.