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It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at Rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot-C-A. Morbid is brought to you by Audible. He lurks in the shadow.
He slips into dreams. He casts no reflection. Audible presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new full cast audio thriller starring Jonathan Bailey as Dracula, Ella Pernella's Mina Harker, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Van Helsing, and more. When Mina's Beyonce Vanishes in Transylvania, she pieces together letters, diary entries, and chilling testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves. Only to discover, Dracula is already hunting her.
Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a fearless band race against time to stop an ancient terror. Her intellect and resolve may hold the key to bringing down the count, if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind. Featuring a haunting original score and spatial dobe at most sound design, Bram Stoker's Dracula invites you to feel the terror of being hunted and the thrill of the hunt. Now on Audible, listen to the darkness. Go to audible dot-ca slash listen to Dracula.
Hey weirdos, I'm Alina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. Did you just hear my stomach growl? Crumble lumble.
It's a murder. It's usually my stomach that's growing. I know, I know what's going on. Mind the wild. I just had a tuna sub.
You did, so I'm not dressed. It looked wild, but I... It wasn't good. No. So we'll see how that fits.
I know. It wasn't bad. It just didn't hit like you wanted it to. No. That's the worst.
Yeah. I hate that. If I don't have to run out of here in the middle of this, hopefully. Imagine. You won't know, listen to her.
Yeah. So that's my lunch. That's my lunch. That's my lunch. This bitch over here shovels some cheese fries.
She said whatever, I'm having cheese fries. I did. I said I won't be joining it. I really wanted some. I was craving some since I've been sick.
I was like, give me it. She wasn't sure how soon she could have cheese fries post-noreau. Yeah. I can't really go full of glass. 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 salad and I'm like, hopefully that's chill. Hopefully that's all right. Hopefully that's me. I don't know.
I'm like my dad. I'm not a motherfucker to eat anything. I'm just my dad. I could just eat things at all hours of night. I know I'm crazy girls.
Spicy doesn't really bother me too much. I love spicy, but spicy does not love me. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. I did. I do go spicy sometimes like last night.
I paid for it. I paid for that. I had to order thumbs at 11 p.m. Damn. But they make chewable thumbs.
Which, hey, and then tell you when I got those. You said, aren't they all chewable? And I said, I meant chewy. Like chewy, like yummy. Yeah.
Yeah. They're so good. I just got myself from eating the whole thing. You can't just eat thumbs. No.
As a snack. No. There's a whole warning label. That's a whole warning that you can't. You're not supposed to have more than six in like a 24-hour period.
I have three in case you were wondering. It's like that Melissa McCarthy and Brad's mates. I took nine. I took nine. I think I've over committed.
I took nine. I took nine. I took nine. I took nine. I took nine.
With chewy thumbs. I took nine. So in business, by the butcher legacy, you can pre-order it. I'm going to finish it this weekend. Yeah.
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. Yeah. Because there's some cool stuff I get to tell you. Perhaps in a series started.
Perhaps a new series that I'm going 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 on. I'm going to do a couple of things. Give an eye?
Give an eye? You know? Keep an eye. You know? Keep two.
And maybe it'll make you want a pre-order because some incentives might be coming your way to pre-order. So, period. Give a try. Give a try. Hold on to that receipt.
Maybe. But yeah. Just go pre-order it wherever you want, but you're like a C.com? Yeah. It's really, really fucking good.
Thank you. And I know I'm biased, but 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.
But honestly, I love hearing that. A vibe is perfect. Yeah. And we're back in New Orleans. I think that's important.
It's the vine, it's like how we're late in time. I'm excited about it. It's the fall time. These are things you gotta tell people. I know, I'm not gonna tell you my own book.
I appreciate it. That's why I need you. We're in the morgue a lot in this one. There's a lot of morgue in this one. This one was the one I had a lot of fun writing this one.
You can tell it comes through. And this one, I love hearing that. It does. 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. I have to admit something. I love Jeremy.
Honestly, that's okay. I feel so wrong. I kind of wanted that. I wanted people to love him, but I want to punch him. I want people to not want him to go away, but hate him.
I'm not a little upset that he's behind bars. Yeah, I just let him live. I don't obviously love him. But he speaks. I'm rooting for Rhett at the same time.
I want her to kick him in the kneecaps. I love her so much. I love her so much. She's a baddie. She's friends with K-Sarpella.
Did you hear that? I'll never get over that. That Patricia Cornwall is like, I think K-Rhett and Rhett are really good buds. I think they are too. And honestly, maybe that's true.
Maybe if you pre-order the book, you can find out more about that. Maybe you can find out more about that. I think we plugged the shit. I think we did get guys. I think we need to plug a little more.
Because a lot of times we're just like, order it. We didn't have any detail. I realize that's not good enough of an incentive to do anything. You could just be pre-order this. You're probably like, shut the fuck up.
What do you mean? Hopefully that tickled your pickle a little bit. I hope so. He said it didn't tickle his pickle. He doesn't like he gave us a phone face.
I think that phrase is so funny. I do too. What do you like tickle your fancy? Oh, a big guy. He said yes.
Or blow your skirt up. I love that a lot. Tickler pickle sounds really kind of perverse to me. It's more comfortable than you say it out of your mouth. I'm going to 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.
We're still going. Not yet, Jason. Who is it actually? I don't know. We are doing a fucking Radio City show.
Yes. In June, June 27th. I should say that confidently. That's the date of my show. It works.
Good to be awesome. We just bugged a special guest. Fear you're going to shit your day. You've got to get excited. You've got to book your tickets.
We just booked. Can I just say something? We're having dresses made in Romania. Yeah, we've never done anything like that. We're getting Romanian dresses up in this bitch.
So we're going to shout out the maker once everything is settled. Coolest people. Coolest people. I can't wait to sing their praises. Honestly.
Because let me tell you, book talk, girlies, and friends, you'll love this scale. You'll love it. So yeah, it's just out there. I don't want to say too much. So you need to get your ticket.
Yeah, book your hotel. There's not too many tickets. I don't want to say that. I don't want to say that. I don't want to say too much.
Yeah. So you need to get your ticket. Yeah, book your hotel. There's not too many tickets left. So go get them.
And you know what? You don't even have to stay in New York for the night. You can take a train. Yeah, you can go back. The train is nice.
I don't know how late it runs. Yeah, it's okay. Whatever. Wanda the streets a little bit. I've got that far because that's insane.
Wanda the streets until dawn. And then like you said, what the fuck? I just need people not to do it. I'm just kidding. All right.
Carl, Jason hit them. All right. Tell them the number. Let's go. So we finished part one.
I think he was trying to get me fully shocked. Yes. He was in Elestive. It was in the last study. Everybody was being very cocky seemed to kind of think they were untouchable.
Like weren't really saying anything. Aside from the caretaker, Jimin go Bustamante, says he pretty quickly folded and told investigators everything he knew, including the fact that a young American man had been held up at the ranch. And when he was shown a photo of Mark Kilroy, he confirmed. Yes. That was the way he was talking about.
I feel this is going to get really done. I would like to warn you at the top. This is a very, and I will give you another warning when we're about to get into it. This is a very gruesome. 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. It helps one person be a little more vigilant while they're traveling and then have more knowledge going in. Yeah.
So Domingo Bustamante's statement broke the case wide open. Less than an hour later, little Sarafin 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. This time, Commander Benitez was in no mood for the 20 year old's cocky attitude and self certainty. He had had enough.
Yeah, I can say that. So after slamming the soda water in 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 Sarafin 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 know what?
Yeah, like you're not having divine protection. No, it might have been the bottle of soda water in the hot sauce on the table or it might have just been Benitez's unwillingness to tolerate anymore lies, whatever it was, mystical protection or not, little Sarafin started talking. 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, it would for sure be the hot sauce. That would be 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 Madamuros 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. No. And I want to point out, I know that what we're talking about here is not voodoo. I'm not super educated. I did quote. In voodoo at all, but that's a quote.
And I know that I'm sure this is vastly different. No, we're talking about today than actual voodoo. Yeah, like this was a quote from this person. 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, 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 that will not be enough. In the death of his uncle Saul and his father, Serifin, little Serifin, 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. Yes. El Padrino was referenced in that wiretap call.
So El Padrino happened to be a dalfa 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 by Ombe which was an Afro Cuban religion. It honors the dead and gauges and rituals that involve human bones and some other things.
Okay. Serifin told the agents, Adalfa was very powerful, very smart. He runs our business in Madamuros. 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 me. And when you hear that, you're like, oh, okay. Got it.
And just to be clear, again, like I'm describing, 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 religions. And these are religions that they reference, not us. Exactly.
But in 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, but just I don't want anybody to think that I think that's what it is. Yeah, for you either. So it was clear to Benitez and the others that Serifin had a lot of respect for Constanzo, but there was also a lot more to it. It seemed like he almost worshipped him and also was terrified of him all at the same time.
Yeah, that seemed 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.
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 what it's supposed to be. And for me, this area is part of that 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 a legua, which is that trickster God that we referenced in part one, that God would give powers and protections for in exchange for offerings, which I wonder, and again, I don't know anything about this. So this is me just wondering about it. A trickster God to me seems like, you can't trust that.
I would think. Because a trickster God is usually like shitty. Yeah, like they're tricky. 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.
Yeah, they're relying so heavily on it. I know. Well, and that's the thing. Yeah. He, he modeled his whole life over what he thought was appeasing this God.
Yeah, it's just interesting. Now, one of those quote unquote offerings ended up being Mark Kilroy. Oh, that's awful. According to Sarah Feen, Constanzo had instructed him to go into Madamuros the night that Mark got missing, and he was to find somebody to sacrifice to the gods. This was not the first time they had done this.
He said, Adolpho Todas told us we had to go get a white male, a young white male, like a springbreaker. Oh, wow. So they were like, like, legitimately on the hunt for Mark Kilroy. It was getting late and Hernandez and another gang member of Malio Torres still hadn't found anybody. And then the bars let out, like I talked about, when the streets were flooded with people.
Sarah Feen was standing on the street and he actually saw Mark get separated from his friends because when he had to relieve himself, he up 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 going to warn you for both. So this is when they get that 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.
Oh my God. They were 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 Boosted meant, day 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 not to be a sacrifice. This is where it's going to get really bad, just so everybody knows, trigger warning.
The next day, a doppel 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 building 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, there was a scene. For sure. They would have found evidence of what it would have been.
That's what I mean. They would have seen that something happen to me. Yeah. 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 God. This is, we're still not past the worst of it. Holy shit. 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. Holy shit. 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 mentor, to move 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. Oh, yeah, 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 cult 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. 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 be a woman. It's so scary to me.
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. Holy shit. And that's the thing.
It's like, how do people become this deranged and it's like the time- It's like the time- It seems like overnight. Yeah. It's so incredible. It's like a fellow human being as a sacrifice. As nothing.
As something that's not you. Like I don't understand that. I'll never understand that. I think it's power. And I think in this case, drugs.
Holy shit. So the next day, Benita sat down with Sarah Feen again. And this time he recounted 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 don't know about that. I was 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. They will not be punished for this.
Yup. 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 door-ranged animals. By the time they finished searching the property, investigators would exhum 14 bodies, holy shit, 14 bodies of other men, all of various ages. So they stood back while Sarah Feen worked at gunpoint, digging up one body after another from shallow graves.
Like Mark Hillroy, a lot of the other men had been chosen mostly for their physical traits or characteristics that Constanza 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. Wow. 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 have 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. Holy shit. Every body showed signs of having been tortured and sexually assaulted and all had similar wounds to the ones that Mark Hillroy had. Jesus. Now, while several agents guarded Sarah Feen and Martinez as they worked on Earth 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. That is the scariest thing I've ever heard. Yeah. Now, Benita, 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 folklore and stuff. And folklore, yeah. So he had, he grew up hearing about all this and that included all manner of spirits, magic, even amen. 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 them and who are 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 Zavoletta, and he was an expert in Afro-Caribbean religions. So if anybody was gonna help them navigate this whole unfamiliar world, it was gonna be him. Now, even with all of his experience, Zavoletta was horrified by what he saw on the ranch that day. Oh, I can imagine.
He told a reporter, he had 40 years studying Breharia 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. That's how ever prepare yourself. This sounds completely out of the realm of anything you could conjure. It really does.
So like the agents on scenes, Zavoletta 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, so they should say their 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 slob 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. Yup.
But this is real. Like 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, Zavoletta approached Benitez and told him, this is Palomayon Bay.
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 part one, the local authorities and Madam Wurros, they were familiar with the Hernandez family and we went over that. So when they learned the activity at the ranch that involved Sarafine and the other members of the gang, all except one that kept coming up over and over again, especially after Sarafine gave his confession. Adolpho Consonzo, El Padrino. El Padrino, exactly. So Adolpho de Jesus Consonzo, he was born November 1st, 1962 in Miami, Florida, to a 15 year old single mother.
15, her name was Delia Gonzalez and she was a Cuban immigrant. So obviously he too was Cuban. Yeah. So it's exactly what the doctor said. Sorry, there might be a plane landing on my house.
I know. That was low. So like many single parents, Delia spent a lot of her life just struggling to support her family. Yeah, of course. Because she didn't just have Adolpho 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 religions that would eventually have, as we know, a very profound effect on Adolpho 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 seemed like. Other Jim Schutz wrote, even as a very little boy, he was meticulous in ways that seemed strange to the adults around him.
So I'm sure he was not getting a lot of support for that. No, I don't think so. 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, fielder 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 Schutz wrote on a few occasions when fellow students made the mistake of teasing Adolpho 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 school mates 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, hey, these are red flags? I guess it was the 60s question mark. Whoa. I don't know what the excuses here for them. 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- It's like the middle earth. Like that's the game of thrones is really only where that would be acceptable, I think. And even then it was kind of red flag.
And then you're like, oh something wrong here. I feel like this is gonna go awry. Yeah, it sure does. Holy shit. 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, he may have just been written off as like a phase that kids go through, but 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. But at the same time, shoots noted, most of the people in Cuban Miami who are around it all phone his mother for any length of time knew exactly what this little boy's demeanor meant and it frightened them.
So there were people who saw these red flags. Yeah, there were 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.
Also, neighbors had always thought that it was a little suspicious how Adelpha'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 steps on Adelpha. 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 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 Adelpha was now free to just 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, we don't need to bother ourselves with things like friends. Yeah, no other human things. Yeah, no, no, no, for weird things. Like I wanna 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 movie stars and going to the movies, that kind of thing.
And she loved how American movie stars in particular, like commanded attention and wielded power with the public. She had not fascinating. I'm like movies aren't mundane to you, but friends are? Like, why don't I know? That doesn't make sense.
So you know what, there was this era though that I feel like movie stars were otherworldly. Yes, I mean, it was a totally different kind of era thing. Yeah. Well, she was confident though that her son Adelpha could command that same power. She said movie star vibes just stopped putting bloody animals.
I was gonna say. There is that one little thing though, like he does. She wasn't worried that it was like gonna be a hindrance though. Yeah, she's not worried about that. She's not worried about the mundane things.
Now by the time he was in his mid teens, Adelpha 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, not me. He's gotten 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 Adelpha 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.
And when he graduated high school in 1980 with all his supposed gifts, he saw no reason to go to college. He's gifted. No, that's mundane. 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 a sexuality with men and women.
And on a trip to Mexico City in 1981, 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.
It's real. And it also, it is the thrill of it because it became a regular habit through the 80s. 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. So he's looking for that extra thing.
Well, and you're gifted. You're talented. You're not, you're protected. I'm sure he thought by these gods that he's speaking to. So even though he had this shoplifting tent that he was actually arrested for, he still managed to find success in Mexico, especially when he was offered a modeling job.
To deal with the job was further confirmation that he had the power and influenced he 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 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 Sarah Finer was saying, like movie stars in Congressman. 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 bad vibes. It is, it's bad vibes. But this service became particularly popular and it makes sense among the local drug dealers and the cartels. I mean, that makes sense. It makes sense.
Now, to 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 gift stuff drew everybody to him. And he found them to be easily manipulated through superstition. So he saw his niche. Yeah, of course. It's a horrible niche, but he identified it.
He's jumping into it. Now in 1988, after Saul Hernandez and Sarah Fin Sr 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. So he needed help. And he figured what they really specifically needed was good protection and there was no better protection than magic.
So Elio set out to find the one that could guarantee their safety. And it seems that he likely met Adolpho Constanza through Sarah Maria Adrette, who I mentioned was Adolpho's high priestess in part one. She was a friend of Elio's who dabbled in Black magic. And of course, as we know, she knew Adolpho. Now at 22 years old, she was a college student just living in Brownsville, Texas.
When an unexpected divorce had her move back to Mount Amoros to live with her parents. She always talked about wanting to become a teacher. So like I said, she was just a regular girly going to college, wanting to be a teacher. And then she met Adolpho Constanza. She's just gonna mold you on mines?
She was going to mold you on mines. Adolpho 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 her. Whoa. Apparently this was like a thing. And Madamoros, like men would put these big displays of affection on for women that they wanted to end up in 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. She's like, no thanks.
But for some reason, there was something about Adolpho that she liked. She saw that he was gifted and topsies. 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. Oh, yeah. Where'd they go? They mysteriously vanished within a year of meeting Adolpho Constanza.
You know what? It's not my business. Isn't it weird how people just mysteriously vanish when they know him or his family? 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 everything about all of this. It's so dark.
It feels so scary. It's so dark. I'm so anxious just thinking about it. Yeah. But it's so strange because the deeper that they all got into Pyoma, the more the spiritual practices and beliefs took over their lives.
Now to Tony Zavoletta, the doctor, who actually knew Sarah Well. Wow. Her 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. That'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 in A student, always present, always friendly. I never saw her wear an emblem, an amulet, a talisman, any sign of Black magic and I'm trained to watch out for such things. I never heard her
ask a weird question even when we talked about weird religions. So it really was like, like switch. Yeah, like switch. 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 a big 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 Elio 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. Oh shit. So the followers
did as they were told and they grabbed a 14 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 Elio 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 fucking accidentally knocked your own family off the street. You have to
be so detached from because anything even slightly resembling humanity. They all just continued on doing the same thing. That wasn't like a wake up call like shit's getting way too chaotic. Like we need to take a step here. It's insane. But by the time they killed Mark
Kilroy, all of Adelpha 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. That's what they I keep going back to it. I'm like, how does this fucking happen? You just have to 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 way untethered. I'm tethered from humanity and 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. Like not let that happen. It's like people I hate. Like you know what
I mean? Like I can't. Because that's human imagine. Like that's empathy. That's sympathy. But
some people just aren't equipped with those emotions. It's a stranger. Yeah. 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 just don't care intervening and removing it. And you and you feel entitled to do that. 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 officials were then confirmed by doctors of a letter, 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 the shit. He knows about the shit and it is taken very seriously in these particular cultures. And you don't want to fuck around honestly, I know it sounds a little out there like what you're talking about. 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 this is a this is a deeply ingrained thing in these cultures. 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 like you have to allow them to do what they need to do for sure. Yeah. So Benita's contacted again, I hope I say this right. I know I'm just a little white girl.
A cure and error, which is a white witch to come to the property in cleanse area. But they wanted to wait until Sunday, which is the Lord's Day, when the cleansing magic would be the most powerful. Okay. So in the meantime, Benita's 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 alters 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. 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 said about
cleansing the property. The first step was to destroy the shack where the rituals had occurred. I can understand if you weren't familiar with this religion or this culture being like, why would you burn down crucial evidence? Well, that's a 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. 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. He was 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 a club and then left back almost like he was waiting for a corresponding attack 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 Benita's 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 Kilroy, 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. 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 Del Fiero, a local man in his 30s who had been shot with a nine millimeter. There was Gilberto Garza Sosa, a railroad security guard whose neck bones were all broken from what the medical examiner believed was a hanging. And there was Cesar Sasteda, who was a former Madamoros police officer and his body showed signs of torture. It was the Sada, actually, Sasaeda, who Elio had shot prematurely, which required them to find a new victim and that obviously resulted in the death of his own nephew 14 year old nephew 14 years old. But unfortunately,
many of the other victims would remain unidentified. That's really sad. 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 a Delft 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 a Delft Constanzo of the raid, he and Sarah escaped to Brownsville, along with cult members, Martin 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. Wow. 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 out any evidence that a violent crime had been committed there in that location. So that was a little tough. Yeah. 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. Oh, wow. But it did result in gunfire between the suspect and the police. And 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 and 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 run at the same time said he went 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 Alvaro Valdez to shoot him and his henchman, Martin 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 bonkers. So with Adolpho Constanzo and Martin Rodriguez now dead, police took Sarah Eldrette, Omar Francisco, Oreo, Okoa, and Alvaro Dileon Valdez into custody, bringing the manhunt for Mark Hillreis' murderers to an end. A bizarre wild then. One of the strangest ends, I think that actually had a morbid history. 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, Oreo 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 was found guilty of the murders of Adolpho Constanzo and Martin Rodriguez and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Sarah Eldrette, Sarah Fiend Hernandez, Elio Hernandez, and Sergio Martinez
were ultimately convicted of multiple crimes, including the murders of Mark Hillreis and the others found on the ranch, and they were sentenced to 67 years in prison. I don't know exactly why, but in 1998, a judge did reduce their sentences to 50 years each. Why? I don't know if it was good behavior. I'm not sure. That seems crazy. Now, as of today, only Ovido Hernandez and Malio Ponce Torres
have managed to have a captured. Wow. Yeah. As for the Killreis 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 Hillreis Foundation, and that's an organization dedicated to the prevention of substance abuse among young people, which I think is really incredible. They made you
a bit 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. Exactly. Because that really is. This kind of shit can happen anywhere. And you just like, stories like this are so shocking, but it's such proof that you do not know what's lingering around the next corner. And you don't know strangers or strangers.
You don't know them. You don't know what they're talking about. You don't know if they have good intentions. You don't know anything. Unfortunately, a lot of times people don't want to help you.
No, they want to hurt you. That's a horrible thing to have to believe. But you have to at least have that in the front of your mind to know. And now we have the information. Let them, let them prove to you that they're not that. Exactly. Before you fully trust them. But honestly,
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. No, thank you. I'm all set. I got it. I never want the help. Aride. No, no, no, no.
Aride. No, no, no. I'm obviously not at this point. Like when the story happened, but now Uber. No, also don't need it. It's just an awful, awful story. It's just awful that
human beings are capable of doing this to other human beings. That's honestly the thing that my brain just never ever can even conceive of. No, truly. But I really do commend his family for like making something positive, something positive come up. Yeah, such a tragic loss is holy shit. Yeah,
it's a horrific story. It really is. Do you have a fun fact for us as a palate cleanser? I think it's your fun fact. I did a fun fact question. I'll find a fun fact for us then. Okay, sharks have been swimming
in Earth's oceans for about 400 million years, making them roughly 50 million years older than the earliest trees. That's so scary and incredible all at the same time. It really is. Like that's the ocean isn't my business. No, it's just not. I also just find it so scary that we just stopped exploring
the ocean. Yeah, because I think we're like, 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.
But also like that's where our Wi-Fi comes from. Yeah, make it make sense. I know. Yeah. Like he's looking at me like, what the fuck comes from like tunnels and shit underwater. It's weird.
It's constant. It's a rabbit hole about that on TikTok. Let's do it. Let's do that. That's how you pal it. Yeah, follow us for that rabbit hole. There you go. Follow us for like a creepy rabbit hole about that.
Like technological and chilling. And we'll probably scare you as well. Yeah, but like in a fun way. Yeah, the fun way. So with that being said, we hope people are listening and we hope you keep it weird.
But I was really open on a rabbit hole. One that makes you feel good. Yeah, we're a little bit scary. Let's get another hole.