On the bleak, brown plains of Mexico's Rio Grande valley, drug smuggling is nearly as common as a coyote's yowl. Thus Mexican police were not all that surprised last week when a search of a cattle ranch 20 miles outside the town of Matamoros turned up 75 lbs. of marijuana. But the investigation took a darker turn when the authorities showed the ranch's caretaker a photo of Mark Kilroy, 21, a University of Texas senior who had vanished a month ago.
Yes, the worker recalled, he had seen Kilroy, and pointed to a rust-colored wooden shed 400 yards away. There, under a gray, misty sky, the police made a ghastly discovery. In and around a corral, they found several makeshift graves; the overpowering stench of decaying flesh led to digging that eventually uncovered the corpses of 13 males, one as young as 14. Several of the victims had been slashed with knives, others bludgeoned on the head. One had been hanged, another apparently set afire and at least two pumped with bullets. Some had been tortured with razor blades or had their hearts ripped out. Nearly all had been severely mutilated: ears, nipples and testicles removed, the eyes gouged from one victim, the head missing from another.
When officers entered the darkness of the 15-by-25-ft. shack, they found a squat iron kettle whose contents suggested that more than just a band of ruthless killers had been at work. Inside the pot, resting in dried blood, were a charred human brain and a roasted turtle. Other containers held a witch's brew of human hair, a goat's head and chicken parts. After arresting and questioning four suspects, the Mexican police pieced together a horrific tale of a voodoo-practicing cult of drug smugglers who believed that orgies of human sacrifice would win satanic protection for its 2,000-lb.-a-week marijuana-running operation to the U.S. "They felt that all the killing would draw a protective shield around them," observed Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox. "It was religious craziness."
All but two of the victims were apparently plucked at random from the countryside surrounding Matamoros. They included Kilroy, a premed major who vanished March 14 after a night of spring-break revelry in the town's cantinas. At 2 a.m. he was lured toward a pickup truck by a thin, scar-faced man who offered a ride. Two toughs threw him into the back and sped off. Five blocks away, Kilroy attempted to escape, but was recaptured and driven to the ranch. There he was gagged and blindfolded with heavy gray tape and tossed into the darkened shed.
Kilroy's captors brought bread and water, assuring him there was no danger. But twelve hours later he was abruptly led outside and executed with a machete slash to the back of his neck. The man who wielded the weapon, according to Mexican police, was the cult's ringleader, Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, 26, a lanky, red-haired Cuban American who grew up in Miami. Constanzo, still being sought at week's end, inspired such fervent loyalty among his followers that he was known as El Padrino, the Godfather.