Speaker 1: In March of nineteen eighty nine, a twenty one year
Speaker 1: old college student traveled to South Padre Island for spring
Speaker 1: break with some friends and crossed into Madame Rose, Mexico.
Speaker 1: Like thousands of others, the days were spent on the
Speaker 1: beach and the nights were spent moving between crowded bars
Speaker 1: holding parties just across the border. After a few days,
Speaker 1: that was their routine. It was everything they imagined for
Speaker 1: their spring break. Then, in the early hours of March fourteenth,
Speaker 1: after leaving the bars and heading back to their hotel,
Speaker 1: he was separated from his friends briefly in the crowds
Speaker 1: and then disappeared. At first, it didn't seem urgent, but
Speaker 1: as those minutes turned into hours and hours into days,
Speaker 1: it became clear that this wasn't a simple case of
Speaker 1: someone just getting lost, and soon what began as a
Speaker 1: fun filled spring break vacation quickly turned into a disappearance
Speaker 1: tied to drug trafficking and ultimately a satanic ritual killing.
Speaker 1: This is the story of Mark Kilroy.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim.
Speaker 1: A true crime podcast. The following podcast material more mature
Speaker 1: audience listeners. It's official. We're hooked on pick a ball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I pretty much want to go and play every
Speaker 2: single day.
Speaker 1: Right. It's addicting. And I don't know if it's just
Speaker 1: because like we're aging and so pick a ball is
Speaker 1: more appealing to us, or if it's actually just legitimately
Speaker 1: a fun game, but either way, I'm enjoying the hell
Speaker 1: out of it.
Speaker 2: It's damn fun. But every time we've been playing, it's
Speaker 2: been like quite a diverse range of ages that are
Speaker 2: also on the court, oh for sure. So it's so
Speaker 2: interesting because I think it used to be kind of
Speaker 2: classified as you know, like a retirement hobby or sure
Speaker 2: sporked or whatever.
Speaker 1: A retiree sort of situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but now it's it just seems like all ages.
Speaker 1: I guess it does because we were out at the courts,
Speaker 1: Like last time, we were out pretty early, so all
Speaker 1: like the retiree ages were out there. But then we've
Speaker 1: been out there before and us and us the retiree ages,
Speaker 1: like I said, no, I'm just kidding, we're not retiring.
Speaker 1: We're not even forty almost. But the time before that,
Speaker 1: there was like a lot younger people there, like mid
Speaker 1: twenties and stuff, and they were having like a big
Speaker 1: group out. It's it's just a fun game, and I
Speaker 1: think it's blown up and being really popular strictly on
Speaker 1: the fact that it's just that a fun game.
Speaker 2: It's easy, it's easy just to show up and you
Speaker 2: have this little court too. I feel like tennis is
Speaker 2: a little bit daunting where you, I don't know, just
Speaker 2: have like this way bigger surface area, and I feel
Speaker 2: it takes longer to develop tennis skills, yeah, than it
Speaker 2: does pickle ball skills.
Speaker 1: Well, I think what it is is beginner pickleball is
Speaker 1: easier than beginner tennis.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's it. Yeah, well, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: Yes, because of the smaller court, the lighter ball, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. It's almost just like playing a large
Speaker 1: version of ping pong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty awesome. We might go and play later.
Speaker 1: We might, although we got to do our dishes from
Speaker 1: last night or sink is fall right now, uh huh,
Speaker 1: don't judge us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got a lot going on. Chickens are being menaces, so.
Speaker 1: It's a grit old time.
Speaker 2: We'll see if we have time. I know, right, Oh, rooster,
Speaker 2: just grow, You're gonna hear a lot of rooster crows
Speaker 2: this episode. I'm just gonna warn you. I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: put out there because I just separated a little hen
Speaker 2: and they're not gonna be happy about that.
Speaker 1: So she needs some heal in time. She's got a
Speaker 1: little bit of a peck injury.
Speaker 2: But just chickens or assholes.
Speaker 1: But sometimes we get comments that you guys don't hear
Speaker 1: the roosters. So yeah, thankfully you don't hear the roosters
Speaker 1: because they can be obnoxious. But yeah, now I do
Speaker 1: got to do a little thank you to some Patreon people.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was like, you're there's no segue there for you.
Speaker 1: Oh, I could have I could have tried, or I
Speaker 1: could have figured something out. I just, you know what,
Speaker 1: I've been trying really hard last little while, so I'm
Speaker 1: probably just gonna just go into it for a little
Speaker 1: take a break, a little bit of a break, and relax.
Speaker 2: That's fair that.
Speaker 1: Way, you know, when you're least expecting it, I can
Speaker 1: go right back into, you know, set the proper segues.
Speaker 1: But for now, I just got to think are awesome
Speaker 1: patrons like Amelia Avery t Swift eighty nine and Christian Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get your name. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: call you Christian. I cannot do your last name, Miko
Speaker 1: led Ja Zack. I'm sorry, Christian, but thank you Christian.
Speaker 1: No Miko lad Ja Zack. It's Mikola and then j
Speaker 1: c z a k okay Ja Zack. Maybe Mikola Jazak.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe they can let us know if you're close.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know. I have a feeling I was
Speaker 1: way off. But thank you guys very much for signing
Speaker 1: up over in a Patreon. Just because I can't pronounce
Speaker 1: your name doesn't mean you don't mean a lot to us.
Speaker 1: You really do. Your support goes a long way, So
Speaker 1: thank you so much.
Speaker 2: It's not like this is a new thing around here.
Speaker 1: No, I think we've built a reputation on mispronouncing names
Speaker 1: at this point. I think it's just expected if I'm honest.
Speaker 2: Probably yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But I also do want to say one other thing.
Speaker 1: Today's episode should be a two parter.
Speaker 2: Okay, but you're not.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it through. We're going through in one fell.
Speaker 2: Swoop, so it's going to be a doozy. Yes, there
Speaker 2: is an episode.
Speaker 1: There is a lot in this episode, so you might
Speaker 1: need to buckle up your seat belts. I'm guessing this
Speaker 1: episode is going to be somewhere in the vicinity of
Speaker 1: an hour and ten to an hour and twenty minutes long.
Speaker 1: That's my guess.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, I bet it's going to be longer.
Speaker 1: It might be even longer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if it's if we do a lot
Speaker 1: of chatting and discussing on things, it could definitely be
Speaker 1: up to an hour and a half. But if we
Speaker 1: are pretty quick on some of the stuff we don't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot to discuss, then it might be
Speaker 1: on the shorter side of closer to an hour and ten.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, let's hear all about it and see see
Speaker 2: what's going on.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well. Mark Kilroy was twenty one years old in
Speaker 1: March of nineteen eighty nine. He was a junior at
Speaker 1: the University of Texas, and he was already working hard
Speaker 1: towards his future in medicine. He was studying pre med,
Speaker 1: keeping his grades steady while preparing for the MCAT, which
Speaker 1: is the medical college admission test, and he was balancing
Speaker 1: that with a life that was just as active outside
Speaker 1: the classroom too. See. He liked to play sports, and
Speaker 1: he kept himself in shape. Friends described him as being reliable,
Speaker 1: the kind of person who showed up when he said
Speaker 1: he would be there, and he didn't drift into any
Speaker 1: sort of trouble or anything. He grew up in Santa Fe, Texas,
Speaker 1: in a close knit family that stayed involved in his
Speaker 1: life even after he left for college, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: someone who moved aimlessly through life. He was pretty structured.
Speaker 1: In fact, by the time he reached his early twenties,
Speaker 1: he already had his path laid out. He was going
Speaker 1: to finish school, get into medical training, and build a career.
Speaker 1: The people around him didn't just see potential, they actually
Speaker 1: saw someone actively moving towards it. So it wasn't just
Speaker 1: that potential in him, it was already in the process
Speaker 1: of being achieved. With Mark, though, there wasn't anything reckless
Speaker 1: about him. He wasn't known for taking unnecessary risks or
Speaker 1: pushing any sort of boundaries just to see what would happen.
Speaker 1: When he went out with his friends. He stayed within
Speaker 1: the same limits that he always did, and perhaps that's
Speaker 1: part of what made what happens next so difficult to
Speaker 1: understand for the people closest to him, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to get too far ahead of myself, so first
Speaker 1: we need to talk about March tenth, nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: On this day, Mark had left Texas with a group
Speaker 1: of his friends from college and they were headed towards
Speaker 1: South Padre Island for spring break. This island is located
Speaker 1: at the southernmost tip of Texas on the east coast
Speaker 1: and is right near the border of Mexico. It was
Speaker 1: a long drive down there, and it was slowed by
Speaker 1: heavy fog in times of the evening and stuff, but
Speaker 1: it was nothing out of the ordinary or anything, and
Speaker 1: by the time they arrived the next day of March eleventh,
Speaker 1: they checked into their hotel, They unpacked and settled into
Speaker 1: what would become a routine for the next few days.
Speaker 1: During the day, it was exactly as you'd expect. The
Speaker 1: beach was packed with students from across the country, all partying, drinking,
Speaker 1: relaxing and taking advantage of the break from school. The
Speaker 1: music was turned up loud, alcohol was all over in
Speaker 1: thin plastic cups, and there were crowds everywhere. It was loud, busy,
Speaker 1: and probably exactly what you picture in your head. It
Speaker 1: was something straight out of like a two thousand's coming
Speaker 1: of age comedy movie sort of thing. Now at their
Speaker 1: location near the border, it made for fun for the
Speaker 1: group to start crossing the border into Madameros, Mexico. It
Speaker 1: was pretty common to do so. Actually, thousands of students
Speaker 1: were doing the very same thing. There's a bridge between
Speaker 1: Texas and Madame Rose and it became a steady stream
Speaker 1: of people moving back and forth, drawn in by cheaper
Speaker 1: drinks and packed bars and a night life scene that
Speaker 1: felt bigger and less controlled than anything on the United
Speaker 1: States side. So once across the bridge, the streets there
Speaker 1: were crowded. They were tight packed, noisy, and full of movement.
Speaker 1: It was essentially the beach life, but now packed into
Speaker 1: the streets. Bars lined the roads. People were spilling in
Speaker 1: and out with music overlamping from one place to the next,
Speaker 1: and drinks were cheap, and it didn't take much for
Speaker 1: the night life to get out of hand. For Mark
Speaker 1: and his friends, this quickly became their pattern. They spent
Speaker 1: the days on South Padre, crossed into Madame Morose at night,
Speaker 1: hit a few bars, and then made their way back
Speaker 1: across the bridge into the early morning hours. By the
Speaker 1: time they crossed into Madame Morose. For the second and
Speaker 1: third night, the routine was locked in. They knew where
Speaker 1: to go, how to move through the crowds, and how
Speaker 1: to get back across the bridge without thinking too much
Speaker 1: about it. In fact, I'm sure they were a little
Speaker 1: intoxicated even and could do so even in that state.
Speaker 1: The streets were still packed with thousands of students moving
Speaker 1: between bars. The crowds were shoulder to shoulder, pushing through
Speaker 1: narrow stretches of roads lined with musics and flashing lights.
Speaker 1: It was loud, messy, and as people drank heavily, they
Speaker 1: were drifting in and out of groups and losing track
Speaker 1: of time. Inside the bars, though it was even tighter
Speaker 1: than the streets. They'd go inside, and places like Lost
Speaker 1: Sombreros in the London pub were filled wall to wall.
Speaker 1: There wasn't much space to move as people were pressed
Speaker 1: up against each other, shouting over music, ordering drinks, and
Speaker 1: trying to stay with their friends while the crowd shifted
Speaker 1: around them. In honesty, it didn't take much to get separated,
Speaker 1: even just for a few minutes. On the evening of
Speaker 1: March thirteenth, Mark moved through all this the same way
Speaker 1: he did the previous nights in that routine they were
Speaker 1: settling into. He stuck with his group, went from one
Speaker 1: place to the next, and kept the same rhythm that
Speaker 1: he had already established. He wasn't wandering off, he wasn't
Speaker 1: acting differently from anyone else there. He was just enjoying
Speaker 1: the time. By the early morning hours of March fourteenth,
Speaker 1: the night was starting to wind down. It was around
Speaker 1: two am when Mark and his friends left the bars
Speaker 1: and began to head back towards the bridge that would
Speaker 1: be taking them once again to Texas. The streets were
Speaker 1: still crowded, but the energy had shifted. People were drunk,
Speaker 1: they were tired, and they were filtering out, moving in
Speaker 1: loose groups trying to find their way back. Mark was
Speaker 1: walking with his friends. He was staying close as they
Speaker 1: moved through the noise in the traffic of people, and
Speaker 1: at some point along the way, he ended up just
Speaker 1: slightly behind his group of friends. Now this wasn't a
Speaker 1: major separation. I'm talking just a couple steps at best.
Speaker 1: They reached an area near the bridge and his friends
Speaker 1: stepped off to the side, just briefly, just away from
Speaker 1: the crowd. Now the reason isn't clear. Perhaps someone needed
Speaker 1: to tie their shoelace or just use the bathroom on
Speaker 1: not exactly certain, but what we do know is it
Speaker 1: was supposed to be quick because Mark stayed where he was,
Speaker 1: just waiting there for them to come back so they
Speaker 1: can go over to the bridge. And while he stood
Speaker 1: there in the crowd, a man approached him. The interaction
Speaker 1: was normal. It was just two people talking in the
Speaker 1: middle of the crowded street. There was nothing about it
Speaker 1: that even drew any sort of attention. Now, within a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes, his friends came back, but Mark he
Speaker 1: was gone. He'd completely disappeared. At first, it didn't immediately
Speaker 1: register as something serious. In that environment, with people all
Speaker 1: over the place, and people are intoxicated in lights and
Speaker 1: music and bars and drinks, all this sort of thing,
Speaker 1: people get separated. It's very easy. And it's also easy
Speaker 1: to assume that he had maybe walked ahead or gone
Speaker 1: back with someone else that he knew, or ran into,
Speaker 1: or maybe taken a different r back towards the bridge.
Speaker 1: Who knows. It was a plethora of reasons. So Mark's
Speaker 1: friends continued back towards the bridge and eventually crossed into
Speaker 1: Texas without him, expecting that they would you find him
Speaker 1: already back at the hotel, or he would show up
Speaker 1: shortly after they did. When they arrived at the hotel,
Speaker 1: they waited for him, but he wasn't walking through the door,
Speaker 1: And as more time passed without any sign of him,
Speaker 1: the concern began to set in. Mark wasn't someone who
Speaker 1: had a habit of disappearing on his own or acting
Speaker 1: unpredictably in any way. He was already known for being
Speaker 1: very reliable. There was nothing about him that would suggest
Speaker 1: that he had acted in some sort of weird way
Speaker 1: or leave without telling anyone. So after a bit of
Speaker 1: a discussion, his friends decided to go back out and
Speaker 1: start looking for him. Now by this point, it was
Speaker 1: early morning and the crowds had begun to really thin out,
Speaker 1: but there were still enough people moving through the area
Speaker 1: that it wasn't completely empty. They retraced the roots that
Speaker 1: they had take and they returned to the bars that
Speaker 1: they'd been in. They'd asked anyone that they could if
Speaker 1: they had seen Mark, but no one had any sort
Speaker 1: of clear answer. No one had noticed anything. We're talking
Speaker 1: about places where thousands of people had been moving through
Speaker 1: the same space just hours earlier. Mark had blended in
Speaker 1: so seamlessly. If you go up and ask a bartender
Speaker 1: had you seen this one certain individual, he couldn't tell
Speaker 1: you a single face out of that entire crowd.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one person is most likely not going to stand.
Speaker 1: Out, exactly. It's a needle in a haystack. So he
Speaker 1: Mark had disappeared without leaving any sort of you know,
Speaker 1: trail or anything that would point where he'd gone to.
Speaker 2: I do like gone that they went out right away
Speaker 2: to look for him, though, Hey that they didn't just
Speaker 2: oh like he'll show up, we'll go to bed and
Speaker 2: he'll be here in the morning or whatever.
Speaker 1: They went right away exactly, which is great. Now, I
Speaker 1: also want to point out it's likely they were intoxicated too,
Speaker 1: So the fact that they were tired, intoxicated and still
Speaker 1: going out after yeah, to look for him, major props
Speaker 1: to that group of friends was hitting now. By the
Speaker 1: time the morning had fully set in, it was clear
Speaker 1: that this was no longer a situation that could be
Speaker 1: explained by a simple separation. There had been no contact,
Speaker 1: no sighting, and no indication that he made his way
Speaker 1: back across the border, even or even to the hotel,
Speaker 1: and at that point his friends reported him missing, and
Speaker 1: the situation shifted from all this confusion into a formal
Speaker 1: search with local authorities. But the response in those early hours, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: was far from urgent, and part of the reason for
Speaker 1: that was well, at the time, Madame Morose saw a
Speaker 1: steady flow of spring break tourists crossing the border every
Speaker 1: single night, and it wasn't uncommon for people to get
Speaker 1: separated from their groups, you know, staying out longer than expected,
Speaker 1: or leave with someone they had just met. Perhaps, so
Speaker 1: because of that, the initial assumption from law enforcement was
Speaker 1: that this was likely just another case of a student
Speaker 1: who simply lost track of time, you know, someone who
Speaker 1: maybe he was off having a fleing with someone he
Speaker 1: had just met.
Speaker 2: But to the group of friends, they know that wasn't
Speaker 2: him exactly.
Speaker 1: But still the police are like, well, maybe he'll just
Speaker 1: wander back soon, smelling of booze and sex and have
Speaker 1: a story to tell with his friends sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But my gosh, his.
Speaker 1: Friends in the meantime are just shaking their head like, no,
Speaker 1: that's that doesn't sound like him. Yeah, So that assumption
Speaker 1: shaped the early response. There was no immediate large scale
Speaker 1: search and no urgent mobilization. Instead, the case was treated
Speaker 1: as something that would likely just resolve itself once Mark
Speaker 1: reappeared again. However, from the perspective of his friends, it
Speaker 1: didn't match the situation. They knew his habits, they understood
Speaker 1: that disappearing without contact it just wasn't Mark, and as
Speaker 1: the hours turned into a full day with no sign
Speaker 1: of him, the pressure began to build. With Mark's whereabouts unknown,
Speaker 1: Soon his parents were contacted and quickly they made their
Speaker 1: way to the area, and their arrival brought a much
Speaker 1: different sense of urgency than what had initially been shown.
Speaker 1: From that point forward, the search became much more organized.
Speaker 1: A task force was soon put together, involving both US
Speaker 1: and Mexican authorities, and efforts began to expand beyond simply
Speaker 1: waiting for him to turn up again. Flyers were printed
Speaker 1: and distributed by the hundreds and I believe even the thousands,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, covering the streets in both sides
Speaker 1: of the border. His photo was shared widely and a
Speaker 1: reward was offered in the hope that someone might come
Speaker 1: forward with any sort of information. Volunteers joined the search,
Speaker 1: and the case began to gain attention beyond the immediate area.
Speaker 1: Despite the increased attention, though the investigation itself struggled to
Speaker 1: produce anything concrete. Tips started pouring in from both sides
Speaker 1: of the border. Some were based on vague sightings, others
Speaker 1: on secondhand information, and many couldn't be verified at all.
Speaker 1: Investigators followed what they could, but each lead required time,
Speaker 1: and most of them ended the same way, a dead end.
Speaker 1: And to top it all off, there was still no
Speaker 1: physical evidence, no confirmed witness who could describe what had happened,
Speaker 1: and no clear direction to focus on. So media coverage
Speaker 1: increased more and Mark's disappearance began reaching authorities outside the
Speaker 1: immediate region too. His photo was circulating more broadly, and
Speaker 1: cash reward of about a fifteen thousand dollars reward was
Speaker 1: offered for information leading to his whereabouts, which brought additional
Speaker 1: response from the public, and with that attention came pressure
Speaker 1: on law enforcement to produce answers and on the family,
Speaker 1: who were now dealing with the public visibility. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the most difficult moments during this period came
Speaker 1: when the family received a call from someone claiming to
Speaker 1: have Mark. The caller said he was alive and demanded
Speaker 1: money in exchange for his return. Now, this call introduced
Speaker 1: a very new possibility that he had been taken and
Speaker 1: could still be recovered, but it also came with a
Speaker 1: massive risk. Acting on it meant responding quickly without knowing
Speaker 1: if the claim was legitimate, but still they had to
Speaker 1: act so soon. Arrangements were made to meet and money
Speaker 1: was brought as well as it was instructed. But when
Speaker 1: the meeting took place, it became clear that the call
Speaker 1: had been a scam and the person responsible had no
Speaker 1: connection to Mark in any way and had just taken
Speaker 1: advantage of the situation to try and cash in.
Speaker 2: H that's a piss off. It also taken advantage of
Speaker 2: the parents' emotions exactly thinking oh, man, like, okay, we're
Speaker 2: gonna get our son back, because I can't imagine this
Speaker 2: would be a very easy time for them.
Speaker 1: No, it would be tough.
Speaker 2: And then they're just like, oh, just kidding, We're just
Speaker 2: an asshole.
Speaker 1: Basically, And the next sentence I literally have written is
Speaker 1: so Ultimately it led to a dead end at the
Speaker 1: cost of their emotional turmoil. So yeah, exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1: It's brutal, and you got to be a real douche
Speaker 1: canoe to try and cash in on that. Now, that
Speaker 1: moment reinforced reality where the investigation stood. Despite the number
Speaker 1: of people involved, despite the level of attention it was getting,
Speaker 1: and the amount of effort being put into the search,
Speaker 1: there was still nothing that pointed clearly to what had happened.
Speaker 1: The case had grown in scale, but it hadn't moved
Speaker 1: forward in any sort of meaningful way. They were just
Speaker 1: still at square one, and that was it. Nearly every
Speaker 1: reliable option had been explored without producing a single result.
Speaker 1: The lack of progress wasn't due to a lack of effort.
Speaker 1: It was due to a lack of usable information. There
Speaker 1: were no confirmed suspects, or reliable witnesses, or physical evidence
Speaker 1: tying Mark to any specific location after he was last seen.
Speaker 1: Investigators were working with a timeline that ended so abruptly,
Speaker 1: and everything beyond that was just uncertain. Now. While the
Speaker 1: search tried to move forward from this, there was an
Speaker 1: entirely separate reality unfolding just outside of Madame Morose that
Speaker 1: no one involved in the investigation had connected. Yet. It
Speaker 1: wasn't hidden in a way that made it invisible, though.
Speaker 1: It was hidden because no one was looking in the
Speaker 1: right place, and no one had a reason to and
Speaker 1: at the center of it all was a man named
Speaker 1: Adolpho Costanzo. Now, Adolpho had been born in Miami in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, but his upbringing moved between the United
Speaker 1: States and Mexico. From an early age, he was exposed
Speaker 1: to spiritual practices tied to Afro Caribbean religions, particularly Palo Mayambi,
Speaker 1: which is a religion that had focused on the connections
Speaker 1: of spirits of the dead. Now that exposure didn't start
Speaker 1: as something violent. The belief system itself as it exists
Speaker 1: traditionally is not built around harm. But over time Udolpho
Speaker 1: began to reshape it into something else, something that served
Speaker 1: his own goals rather than the original structure of the religion,
Speaker 1: which is something many corrupt individuals do with their religion
Speaker 1: in fact, but I digress.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: By the time he was in his late teens and
Speaker 1: early twenties, he had already started building a reputation around himself.
Speaker 1: He presented himself as someone who could see things that
Speaker 1: others couldn't, offering readings, rituals, and spiritual guidance. At first,
Speaker 1: that drew in people looking for direction or reassurance, including
Speaker 1: individuals with money and influence. Now what made him effective though,
Speaker 1: wasn't just belief, was also information. See, he really paid attention.
Speaker 1: He listened carefully, and he used what he learned to
Speaker 1: make his predictions seem accurate, and that built trust very quickly. Now,
Speaker 1: as his reputation grew, the type of people around him
Speaker 1: began to change. He started attracting individuals connected to criminal activity,
Speaker 1: including drug traffickers operating in northern Mexico. For them, the
Speaker 1: appeal wasn't exactly abstract to say, instead, it was more practical. See,
Speaker 1: they wanted protection, They wanted to avoid law enforcement and
Speaker 1: rival groups and move their operations without any sort of interference.
Speaker 1: And Adolpho well, he framed himself as someone who could
Speaker 1: provide that blending ritual and real world and their awareness together.
Speaker 1: Now he used information that he gathered, sometimes through corrupt connections,
Speaker 1: to reinforce the idea that what he was doing was working.
Speaker 1: And at the core of his practices was something known
Speaker 1: as I'm probably gonna get this wrong. I'm going to
Speaker 1: do my best. Here an ganga which is a ritual
Speaker 1: vessel used in Palo MAYAMBEI. Now traditionally this naganga it
Speaker 1: serves as a spiritual focus point. It's often you know,
Speaker 1: like a metal pot or something similar, and it would
Speaker 1: contain various materials or components that are meant to represent
Speaker 1: different forces in the world. But under Adolpho, it became
Speaker 1: something else entirely. He began adding something else to it,
Speaker 1: something much more morbid remains, claiming that it increased its
Speaker 1: power during these rituals.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, this okay, this is just getting like kind
Speaker 2: of weird. I guess this is dark and scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So the idea that he pushed was very dark,
Speaker 1: but very simple when you listen to it. See, the
Speaker 1: more that this niganga was fed, the stronger the ritual
Speaker 1: would become, and the more protection that it could offer.
Speaker 1: So people around him, those who depended on him for
Speaker 1: that protection or belief in what he was doing, they
Speaker 1: gradually were pulled into this darker shift. So instead of
Speaker 1: you know, having traditional herbs or idols or different things,
Speaker 1: he started putting greater things into it. And mind you,
Speaker 1: this didn't all happen at once. It escalated over time.
Speaker 2: It was a gradual escalation.
Speaker 1: Exactly, So each step was building on the last, making
Speaker 1: the next one easier to accept well.
Speaker 2: I mean, if they just believed him right off the bat,
Speaker 2: they probably would have thought he was like that crazy exactly.
Speaker 2: He just kind of like progressed the level that he
Speaker 2: was going to try with them, and they're like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's give it a go.
Speaker 1: Yep, just onto the next, on to the next. You
Speaker 1: nailed it. Now, by the time Adolpho began attracting people
Speaker 1: connected to drug trafficking, he was no longer operating as
Speaker 1: a loan figure offering spiritual guidance, though his initial readings
Speaker 1: and small rituals had evolved into something else. There was
Speaker 1: a group with a clear hierarchy and people who depended
Speaker 1: on him not just for the belief, but for direction
Speaker 1: and protection. To put it simple, Adolpho now had formed
Speaker 1: a cult. It started with animal remains, but the next
Speaker 1: step was to use human remains. However, they were ones
Speaker 1: that were already buried. Members of the group began digging
Speaker 1: up graves and removing bones, which were then incorporated into
Speaker 1: this naganga, with Adolpho saying was of course necessary escalation,
Speaker 1: telling his followers that you know, the more it was fed,
Speaker 1: the more effective it would become. So at that point
Speaker 1: the people around him began to accept the idea of
Speaker 1: using these human remains. First it was the standard components,
Speaker 1: then into animal parts, and then into human parts, and
Speaker 1: once the boundary was crossed into human parts, the transition
Speaker 1: into killing directly became possible. Now, the first victims were
Speaker 1: not random by any means. They were people connected to
Speaker 1: the drug trade itself, you know, rivals or individuals that
Speaker 1: they saw as threats, or people whose disappearances wouldn't immediately
Speaker 1: draw attention. I'm sure we all have an idea on
Speaker 1: drug traffickers and all this sort of stuff that goes
Speaker 1: on behind the scenes and how people can get killed
Speaker 1: and everything. Those are the individuals that they're selecting, and
Speaker 1: these ritualistic killings or sacrifices, because that's exactly what they were.
Speaker 1: They were justified within the group as being a necessity.
Speaker 1: And as time went on the frequency of these rituals
Speaker 1: they began increasing, because that's exactly what Adolpho did. He
Speaker 1: kept stepping it up. It started as occasional acts, but
Speaker 1: soon they were being more and more regularly done, and
Speaker 1: each time it happened, it became less difficult for the
Speaker 1: group to carry out the next one. Because the process
Speaker 1: was no longer something that needed to be debated or explained.
Speaker 1: It was just part of how the group operated now now.
Speaker 1: One of the most important figures to come along in
Speaker 1: this period was someone by the name of Sarah Aldaughtre.
Speaker 1: She was a college student at the time. She was
Speaker 1: very educated, She was disciplined, and outwardly there was no
Speaker 1: difference from her to anyone else her age. Her connection
Speaker 1: to Udolpho, though, began through people already tied to drug operations,
Speaker 1: and from there her role expanded very quickly. Within a
Speaker 1: short period of time, she became one of his closest followers,
Speaker 1: eventually taking on a leadership position within the cult itself.
Speaker 1: She had helped organize things, reinforce the belief, and even
Speaker 1: brought others into the system Around them, a smaller inner
Speaker 1: circle began to form. Some of the members were directly
Speaker 1: connected to drug trafficking networks, including individuals tied to the
Speaker 1: Hernandez family, which was already involved in smuggling operations near
Speaker 1: the Texas border. Others came in through different paths that
Speaker 1: were drawn out in the same structure. Once they were
Speaker 1: exposed to Adolpho's influence, and what connected them was a
Speaker 1: shared belief that what Adolpho was offering worked. Now, the
Speaker 1: control inside this group wasn't maintained through one method alone.
Speaker 1: It relied on a combination of belief, fear, and dependency,
Speaker 1: which if you look at any sort of cult are
Speaker 1: very common factors. Now, Adolpho positioned himself as someone who
Speaker 1: had access to power that others didn't even begin to understand,
Speaker 1: and he created an environment where questioning him wasn't just discouraged,
Speaker 1: it was in fact dangerous. And as the group became
Speaker 1: more involved in his rituals, they also became more committed
Speaker 1: to protecting him and each other, because stepping away would
Speaker 1: mean exposing what they had already been taking part in.
Speaker 1: That dynamic made the group tighter and more isolated as
Speaker 1: time continued to pass. Their activities were centered around locations
Speaker 1: that could be controlled, including a ranch outside Madame Morose
Speaker 1: known as Rancho Santa Elana, which functioned as part of
Speaker 1: a drug operation as well as storage, but within the
Speaker 1: group it served as a second purpose. It became a
Speaker 1: place where the rituals themselves were carried out, away from attention,
Speaker 1: in an environment where they could operate without interruption. Now,
Speaker 1: by this point, the structure was fully established. Adolpho was
Speaker 1: at the top, directing both the belief system and the
Speaker 1: actions that came out of it. Sarah Aldrette operated directly
Speaker 1: underneath him, reinforcing that whole structure and helping him him
Speaker 1: managed the group. The rest of the members they followed,
Speaker 1: each playing a role that kept the system functioning. Now,
Speaker 1: by early nineteen eighty nine, the pattern of violence inside
Speaker 1: the group had already been concretely established, but it wasn't satanic,
Speaker 1: to say the least. Even though the title of all
Speaker 1: this is satanic, it's not technically satanic. It's kind of
Speaker 1: satanic adjacent. However, Adolpho continued to push for escalation, and
Speaker 1: with that came a shift in what he believed the
Speaker 1: rituals required. Up to that point, most of the victims
Speaker 1: had been people connected to the drug trade or individuals
Speaker 1: whose disappearance wouldn't immediately attract widespread attention, and those killings
Speaker 1: both had a practical purpose and a ritual one. They
Speaker 1: removed perceived threats within the drug trade, and they were
Speaker 1: used to reinforce the belief that the group was being protected.
Speaker 1: But at some point leading up to March that all changed,
Speaker 1: because Adolpho began telling members of the group that the
Speaker 1: protection they were relying on needed to extend beyond Mexico alone,
Speaker 1: and his explanation was tied directly to how he framed
Speaker 1: the rituals themselves. See, he claimed that if the sacrifices
Speaker 1: were limited to local victims, then the protection would also
Speaker 1: be limited to local boundaries.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. And just whatever he says is just
Speaker 2: like word right, Like he's exactly God to these people essentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or he's at least connected to gods of sorts
Speaker 1: that they don't understand. So yeah, what he says is golden.
Speaker 2: Holy frick. And he's just I don't know. You have
Speaker 2: to wonder. It's like, is he just having fun with
Speaker 2: this or is he.
Speaker 1: So caught up in his own shape.
Speaker 2: And he just truly believes all this shit too. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think it's the latter. I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no idea. It's so hard to say. Now.
Speaker 1: In order to extend that protection across the border into
Speaker 1: the United States, where their operations also had exposure, he
Speaker 1: claimed they needed a different kind of victim. Specifically, he
Speaker 1: claimed they needed an American citizen. More than that, he
Speaker 1: even described the type of person he was looking for directly,
Speaker 1: according to multiple accounts from those who were later arrested,
Speaker 1: he instructed the group to find a white male, someone
Speaker 1: who fit the profile of a college student crossing into
Speaker 1: Madamero's during spring break. The reasoning he gave was that
Speaker 1: the value of the sacrifice was tied to the person themselves,
Speaker 1: and choosing the right victim would increase the strength of
Speaker 1: the ritual. This was no longer just a suggestion, it
Speaker 1: was a requirement for it, and so members of the
Speaker 1: group began looking for someone who matched that description. So,
Speaker 1: as we know, thousands of students crossed into the city
Speaker 1: during spring break. They were drinking, they were moving in
Speaker 1: large crowds and separating from their group without much awareness
Speaker 1: of what was really happening around them, and for them
Speaker 1: it was honestly like a walking buffet of victims. In fact,
Speaker 1: they had already even attempted to take other individuals earlier
Speaker 1: that very same night, but they had failed. The conditions
Speaker 1: were in their favor, for sure, but they were also
Speaker 1: very unpredictable, and pulling someone away from a crowd without
Speaker 1: drawing attention required timing. But still they continued to watch,
Speaker 1: moving through the same streets as everyone else, blending in
Speaker 1: with the environment that they were using to just try
Speaker 1: and find a victim.
Speaker 2: I hate that you called it a buffet.
Speaker 1: But for them, that's essentially what it was.
Speaker 2: I know it's perfect description, but it's just like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't like that at all.
Speaker 1: I know, I feel you.
Speaker 2: That's really quite intense. I don't know, its just intensified
Speaker 2: it for me.
Speaker 1: I guess, well, the way I worded it like that,
Speaker 1: the reason was because it makes them seem more like predators,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Humans, I mean, people like this celebrating in streets for
Speaker 1: spring break. They should not be a buffet. But the
Speaker 1: way these people were looking at them, that's what they were,
Speaker 1: with their buffet of victims for ritualistic sacrifices. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so it was a matter of trying to find the
Speaker 1: perfect one under Adolpho's description and what he wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: a white college student male, and then finding the moment
Speaker 1: where they could actually get.
Speaker 2: Him without it being alarming to everyone around exactly.
Speaker 1: So now imagine this. You're in a crowded street with
Speaker 1: thousands of people all around you, and you just try
Speaker 1: and just grab someone and haul them away. It's going
Speaker 1: to draw attention fast. Yeah, So you can't just do that, No,
Speaker 1: you can't. Now, from the perspective of Mark's friends, the
Speaker 1: people around them that night were just part of the
Speaker 1: very same crowd they were in. You know. Other students
Speaker 1: are locals or even just strangers passing by and probably
Speaker 1: annoyed with all the spring break crowds. But I'd digress.
Speaker 1: And by the time Mark was standing near the bridge
Speaker 1: in the early morning hours of March fourteenth, the people
Speaker 1: who had been watching the crowds, they had already identified him.
Speaker 1: He matched exactly what they were looking for. He was young,
Speaker 1: American and separated just enough from the group to be vulnerable,
Speaker 1: but not so isolated that anything about it looked unusual,
Speaker 1: because remember, he's waiting there as his friends went off
Speaker 1: to the side. It's often described that they ducked into
Speaker 1: an alley for a moment. I'm not exactly sure if
Speaker 1: it was beside an alley in an alley what exactly
Speaker 1: they were doing. Someone probably just had to take a leak,
Speaker 1: if I'm honest, But they stepped off to the side
Speaker 1: while Mark stood there waiting, and then that's when they
Speaker 1: approached him. One of the men simply walked up to
Speaker 1: him and struck up a conversation. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: crowded area, and people were constantly interacting, you know, asking questions,
Speaker 1: making comments, trying to get attention, bumping into each other,
Speaker 1: excuse me, oh I'm sorry, Oh I like your shirt.
Speaker 1: Oh what a party. All these sort of things are
Speaker 1: going on. And what happened in those first moments didn't
Speaker 1: look different from any of those other brief interactions happening
Speaker 1: right around them. But at some point during that interaction
Speaker 1: was directed towards a vehicle. Now, accounts differ slightly on
Speaker 1: how forceful that moment was, but what is consistent is
Speaker 1: that Mark ended up inside a truck somehow. Whether it
Speaker 1: was through deception, intimidation, or maybe a mix of both,
Speaker 1: what we don't. What we do know is that the
Speaker 1: result was the same. He no longer had the ability
Speaker 1: to walk away, and he was inside the truck, And
Speaker 1: once the vehicle pulled off, the situation changed immediately. At
Speaker 1: some point during the drive, Mark made an attempt to escape.
Speaker 1: He managed to get out of the truck. Knowing that
Speaker 1: this was not right, he broke free, He got out,
Speaker 1: and he made a run for it. But it didn't last.
Speaker 1: A second vehicle, which had been involved in the abduction
Speaker 1: to moved in and cut him off, and soon he
Speaker 1: was swarmed and forced back inside the truck once again.
Speaker 2: Ah shit, so he was fighting.
Speaker 1: He was now in this situation. One detail comes up
Speaker 1: repeatedly in accounts of what happened next, and it's at
Speaker 1: least briefly, he believed that the people involved with the
Speaker 1: second vehicle pulling up were law enforcement, whether they presenting
Speaker 1: themselves or something like that in some way that they
Speaker 1: were police officers, or whether it was just an assumption
Speaker 1: based on the situation or I don't know, but it
Speaker 1: affected his reaction, and instead of continuing to run as
Speaker 1: soon as this vehicle cut him off, he stopped.
Speaker 2: Oh because he thought they could help him.
Speaker 1: He thought he could be saved. Oh no, And in
Speaker 1: that brief moment when he stopped thinking that vehicle could
Speaker 1: be authorities, it removed his only real chance to get away,
Speaker 1: and from there he was restrained, put back in the vehicle,
Speaker 1: and taken out of the city.
Speaker 2: Holy frick, that's brutal.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, though it could have actually been
Speaker 2: law enforcement, potentially like corrupt law enforcement or something like
Speaker 2: you don't.
Speaker 1: Know for sure, don't know for sure. Now it's funny
Speaker 1: you say that too, because at the very end of
Speaker 1: this there is someone who gets charged who was involved
Speaker 1: in law enforcement.
Speaker 2: H Well, yeah, because I don't know. You have to
Speaker 2: be careful sometimes in countries like that, right, And I
Speaker 2: think that that I could understand it being a law
Speaker 2: enforcement person and him literally thinking he was about to
Speaker 2: be saved, and then there were also involved in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to think of that. And like with Mexico,
Speaker 1: like Mexico is a great place, great country, great people,
Speaker 1: but there is that, like there's cartel there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be scary. Like you you're warned to
Speaker 2: be cautious.
Speaker 1: Yea, right, and cartel they have their hands in a
Speaker 1: lot of places, including law enforcement. It's known. So you're
Speaker 1: very much so right, you have to be careful. People
Speaker 1: are warned when they go down there. Now we don't
Speaker 1: know if it was law enforcement involved in the situation.
Speaker 1: It's just purely speculative from our point, but it is
Speaker 1: possible that, you know what, maybe it was a law
Speaker 1: enforcement vehicle. Maybe that's why he stopped. Maybe he did
Speaker 1: think he was safe because of how you know, the
Speaker 1: situation was perceived in front of him.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, here are you thinking that you have a
Speaker 2: potential chance? And then I just can't even imagine the
Speaker 2: realization and devastation that would come after realizing oh shit, like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be safe, like I'm in the
Speaker 2: same predicament.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Once he was in the vehicle, he was
Speaker 1: then drove to the Rancho Santa Alana, which took them
Speaker 1: away from the crowded streets and into a very isolated
Speaker 1: area where there were no witnesses and no chance of
Speaker 1: any sort of interruption. The ranch sat outside of Madame
Speaker 1: Morose and was already being used by the group for
Speaker 1: both drug related activity and ritual practices. According to later
Speaker 1: statements from those involved, he was brought into a structure
Speaker 1: on the property and he was tied up and restrained.
Speaker 1: At that stage, there was still no immediate attempt to
Speaker 1: kill him. Instead, he was kept there for a period
Speaker 1: of time, and one of the individuals at the ranch,
Speaker 1: described as a caretaker, brought him food and water. He
Speaker 1: was given something to eat when basic needs while being
Speaker 1: told that nothing was going to be happened to him,
Speaker 1: But of course that reassurance didn't reflect the reality of
Speaker 1: the situation. The timeline places him at the ranch through
Speaker 1: the remainder of March fourteenth and into the early parts
Speaker 1: of March fifteenth. During that time, Adolpho was made aware
Speaker 1: that the group had brought in a victim who matched
Speaker 1: exactly what he had been asking for. And when Adolpho
Speaker 1: arrived it was about twelve hours after Mark had initially
Speaker 1: been kidnapped. From there, they were ready to perform the ritual,
Speaker 1: and they had Mark to be their sacrifice. They started
Speaker 1: by wrapping his face and mouth with duct tape, and
Speaker 1: they led him through a field into a storage cabin
Speaker 1: on the property with his hands still bound and tied
Speaker 1: behind his back. Through the rest of the night of
Speaker 1: March fifteenth, Adolpho tortured and sodomized Mark repeatedly, all for
Speaker 1: the sake of this ritual. Then eventually he was led
Speaker 1: out to the nearby field, and that is where Adolpho
Speaker 1: killed Mark. He took a large machete in his hand,
Speaker 1: lifted it high in the air, and brought it down
Speaker 1: with all his force onto the back of Mark's neck. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing I'm not certain is if Mark was killed
Speaker 1: on the first strike or if it was multiple strikes,
Speaker 1: but either way, Mark was dead and after doing this
Speaker 1: enough to remove his head, it was then placed in
Speaker 1: the Naganga nad well, I believe his entire head was
Speaker 1: placed in it. What we do know is that his
Speaker 1: brains were boiled in the naganga. Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: assume his head was placed in and his brains were
Speaker 1: boiled that way.
Speaker 2: This is just unbelievable. I cannot even imagine, just the fear.
Speaker 2: And I also didn't expect there to be torture for
Speaker 2: some reason. I kind of thought that it would just
Speaker 2: like they need his body, so it'd be just like
Speaker 2: a quick death. So the fact that they also tortured
Speaker 2: him and stuff like that is I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: just really unsettling.
Speaker 1: Like this is just it is and whatever. For whatever
Speaker 1: reason Adolfo is framing this is all necessity for the ritual.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, sodomy has to be part of a
Speaker 1: ritual sacrifice.
Speaker 2: Which just makes no sense, no.
Speaker 1: But for he's able to frame it in certain ways
Speaker 1: that his followers, his people who are hiring him, all
Speaker 1: these individuals believe that he's right and it's necessary for
Speaker 1: their protection, for their drug trafficking he is.
Speaker 2: Just a disgusting piece of shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, However, after his brains were boiled with other
Speaker 1: components for this ritual, there was more that was done
Speaker 1: to Mark still. Mark's legs were then chopped off above
Speaker 1: his knees in preparation for burial, and a wire was
Speaker 1: then forcefully inserted into his spinal column so that once
Speaker 1: his body had decomposed after burial in the soil, his
Speaker 1: bones could then be pulled up easily, all in one piece.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So they're essentially stringing together each disc, each spinal vertebrae
Speaker 1: with a wire, so once he's decomposed enough, they can
Speaker 1: just bring it up and have a wire string of
Speaker 1: his spine.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this poor kid. Holy frick.
Speaker 1: Then, after the ritual was complete, the members of the
Speaker 1: cult then dug a hole in the property and buried
Speaker 1: Mark's remains, along with others who had also been killed
Speaker 1: before him. The ranch at that point already contained multiple burials,
Speaker 1: and his remains were placed among them. There was no
Speaker 1: attempt to move him elsewhere or hide the body in
Speaker 1: a separate location. It was there on this ranch where
Speaker 1: he stayed. But of course, from the perspective of the investigation.
Speaker 1: At the time, none of this was known. Mark was
Speaker 1: still considered a missing person and the search was still
Speaker 1: focused on the last place that he had been seen.
Speaker 1: For more than two weeks, the investigation into Mark's disappearance
Speaker 1: had produced nothing that could move it forward. There were
Speaker 1: no sightings, there was no physical evidence, and no connection
Speaker 1: to any specific location beyond the point where he had
Speaker 1: last been seen. Then on April first, nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: that changed. That day, law enforcement in the area had
Speaker 1: set up a routine checkpoint outside of Mademiros as part
Speaker 1: of ongoing efforts to monitor drug activity moving through the region,
Speaker 1: and so vehicles were being stopped, vehicles were being searched
Speaker 1: as they'd all passed through. One of the vehicles approaching
Speaker 1: the checkpoint, however, it was driven by a man named
Speaker 1: Saraphin Hernandez, a member of the group connected to Rancho
Speaker 1: Santa Elana, and instead of slowing down for the traffic stop,
Speaker 1: he decided he wasn't going to stop. He was going
Speaker 1: to drive straight through instead.
Speaker 2: Because that always works in it.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what I have written next, because I knew
Speaker 1: this is where you were going to land. Now, that
Speaker 1: obviously sounds like a really stupid move. I knew that's
Speaker 1: what you were going to think. I think so too,
Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, it definitely is a stupid move. However,
Speaker 1: you have to think from his perspective. At this point,
Speaker 1: he's thinking it's not a dumb move because remember, this
Speaker 1: group believes that these rituals performed by a dolfo are
Speaker 1: basically making them untouchable. These rituals are protecting them from
Speaker 1: things like law enforcement. So he specifically believed that he
Speaker 1: could just drive through this traffic stop basically without being stopped, followed, recognized,
Speaker 1: or anything, and he get away scott free because of
Speaker 1: the rituals performed.
Speaker 2: Basically that he was just invisible.
Speaker 1: To them pretty much, that there was some magical spell.
Speaker 2: Protecting what's that thing from Harry.
Speaker 1: Potter or the cloak of invisibility?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that. He just had that on him and
Speaker 2: he was good to go.
Speaker 1: Yep. So clearly that belief is obviously ridiculous. There's no
Speaker 1: invisibility cloak, there's no per spell protecting him or anything.
Speaker 1: And rather than abandoning the situation or attempting to stop
Speaker 1: the vehicle, the officers made a very interesting decision. They
Speaker 1: decided well, we're not going to just pull this guy over,
Speaker 1: we're going to follow him. We're going to go see
Speaker 1: where he's going instead.
Speaker 2: Okay, I kind of like that. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So this guy thinking he's just untouchable, there's no way
Speaker 1: police can follow him because you know what, I've got
Speaker 1: a spell on me.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: He just kept going and officers were carefully tailing the vehicle.
Speaker 2: And led them to exactly where they wanted to.
Speaker 1: Be, and he drove them right off the main road
Speaker 1: towards a more isolated area outside the city, and the
Speaker 1: root he was taking was right towards Rancho Santa Elana.
Speaker 1: So when the vehicle finally stopped with the ranch, law
Speaker 1: enforcement moved in. What they found at first was consistent
Speaker 1: with drug activity, you know, a large scale operation with
Speaker 1: massive quantities of marijuana, firearms, and equipment associated with trafficking operations.
Speaker 1: But as they secured the area and began to look
Speaker 1: a little bit into this became more clear there was
Speaker 1: more to this location than just a drug operation. Now,
Speaker 1: mind you, they're not doing a full in depth search
Speaker 1: here yet. This is just surface level, but there are
Speaker 1: structures in the property that contained items that were associated
Speaker 1: with ritual practices, bones, these pots and knives or daggers
Speaker 1: materials suggesting something else was taking place there now. On
Speaker 1: April first, Hernandez was soon taken into custody along with
Speaker 1: others who were present who were present sorry at the ranch,
Speaker 1: and once in custody, the situation began to change extremely fast.
Speaker 1: Under questioning, members of the group started to talk and
Speaker 1: provided information about what had really been happening on the property,
Speaker 1: and that information included references to the cult rituals, to
Speaker 1: the killings, and to the use of human remains. And
Speaker 1: among those statements was a detail that connected everything back
Speaker 1: to the case that had been unresolved at this point
Speaker 1: for weeks. Investigators were told that an American had been
Speaker 1: brought to the ranch for the rituals. Now, that was
Speaker 1: the very first time that Mark Kilroy's disappearance was directly
Speaker 1: linked to this very specific location, and the search in
Speaker 1: that moment shifted immediately. They're at first thinking, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: this is just a big drug bust operation. And on
Speaker 1: Mark search side, there had no sort of headway or
Speaker 1: any direction to go, and all of a sudden it
Speaker 1: collided with we have murders and an American person whose
Speaker 1: remains are allegedly on this property, and it blew up
Speaker 1: both sides of the investigation. What started as a simple
Speaker 1: checkpoint related to drug reinforcement, well, it became the turning
Speaker 1: point in a missing person's case that had been going
Speaker 1: in nowhere. For the first time since March fourteenth, investigators
Speaker 1: were no longer working in the dark. They had a
Speaker 1: place to look, and they had a reason to believe
Speaker 1: that what they were going to find there would answer
Speaker 1: the question that had been unanswered for weeks at that point.
Speaker 1: So after the initial arrests were made, investigators returned to
Speaker 1: Rancho Santa Alana with a very clear objective to search
Speaker 1: the property in its fullest, and his officers moved further
Speaker 1: onto the property. One of the first things that stood
Speaker 1: out wasn't something they saw, No, it was a different
Speaker 1: sense that kicked in. It was something they smelled. The
Speaker 1: odor was strong enough to be noticeable before they even
Speaker 1: reached the main structure. It was the smell of decomposition.
Speaker 1: Inside the shack on the property, they found what appeared
Speaker 1: to be the ritual space. The room contained items that
Speaker 1: had already been mentioned during questioning, objects tied to the
Speaker 1: group's beliefs, the system, and all these tools that had
Speaker 1: a very clear and practical use, things like machetes, tape,
Speaker 1: and other materials that indicated restraint and control. And at
Speaker 1: the center of that space was the naganga, the pot
Speaker 1: that had been described by the members of the group
Speaker 1: used to perform these satanic adjacent rituals. Inside of it
Speaker 1: was a mixture of materials, including animal remains and what
Speaker 1: investigators would later confirm to be human tissue, which was
Speaker 1: Marx brain matter.
Speaker 2: Oh frick, this some of the most disturbing shit I've
Speaker 2: ever heard listening to this.
Speaker 1: The search then expanded beyond the structure and into the
Speaker 1: surrounding land. Investigators soon began digging in area that had
Speaker 1: been identified during questioning. The soil had been disturbed in
Speaker 1: multiple locations, and it didn't take long for bodies to
Speaker 1: start being found in shallow graves across the property. Some
Speaker 1: were intact, others had been dismembered, and many shown signs
Speaker 1: of having been killed using methods that matched what had
Speaker 1: already been described by those were in custody. As more
Speaker 1: graves were uncovered, it became very clear that this wasn't
Speaker 1: a single incident. They had stumbled upon. The number of
Speaker 1: victims indicated that the property had been used repeatedly over
Speaker 1: time for these rituals. But among the remains recovered during
Speaker 1: that search was one that matched the description investigators had
Speaker 1: been given the American who had been brought to the ranch.
Speaker 1: The body had been buried along with the others, but
Speaker 1: specific details allowed forensic teams to begin the process of identification.
Speaker 1: Now that process would take time, but at that point
Speaker 1: investigators already understood the likelihood of what they were dealing with.
Speaker 1: These were likely the remains of Mark Kilroy. Now, once
Speaker 1: the ranch was secured and the initial search began producing bodies,
Speaker 1: the investigation shifted quickly from discovery into building a case.
Speaker 1: The people who had been taken into custody at Rancho
Speaker 1: Santa Elana were no longer being questioned about just drug activity.
Speaker 1: They were now being questioned about murders. At first, the
Speaker 1: information came in pieces. Those arrested did not immediately give
Speaker 1: full accounts to what had happened. Yes, some accounts came out,
Speaker 1: some said things, and it led investigators to discover all this,
Speaker 1: But they were also minimizing their involvement and tried to
Speaker 1: deflect responsibility to others, and several contradicted each other. But
Speaker 1: the thing was As questioning continued, and as investigators began
Speaker 1: confirming details through the evidence found on the property, then
Speaker 1: the consistency between their statements started to increase. The pressure
Speaker 1: was being put on and they started saying, well, actually
Speaker 1: this happened, or this is how it played out, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Now, the structure of the cult became
Speaker 1: very clear. They identified Adolfo Constanzo as their leader, the
Speaker 1: one giving direction and making decisions about when and how
Speaker 1: the rituals were to be carried out. Investigators also learned
Speaker 1: of Sarah Aldatre, who was also confirmed as his second
Speaker 1: in command, someone who was directly involved in organizing and
Speaker 1: reinforcing the group's actions. Other members were described in terms
Speaker 1: of their specific roles too, with people like drivers or
Speaker 1: guards or participants in rituals themselves. Was very clear that
Speaker 1: this wasn't a loose group. It was highly organized and structured.
Speaker 1: More importantly, the confessions began to align with what had
Speaker 1: been found at the ranch physically. Details about the shack,
Speaker 1: the tools that were used, the presence of the naganga,
Speaker 1: and the burial sites all matched what investigators were seen
Speaker 1: during the search. That alignment gave weight to what was
Speaker 1: being said, and it allowed investigators to move forward with
Speaker 1: more confidence in the information that they were receiving. Now,
Speaker 1: among those statements were direct references to Mark. Now remember,
Speaker 1: at this point, his remains are still not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent confirmed to be identified. Several of the individuals in
Speaker 1: custody confirmed that an American male had been brought to
Speaker 1: the ranch in mid March. They described the circumstances of
Speaker 1: his arrival and the fact that he had been kept
Speaker 1: alive for a period of time, as well as the
Speaker 1: role of Adolpho and what he played once he was
Speaker 1: brought in. Now, those statements match the timeline investigators already
Speaker 1: had from the disappearance on March fourteenth. The only remaining
Speaker 1: step was confirming Mark's identification. Now, as the bodies were
Speaker 1: recovered from Rancho Santo Ilana and were processed, each set
Speaker 1: of remains had to be documented, examined, and if possible, identified,
Speaker 1: and given the condition of many of the bodies, that
Speaker 1: was not a very straightforward process. Time exposure in the
Speaker 1: way the victims had been handled made visual identification very
Speaker 1: unreliable in most cases. For mar confirmation. Eventually came through
Speaker 1: with dental records. Investigators worked with forensic specialists to compare
Speaker 1: the remains recovered from the ranch with the records provided
Speaker 1: by his family, and the remains matched, and just like that,
Speaker 1: the search went from a missing person to a confirmed homicide.
Speaker 1: At that point, now authorities knew exactly what had been
Speaker 1: happening at the ranch thanks to those who were questioned. However,
Speaker 1: they still had one missing link to this whole puzzle.
Speaker 1: Adolfo Constanzo was nowhere to be found. He hadn't waited
Speaker 1: around for investigators to catch up and reach him. Instead,
Speaker 1: once he knew that members of the group had been
Speaker 1: taken into custody and that the ranch was compromised.
Speaker 2: He vanished Great leader, hey right.
Speaker 1: And so the man hunt began, and it was no
Speaker 1: longer limited to the area around Madame Morose either. It
Speaker 1: expanded outward, moving across cities and regions where Adolpho was
Speaker 1: believed to have contacts. Remember, he'd spent years building relationships
Speaker 1: not just with followers, but with people connected to criminal networks,
Speaker 1: and those connections gave him options. He knew where to go,
Speaker 1: he knew who might help him, and he knew how
Speaker 1: to avoid being tracked easily, so with law enforcement working
Speaker 1: hard to try and follow those connections of Adolpho, investigators
Speaker 1: began piecing together his movements using information from people already
Speaker 1: in custody. Statements pointed to locations that he used before,
Speaker 1: places where he had conducted other rituals or met with clients.
Speaker 1: Each lead had to be checked out, and each location
Speaker 1: had to be searched, but the information was always always
Speaker 1: a step behind. By the time investigators reached one place,
Speaker 1: he had often already moved on, knowing that police would
Speaker 1: check there, and he's moving staying ahead of him. So
Speaker 1: during this period, Adolpho didn't stay locked down to one
Speaker 1: place for long. He shifted between safe houses, relying on
Speaker 1: people who were still loyal to him, or even those
Speaker 1: who were afraid to refuse him. The same control he
Speaker 1: had used within the group itself continued to work in
Speaker 1: his favor now, but even still the pressure was increasing.
Speaker 1: The whole discovery at the ranch had drawn significant attention,
Speaker 1: and with that came a coordinated effort to locate him.
Speaker 1: Authorities in Mexico took the lead, but the case had
Speaker 1: involvement from US agencies too. Due to the cross border
Speaker 1: nature of the crimes. Information was shared and the search
Speaker 1: became more focused, and one of the key strategies used
Speaker 1: by investigators was actually to track the people around Adolpho
Speaker 1: himself rather than trying to locate him directly. The associates
Speaker 1: were monitored, they were questioned and followed whenever possible. The
Speaker 1: idea that even if Adolpho remained out of site, the
Speaker 1: network supporting him would eventually lead right back to where
Speaker 1: he was, and that outside of the box approach began
Speaker 1: to produce results. See for example, if Adolpho needed a
Speaker 1: pack of cigarettes, while someone has to go get the
Speaker 1: pack of cigarettes right and the investigators used that to
Speaker 1: their advantage. So information started to point towards Mexico City,
Speaker 1: where it was believed that he had relocated. It was
Speaker 1: a logical choice. The size of the city made it
Speaker 1: much easier for him to blend in and it offered
Speaker 1: more opportunities to say hidden, compared to the smaller locations
Speaker 1: near the border. So investigators narrowed their focus, working through
Speaker 1: leads that placed him in a very specific area within
Speaker 1: the city, and by early May, investigators had narrowed it
Speaker 1: down to a specific apartment complex within Mexico City where
Speaker 1: Adolpho was believed to be hiding. Now the information came
Speaker 1: through the same method that had been working throughout the manhunt,
Speaker 1: tracking the people around him. Once one of his close
Speaker 1: associates was identified and followed, it led authorities directly to
Speaker 1: that location, so officers began working the area very carefully.
Speaker 1: Now they didn't rush the door immediately. Instead, they moved
Speaker 1: through the building and going through nearby units, going door
Speaker 1: to door, trying to confirm who is inside and avoid
Speaker 1: tipping Adolpho or whoever he's with off in the process.
Speaker 1: But at some point during that someone inside the apartment
Speaker 1: became aware of the police presence. Whether it was movement
Speaker 1: in the hallway, noised at the door, someone on watch
Speaker 1: seeing something that was suspicious and reporting it, or whatever.
Speaker 1: We don't know. It's unclear, but the situation shifted fast
Speaker 1: as Adolpho soon opened fire from inside his apartment at
Speaker 1: the authorities. Now officers ducked for cover outside and returned
Speaker 1: fireback as the scene escalated into a close range gun
Speaker 1: fight within the apartment complex. Shots were exchanged through the
Speaker 1: doorway in windows as police tried to contain the situation
Speaker 1: and prevent anyone from getting harmed. Or even escaping, and
Speaker 1: as the exchange continued, it soon became clear that Adolpho
Speaker 1: wasn't going to surrender. Inside the apartment were a small
Speaker 1: number of his remaining followers, including one of his closest associates,
Speaker 1: and with police surrounding the building in no clear way out,
Speaker 1: the situation reached a point where escape was no longer
Speaker 1: realistic or even possible, and Adolpho saw only one way
Speaker 1: out of the situation. He turned to his associates and
Speaker 1: gave a very direct order. Rather than being taken into custody,
Speaker 1: he told them to shoot him. The order was soon
Speaker 1: carried out, and he was shot inside the apartment before
Speaker 1: officers could enter and secure the scene. That same associate
Speaker 1: also shot another member of the group before police moved
Speaker 1: in and took control and found Adolpho and this other
Speaker 1: associate now dead inside. The man who had directed the
Speaker 1: killings at Rancho sant Ilana, who had built the cult
Speaker 1: group and controlled its actions, was no longer alive to
Speaker 1: be questioned or put on trial for his actions. The
Speaker 1: investigation led directly to him, but it ended without a
Speaker 1: court room, and so the folks of the case moved
Speaker 1: to the people who were still alive and already in custody.
Speaker 1: Those who were arrested at Rancho sante Ilana, and the
Speaker 1: others picked up in the days that followed formed the
Speaker 1: basis of the prosecution. Investigators had physical evidence from the ranch,
Speaker 1: detailed statements from multiple suspects, and confirmed identities of many
Speaker 1: of the victims, and among those charged, Sarah Aldatre stood
Speaker 1: out immediately. She was Adolphos second in command, and she
Speaker 1: had been directly involved in the structure and operation of
Speaker 1: the group. Her role went far beyond simple participation, as
Speaker 1: testimony and evidence placed her in a position of authority
Speaker 1: of power within this life cult, involved in the organizing,
Speaker 1: the activities, the reinforcing the belief system, all of this
Speaker 1: to justify the violence. Despite that, though her defense centered
Speaker 1: on denial, she rejected the idea that she'd taken part
Speaker 1: in the killings, claiming that her involvement had been misrepresented.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's hard to listen to this part
Speaker 2: where all these people are now getting caught and they're
Speaker 2: just like basically cowards, wasn't me yeah yeah, or taking
Speaker 2: it an easy way out instead of having to face
Speaker 2: what they've done.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I'm not going in and shoot me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that's just I mean, it's expected obviously, but
Speaker 2: it's freaking brutal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you you nailed it. They're cowards. It's exactly
Speaker 1: what they are. They're not facing their own actions. They're
Speaker 1: killing people and would rather have themselves killed than face
Speaker 1: the repercussions of what they've done. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you heard, but it sounds like it just hit puberty.
Speaker 1: Yeah when I said that.
Speaker 2: I did hear that. I know. Well, they are just
Speaker 2: they obviously are very aware of what they've done. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, they know they've done some bad shit. But
Speaker 2: then they're not a true leader either, if they're not
Speaker 2: going to also just like face what's coming to them now.
Speaker 1: Exactly. No, that's one hundred percent. What kind of leader
Speaker 1: are you if you're not going to take that responsibility,
Speaker 1: if you're going to if you and your followers, if
Speaker 1: you're leading them through all this shit and they follow you,
Speaker 1: and then when it comes down to it, you're in
Speaker 1: a courtroom and you just deny, say no, I was
Speaker 1: a victim too, I'm I'm not a leader of these people.
Speaker 1: What kind of fucking leader are you? A captain goes
Speaker 1: down with the fucking ship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like this shit is just bothering me really listening
Speaker 2: to all this now, But it isn't unexpected either, but
Speaker 2: it still is a piss off.
Speaker 1: I know. And even okay, I want to say one
Speaker 1: more thing, because the whole captain goes down with the
Speaker 1: ship thing. That's not even a belief system. That's just
Speaker 1: a management system, right, the captain stays right, that's just
Speaker 1: a leader. But this is to be a belief system.
Speaker 1: If this is truly your belief, why are you jumping
Speaker 1: ship and abandoning it? If this is truly something you
Speaker 1: believe in, why are you not standing for it? Why
Speaker 1: are you not saying that this is my belief and
Speaker 1: I will be here believing in what I believe and
Speaker 1: you can do to me what you want to do
Speaker 1: to me, but my belief will protect me.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, look at the things that these people made
Speaker 2: other people do. Yeah, and then now they're having to
Speaker 2: face consequences, and the leaders are just like, I'm.
Speaker 1: Out, fuck this shit, I'm out, yeah, h nope, not
Speaker 1: having it.
Speaker 2: It's very disturbing and very confusing, and I yeah, to
Speaker 2: be in that position of these people that are now
Speaker 2: going to have to face the consequences of their crimes
Speaker 2: really is just prick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it all boils back to exactly
Speaker 1: what you said already, fucking coward Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no other way to describe them.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's plenty other worlds, but I think that's
Speaker 1: a really good one.
Speaker 2: Yes, in this situation, there's no other way.
Speaker 1: Douche canoes is another great one.
Speaker 2: But cowards for them, like coping up, copping copping out,
Speaker 2: copying out, Yeah, copping out is it's cowardly, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Now. Other members of the group faced similar charges as
Speaker 1: Sarah did, too, though their roles varied. Some had been
Speaker 1: involved in carrying out abductions, others had taken parts in
Speaker 1: rituals themselves, and the trials focused on connecting those roles
Speaker 1: to specific acts. So prosecutors worked to show how each
Speaker 1: individual contributed to what had happened, using a combination of
Speaker 1: forensic evidence, witness testimony, and the confessions that had been
Speaker 1: given after the arrests. Ultimately, on May third, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: Sarah was found guilty on multiple counts of homicide being
Speaker 1: connected to a criminal association, and in turn, she received
Speaker 1: a lengthy prison sentence. A total of sixty two years
Speaker 1: behind bars. Other members of the group were also convicted
Speaker 1: and sentenced based on their involvement. Now. One of the
Speaker 1: first actually to be sentenced came out in August of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety when Alvaro delon Valdaz, also known as Al Dubi,
Speaker 1: was sentenced to thirty years in prison for the killing
Speaker 1: of Adolpho Constanzo and Martin Quintana Rodriguez during the Mexican
Speaker 1: the Mexico City standoff.
Speaker 2: Oh dang, yeah, I guess someone would have got charged
Speaker 2: for that. I didn't even think of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he was the one that Adolpho turned to
Speaker 1: and said kill me, and he did.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Now, two other followers, Juan Carlos Fragoso and George Montes,
Speaker 1: were convicted on separate murder charges and received thirty five
Speaker 1: year sentences. The ranch caretaker, Domingo Rey's Bustamite, was accused
Speaker 1: of helping cover up what had happened at the ranch,
Speaker 1: but he was released in December of nineteen ninety after
Speaker 1: posting bond. On May third, nineteen ninety four, Sarah, of
Speaker 1: course was sentenced, and then Elio Hernandez Sara Fin Hernandez
Speaker 1: Junior Sergio Martinez Salinez and David Valindez. They each received
Speaker 1: sixty seven years in prison for their roles in the
Speaker 1: killings connected on the ranch. These were the people most
Speaker 1: directly tied to the structure around Dolpho, the ranch and
Speaker 1: the group's violence. Of course they were much more involved,
Speaker 1: but these are the main heavy hitters. There were also
Speaker 1: related cases involving people connected to the organization but not
Speaker 1: necessarily connected for Marx murder specifically. For example, Salvador Videl
Speaker 1: Garcia Alcoran was a federal judicial police chief and was
Speaker 1: indicted for drug trafficking on June second, nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: after cult members linked him to Audolpho as a police contact. So,
Speaker 1: as you had mentioned earlier, potential of authorities being involved
Speaker 1: and corrupt, while there's one right now.
Speaker 2: Well, and he was a chief, yes, so yeah, there
Speaker 2: probably was a couple others potentially involved too, right under that.
Speaker 1: Well, I do want to make this clear, though he
Speaker 1: was not charged with Mark Kilroy's murder or the other
Speaker 1: killings carried out by the group, he was specifically indicted
Speaker 1: for drug trafficking. Okay, Now, even those outcomes, though the
Speaker 1: proceedings didn't answer every question with them. The evidence presented
Speaker 1: in court confirmed what had happened at the ranch and
Speaker 1: who had been involved, but it also painted a very
Speaker 1: broad picture of the environment in which these events had
Speaker 1: taken place. The connections to drug trafficking networks, the influence
Speaker 1: Adolfo had built, and the number of victims suggested that
Speaker 1: the full scope of the operation extended far beyond what
Speaker 1: could be addressed in a single set of trials. The
Speaker 1: legal process brought accountability to those who could be charged,
Speaker 1: but it did not fully close the case. See The
Speaker 1: discovery at Rancho Santelana and the confirmation of what had
Speaker 1: happened to Mark Kilroy didn't stay contained in the region.
Speaker 1: The case spread quickly across both the United States and Mexico,
Speaker 1: drawing attention not just because of the crime itself, but
Speaker 1: because of what it revealed. It exposed a connection between
Speaker 1: drug trafficking and ritual beliefs that many people were not
Speaker 1: aware of at the time, and it forced a closer
Speaker 1: look at how those elements were being used together. Now,
Speaker 1: for Mark's family, they were left with a void and
Speaker 1: the reality of what had happened. In the period after
Speaker 1: his death and after it was confirmed, they focused on
Speaker 1: understanding the case as much as they could, asking questions
Speaker 1: about his final moments and the circumstances surrounding how he
Speaker 1: had died. But at the same time they began to
Speaker 1: shift their focus outwards. They established the Mark Kilroy Foundation,
Speaker 1: using his name to support drug awareness and prevention efforts.
Speaker 1: The work centered on education, particularly for young individuals, and
Speaker 1: aimed to address the broader issue that had played a
Speaker 1: role in the environment where the crime and murder had occurred.
Speaker 1: That effort continued over time, growing into programs that reached
Speaker 1: beyond their immediate community and now in the end, when
Speaker 1: the investigation at Rancho sante Ilano was complete, authorities had
Speaker 1: recovered at least fifteen bodies from the property, including that
Speaker 1: of Mark Kilroy. Those were the victims that they could
Speaker 1: confirm an identity through the evidence found at the site,
Speaker 1: but even at that point, it was clear the number
Speaker 1: didn't tell the full story. Statements from those involved, along
Speaker 1: with the pattern of what had been uncovered, suggested the
Speaker 1: group had been active for longer and had likely killed
Speaker 1: more people than that were found at the ranch. Investigators
Speaker 1: believed the total number of victims could be as high
Speaker 1: as twenty seven, though not all of them were ever
Speaker 1: recovered or identified. For Mark, what started as a spring
Speaker 1: break trip with friends ended in a way no one
Speaker 1: around him could ever have predicted. His disappearance led directly
Speaker 1: to the exposure of a group that had been operating
Speaker 1: without detection, and in doing so, it brought attention to
Speaker 1: other victims who might have otherwise remained unknown, and also
Speaker 1: other potential victims who could have fallen to the same fate.
Speaker 1: And what remains are the victims now who were found,
Speaker 1: the ones who were never accounted for as well, and
Speaker 1: the understanding that this case was never just about one person,
Speaker 1: even though it began that way. Mark kilroy was twenty
Speaker 1: one years old. He was a pre med student with
Speaker 1: a very clear direction in front of him, someone who
Speaker 1: had done everything right and was exactly where he was
Speaker 1: supposed to be in life. And with him, it's hard
Speaker 1: not to think about what wasn't, the gaps that were
Speaker 1: never closed, and the reality that Mark kilroy should have
Speaker 1: gone home from spring break, he should have finished school,
Speaker 1: and he should have lived the life he was already
Speaker 1: building towards, but unfortunately he never got the chance. And
Speaker 1: that's the story of Mark Kilroyo.
Speaker 2: That's just so heavy in my frickin' heart just aches
Speaker 2: for Mark, like I how he died and what he
Speaker 2: went through. I know, just frickin' horrible.
Speaker 1: I know it's as you said, heavy, it's a good word.
Speaker 1: But I do want to point to this one thing.
Speaker 1: I kind of already mentioned it a little bit here,
Speaker 1: just a moment ago. I mean, Mark was this sacrifice
Speaker 1: in this ritual. And I'm not saying it's a good
Speaker 1: thing or I'm happy with the outcome of this, but
Speaker 1: Mark was a sacrifice for another reason, an unintentional reason.
Speaker 1: His sacrifice saved others from being part of these rituals too.
Speaker 1: If there wasn't this quote unquote American Caucasian male that
Speaker 1: was missing and connected to this ranch, they probably would
Speaker 1: have kept going. The officers would have got to this ranch,
Speaker 1: probably not have connected anything to murders, because it was
Speaker 1: the fact of this American being said to be there
Speaker 1: that I think likely actually opened the can of worms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they would have. I mean, they would have
Speaker 2: just progressed, really right, I think so. But with the
Speaker 2: body count, where some of those people potentially already like deceased,
Speaker 2: because you said they were kind of doing some like
Speaker 2: grave robbing, of sorts.
Speaker 1: It's hard to tell because there's remains that are unidentified.
Speaker 2: M M. Yeah, I mean, this is just freaking terrifying shit.
Speaker 2: But shit like this can happen literally anywhere.
Speaker 1: Oh it can. We hear of Satanic cults and stuff
Speaker 1: in North America, in Canada, United States, over across seas,
Speaker 1: in Europe or wherever.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, it's good that they were able
Speaker 2: to solve it and get it figured out and stop
Speaker 2: this from going on. But gosh, it's crazy to think
Speaker 2: that people are in an organization or cult or whatever
Speaker 2: and they they literally justify killing people in their mind.
Speaker 1: I think it's hilarious that you call an organization. I mean,
Speaker 1: it technically is, but it is not the word I
Speaker 1: would use to describe it.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I almost don't even want to
Speaker 2: call it a cult. For some reason, organization feels better
Speaker 2: in my brain. I don't know why, because organizations are evil.
Speaker 2: I guess corporates. It was this corporate scheme to kill people, huh.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I think last episode I talked about
Speaker 2: how I've been kind of watching some cult stuff and
Speaker 2: it's just fascinating that you can be part of something
Speaker 2: that brings you to kill people, and it's justified in
Speaker 2: your brain. I know.
Speaker 1: Well, there's the two perspectives of it. There's being at
Speaker 1: the top, where it's you justify to yourself that we
Speaker 1: have to do this, and then there's the justification from
Speaker 1: those followers who say we have to listen to this
Speaker 1: person who says this. The fact that those two things
Speaker 1: can coexist and neither side questions or has doubt or
Speaker 1: thinks we shouldn't do this, it blows my mind. And
Speaker 1: there's so many instances where individuals step outside of those
Speaker 1: cults after it comes crumbling down and realize how horrible
Speaker 1: of a situation it was. And it takes so much
Speaker 1: for them to actually come to that perspective and realization that,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that was so wrong.
Speaker 2: Well, you did mention it too, And here I think
Speaker 2: it's often fear based, right, because if they questioned I
Speaker 2: don't even know what his name was, but if they
Speaker 2: questioned him, they would have been punished.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and it's not only that, but you brought
Speaker 1: this up too, like he's a god. You're not just
Speaker 1: questioning a person, you're almost questioning God. How can you
Speaker 1: question God himself? Yeah, it has to be true, it
Speaker 1: has to be right. Everyone else has to be wrong.
Speaker 1: They don't understand. So I understand the perspective and being
Speaker 1: wrapped up in it, but I don't understand how you
Speaker 1: can follow a god to the point because they believe
Speaker 1: clearly it's a god. I'm not saying he's a god.
Speaker 1: They believe. I don't believe. I don't. I can't fathom
Speaker 1: following someone you perceive to be a god and doing
Speaker 1: those horrific things.
Speaker 2: Where you're literally taking a twenty one year old man that's,
Speaker 2: you know, about to become a doctor, right, prime of
Speaker 2: his life? Yeah, well, I don't even know is twenty
Speaker 2: one prime of your life?
Speaker 1: I think twenties is technically pretty prime as far as
Speaker 1: I generally perceived.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's also cannot be the best time either anyway.
Speaker 1: And healthy prime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then just killing him just done, Like, uh,
Speaker 2: it's bonkers. It is so bonkers.
Speaker 1: Like for me personally, I could never follow a religion
Speaker 1: based like a god or anything where it promotes hurting
Speaker 1: hurting people that it doesn't make sense. I think that
Speaker 1: defeats the entire purpose of you know, what a religion is.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be spirituality. It's supposed to be love
Speaker 1: and it's to be wellness. Clearly that's not what he's promoting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gosh, uh yeah, this one kind of it's going
Speaker 2: to be on my mind for I think a little
Speaker 2: while because it's terrifying to think that something like this
Speaker 2: just happens in real.
Speaker 1: Life, but it does, it really does.
Speaker 2: And then to also think about how Mark's parents even
Speaker 2: go about trying to move on from this. I couldn't
Speaker 2: even imagine losing a child and hearing how they died,
Speaker 2: and it was that way, I know, frickin' just brutal.
Speaker 1: So anyways, I'm not too sure how long that one
Speaker 1: was because we recorded a couple we had to stop
Speaker 1: a few times and like I fumble words or whatever,
Speaker 1: we have to redo, So I'm not sure how long
Speaker 1: this episode was. It was definitely a little bit longer normal.
Speaker 1: If you guys have some interest in what you want
Speaker 1: to say in regards to this case, shoot us a message.
Speaker 1: We read emails, messages, all that sort of thing. We
Speaker 1: get a lot though, so we can't always hit them all.
Speaker 1: But if you really want to get like a predominant spot,
Speaker 1: you can really connect with us. We always check and
Speaker 1: respond to our Patreon so you can sign up on
Speaker 1: a Patreon links in the description. Same with all our socials,
Speaker 1: but don't feel like you're pressured. We appreciate you being here,
Speaker 1: listening and supporting us. Either way, you're absolutely amazing. Thank
Speaker 1: you a million know what? No, thank you ten million
Speaker 1: times over.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, We super appreciate everyone that's here, super super
Speaker 2: duper super de duper appreciate. Also until next episode, stay Wicked.
Speaker 1: Thing, befo
Speaker 2: Oh