Adolfo Constanzo

Adolfo Constanzo
Background information
Birth name	Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo
Also known as	The Godfather of Matamoros (El Padrino de Matamoros) The Witch Doctor
Born	November 1, 1962(1962-11-01) Miami, Florida, USA
Died	May 6, 1989(1989-05-06) (aged 26) Mexico City
Cause of death	Suicide
Conviction	Never convicted
Sentence	Never sentenced
Killings
Number of victims:	25+
Span of killings	1986–March 28, 1989
Country	Mexico
Date apprehended	Never apprehended

Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo (November 1, 1962 – May 6, 1989) was an American serial killer, drug dealer and cult leader. His nickname was El Padrino de Matamoros (The Godfather of Matamoros).

Early years

Constanzo was born in Miami, Florida, USA. His mother was a Cuban immigrant. She gave birth to Adolfo at the age of 15, and eventually had three children of different fathers. She moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, after her first husband died, and she remarried there. Constanzo was baptized Catholic and served as an altar boy, but was also influenced by his mother in the religion called Palo Mayombe. The family returned to Miami in 1972, and his stepfather died soon after leaving the family with some money. His mother soon remarried and his new stepfather was involved in the religion and drug dealing.

Constanzo and his mother were arrested numerous times for minor crimes like theft, vandalism, and "farderismo” (shoplifting, concealing goods between their clothing). He graduated from high school but was expelled from prep school. His mother believed he had psychic abilities for supposedly having foretold the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

As a teenager, he befriended a priest of Palo Mayombe ritual, who taught him the skills to be a drug dealer.

Adulthood

Constanzo visited Mexico City in 1983, supporting himself as a tarot card reader. There, he recruited two younger men; Martín Quintana Rodríguez and Omar Chewe Orea Ochoa to be his servants, lovers and disciples. Constanzo returned to Miami shortly thereafter, but he moved to Mexico City in mid-1984. Over the next few years he became the leader of a full-fledged religion with drug dealers, musicians and even police officers under his command. The religion, based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, sold drugs, held high-priced religious ceremonies, and by 1987 at the latest, murdered people for use in human sacrifices. These victims fell along with the religion's rivals in dealing drugs.

When a US citizen tourist, 21-year-old Mark J. Kilroy, disappeared in Matamoros during Spring Break 1989, local police, facing pressures from Texas authorities, began to search in earnest for him. They discovered Constanzo's religion quite by accident (in an unrelated drug investigation) and, after arresting some of the members, quickly discovered that they were responsible for the murder of Kilroy. Officials said Kilroy was killed by Constanzo with a machete chop to the back of the neck when he tried to escape about 12 hours after being taken to the ranch. The suspects said a number of the victims were dismembered and burned. .^[1]

More and more of the cult's members were arrested until, on May 6, they had cornered Constanzo and four of his followers, two of whom were his male lovers, in a dilapidated Mexico City apartment. Determined not to go to prison, Constanzo ordered one of the disciples to shoot him and Quintana Rodríguez. They were both dead when the police finally broke in.^[2]

One of Constanzo's most trusted leaders within his cult, Sara María Aldrete, was arrested not long after his death. She was sentenced to a total of 68 years in prison for her involvement in the cult and the murders.

Possible Accomplices

• Abel Lima "El sodomita de Iztapalapa" presunto responsable de los secuestros en carretilla de mediados de los años 90.
• Rubén Estrada "Patitas cortas"
• Christian Campos "El Panzas"
• Emmanuel Romero "El trompas"
• Saúl Sánchez "El Macaco"
• Ricardo Peña "El cepillín"

Documentaries

The Discovery Channel series, "Most Evil", by Dr. Michael Stone, profiled Constanzo in the last episode ("Cult Leaders") of the second season. Constanzo's "evil level" was 22, the highest.^[3]

Constanzo was also profiled in the documentary "Instinto Asesino" which aired on Discovery en Espanol in 2010. The episode was entitled, "El Padrino".

Pop culture

• Borderland, a 2007 film loosely based on Constanzo and his cult.
• Brujería, a death metal band whose lyrics focus on Satanism, anti-Christianity, sex and drug smuggling, put a picture of a severed head (later nicknamed Coco Loco) in their album Matando Güeros. The head is believed to be of a victim of Adolfo Constanzo cult.
• Japanese doom metal band Church of Misery reference Constanzo in their song El Padrino (Godfather, in Spanish). It appears on their Houses of the Unholy album, each song being about a serial killer/mass murderer.

References

1. ^ Applebome, Peter (April 13, 1989). "Drugs, Death and the Occult Meet In Grisly Inquiry at Mexico Border". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE0D71F3FF930A25757C0A96F948260. Retrieved 2008-07-28. "Officials from two countries told a gruesome story today of drugs, ritual murder and the occult that has begun to unfold at a remote ranch in the bleak, empty countryside near the United States border. On Tuesday, the officials found the bodies of 12 people, including a 21-year-old University of Texas student who had vanished here a month ago, in eight crude graves on the ranch. Today, at news conferences here and in Brownsville, Tex., the officials said that a drug gang, seeing human sacrifice as a magical shield that would protect it from the police, was responsible for the murders." 
2. ^ "Leader in Cult Slayings Ordered Own Death, Two Companions Say". New York Times. May 8, 1989. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEEDA103AF93BA35756C0A96F948260. "The leader of a drug-smuggling cult that is believed to have killed 15 people and buried their bodies along the United States-Mexican border ordered his own killing when the police closed in on him, two of his companions said today." 
3. ^ [1], The main page in Discovery Channel website, the official source to Most Evil series.

External links

• Crime Library 2 another Court TV article on the "Death Priests"
• "The Mexican Voodoo Massacre" Bizarre Magazine^{[dead link]}
• The Godfather of Matamoros

Persondata
Name	Constanzo, Adolfo
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	November 1, 1962
Place of birth	Miami, Florida, USA
Date of death	May 6, 1989
Place of death