Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Kidnapped By a Drug Cult - The Mark Kilroy story

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

The Mark Kilroy case is a chilling true crime story involving a University of Texas student who disappeared during spring break in Matamoros, Mexico, in 1989. Kilroy was later found to have been kidnapped and murdered by a drug cult led by Adolfo Constanzo, which practiced ritualistic human sacrifices as part of their belief system. His death shocked both the U.S. and Mexico, leading to an intense cross-border investigation that exposed a gruesome network of occult crime tied to drug trafficking.

So this guy is a cult leader, and he wants nothing more than to sacrifice a white guy. Now the story starts with Mark. In Mark's 21, he goes to college in Texas, and he eventually wants to go to med school. And one day, in 1989, Mark and some of his college friends, they decide they're going to travel somewhere for spring break. And Mark, he ends up going from Austin down to South Padre Island and then to a little border town called Brownsville. Now in Brownsville, there's a bridge where people can literally walk across the border into Mexico, where there's this town where spring breakers will go and they party. So Mark and his friends, they cross this bridge and they go to this town and they get drunk and they have a great time.

The second night they're there, they go out again, and they bar hop a couple of places and they drink all night, and Mark talks to some girls, you know, normal spring break shit. Then around 2 a.m., Mark and the guys, they leave the bar to go back to. to their hotel. So Mark and his friend, they're walking along and it's pretty crowded and his friend stops to take a leak. And so he goes down this alleyway while Mark is standing there waiting for him. And right then, a red pickup truck pulls up. And the men inside, they talk to Mark and they're like, Hey, you want a ride? And Mark's like, nah. But then, boom, some of the men grab him and they throw him into the truck. But Mark, he ain't no punk. He ain't about to get kidnapped. And so they

fight and they struggle. And bam, he manages to break free. And he runs away. And he runs away. and he runs and he runs, but then another car catches up to him, and they're with the guys in the red truck, and these guys, they aren't messing around, and they point a pew-poo right at him, and they're like, get in! And so Mark does, and skir-they speed away. Sometime later, these cars arrive in the middle of nowhere at this remote ranch.

Now, this ranch is full of all these crazy people, and these aren't like the cartel you would assume would be out kidnapping drunk Americans. This is a cult, crazy drug trafficking cult. They apparently distribute a lot of Zaza out of this ranch. And the leader of this cult is this guy, Adolfo. And Adolfo and his followers, they believe some crazy shit. They believe in magic, like the Harry Potter kind of magic where there's like curses and shit. And in order to keep their gang safe from police, they need to make some

literal sacrifices. Sometimes these sacrifices include a small animal, but other times they sacrifice a human. Now usually when they sacrifice a human they capture an unalive like a rival gang member or some other drug smugglers but this time for whatever reason Adolfo tells them they need to sacrifice a white boy and that is when his cult members go out and they happen to find Mark and they kidnap him and they bring him back to their ranch. So now Mark is at this creepy farm and they're still holding him at gunpoint and they handcuff him and they leave him in the back of this car. And about 12 hours later, they come get him. And they tell him he's going to be fine and

they give him a little food to eat. Then they take him and they put him in this little storage shack. Then throughout the night, they unfortunately torture him in horrible ways. And after that, it's time for Adolfo to perform the sacrifice. And so then Adolfo and the gang, they take Mark out to a nearby field and Adolfo has this huge machete and pow, he strikes Mark once in the back of his neck and this unalives him. Then they remove his brain and his spinal column to use in their weird ritual and they cut him up and they bury him. And I guess now Adolfo and his cult, they feel safe now that they've made this human sacrifice. Meanwhile, Mark's friends are super worried that their bro disappeared, like no one in their group saw him get kidnapped. And so they searched all the bars

and everywhere in town that he could be. And they kind of assumed that he like maybe met some girl and went off to smash at her place or something like that. But after hours of searching the town, they have no luck. And so they go and they report Mark missing to the police in Texas. And interestingly enough, Mark's uncle is actually a special agent with the U.S. Customs Service. So this dude has connections with law enforcement on both sides of the border. And so pretty quickly, police in U.S. and Mexico are all looking for Mark or anyone who might be connected with his disappearance.

And there's like this whole manhunt and volunteers come and they hand out over 20,000 flyers. Mark's parents offer a $15,000 reward. They bring out terrain vehicles and helicopters to search everywhere they can. And this story is all over the news. And then a few weeks later, they feature Mark's disappearance on an episode of America's Most Wanted. Regardless, there are still no leads and no one knows anything. And of course, no one suspects Adolfo or his cult are in. involved at all. So I guess they got away with it. I guess their human sacrifice really

did protect them from the police. Until... One day, about two and a half weeks after Mark's disappearance, police set up a roadblock, like a checkpoint. Not for Mark, this is actually routine as they're trying to catch drug smugglers in the area. And one of the members of Adolfo's cult, some goon, is driving through. And I guess he just doesn't want to deal with police. And so, boom, He runs right through this checkpoint, like a dumbass, and he speeds away. And of course, Mexican police, they're not going to let this slide. However, instead of turning on their sirens, they play it cool. And they have some officers follow him slowly in an unmarked police car.

And this stupid goon drives all the way out to the cult ranch, and he inadvertently leads the police there. And so eventually, police come out and they search this ranch, and they find pounds and pounds, of Zaza and a bunch of weapons and they find the shack where Mark was tortured and they find some graves and police force some of the cult members at gunpoint to dig up these graves and that is where they find 15 mutilated bodies and one of those bodies is Mark's. And so bam, they arrest four cult members.

However, Adolfo and some other high ranking members of this cult, they're nowhere to be found. Because meanwhile, Adolfo is hiding out in a holiday. in back in Brownsville. He's trying to lay low and he eventually takes a flight from Texas all the way to Mexico City, where he has an apartment. So now he's hiding out there. While police are still investigating this and they're looking for him and they start hearing rumors that he's at this apartment in Mexico City. And so they trace him back to this apartment and they send a ton of officers out and they surround this complex. While Adolfo, he's inside and he happens to look out the window and he sees

all these police and he goes and he gets a pew-pue and he just starts blasting and this turns into this whole ass shootout and he's shooting at the cops and the cops are shooting back but then after about 45 minutes bro runs out of

ammo and he's like myrda now what am I going to do and so he goes to one of his goons and he orders the goon to unalive him and his gay lover because I guess Adolfo is bisexecis and his lover is there with him, I don't really understand the rules of this cult. But anyway, Adolfo orders this goon to unalive him and his lover.

And the goon is like, nah, bro. But then, pow, Adolfo smacks the hell out of the goon, and he tells him to do as he's told, or he'll burn in hell. And so the goon points a machine gun at him, and he pulls the trigger. And this unalives Adolfo and his lover. And ultimately, a bunch of the guys affiliated with the cult, They end up going to prison. That is wild.