RedHanded - Episode 29 - The Cult with No Name

Episode Date: January 18, 2018

This week it's cults and the girls follow the Pied Piper of Death to Matamoros Mexico to explore the ‘the cult with no name’(sometimes dubbed by the press as ‘The Narcosatanistas’ or ‘The Believers’). This cult was led by Palo Mayombe priest, ‘El Padrino’ and consisted of a dedicated group of disciples who believed that rites of human sacrifice made them untouchable - but this very belief is what finally led police to uncover the truth about what lay out at Ranch Santa Elena...   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And this is Red Handed and welcome to our first ever cult episode. I know, I can't believe it took us, what, almost 30 episodes to do a cult? Yeah, that is weird actually. So we've got a pretty good one for you today. I think it is lesser known, which is quite difficult with cults. Like the interesting ones are usually broadcast all over everywhere. But this one, I didn't know about this one until quite recently this cult have been called the narco satanistas and the believers in the press but it would appear

they had no name for themselves that's almost more terrifying and more like how seriously they take it they haven't just given themselves some fucking stupid name. They're just there to do business. Cult business. Yeah, they're like, this is just my life. This is not anything weird. I don't need a name for it. I think that's even scarier. So we're in the late 80s in Matamoros, Mexico.

Because it is our first cult, let's have a quick look at what actually you need for something to be a cult in the first place. And the leading paper on this was written by Robert J. Lifton, who's a psychiatrist, and I think it's in 1980, and it's called Cult Formation. And basically he says that cults need three things to really be cults. The first thing you need is a charismatic leader

who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power this leader has to be alive and they have no meaningful accountability and this becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority so that's classic you need the charismatic leader number two you need a process of indoctrination or education that's in use and can be seen as coercive persuasion or thought reform. So that's brainwashing, basically. That's number two. And then number three, you need economic, sexual and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling people in the group.

And these guys definitely have all three. But I did think that the living leader thing was quite interesting because does Scientology stop being a cult just because L. Ron Hobbin is dead but then when does a cult stop being a cult and become a religion they claim they're a religion but I'd call them a cult but then I'd call most religions cults cultish and so I don't know does it just go from being a cult to being a religion now that he's dead and they have tax exempt you know status yeah and then i also think i mean david miscavige is doing a pretty good job of keeping that flame alive so maybe he's just taking can you pass it

on does it have to be the same charismatic leader or can you just because when you see like the famous cult like the source family ended when their leader ended that was it he died but then the children of god cult that was founded by david berg he's dead now isn't he and they just rebranded and they're like we're the family international but i don't even think the rebranding or the change was because he died it was because all of the sex abuse so i don't know and david miskovich he is definitely the leader now but they don't sort of deify him do they they don't like admire him as a godlike person it was l ron hubbard that they still think of as that even though he's dead but then if you

think also doesn't it come down to what that cult believes? Because don't Scientology believe, like, is he even dead as far as they're concerned? I don't know. Like, energy, organs. Oh, yeah, they've got that whole thing. I don't know. It's terrifying. Oh, God. Cult.

It's a cult. It's such a cult. Like, I was in L.A. and they literally flyer people on the street. They have people standing on the street with flyers. But then Hannah standing next to him willers but then had a standing next to him will be christian guy standing next to him will be a fucking harry krishna guy like they're all cults but obviously you do have like you do have christians on street corners who like have signs

that say like jesus loves you and will try and hand you copies of the watchtower or whatever like obviously that harry krishna harry krishna's all of them yeah yeah yeah obviously you do have that but i do remember the scientologist flyer being particularly aggressive and like it's it stood out in my mind as different to things i had seen with other religions is what i mean do you feel like it's because the aggressive expansion of mainstream religions took place hundreds of years ago and now they're like we're good we got we got a stable foundation we'll continue to grow where we can but scientologists needs to grow now because it's almost in that part the time of a religion or a cult when it needs to experience rapid growth i think the thing about scientology is like it's a

business like it's a big pyramid scheme yeah so like i think but then what isn't so if you look at it from an economic standpoint it's exactly the same like they need rapid i think but then what isn't so if you look at it from an economic standpoint it's exactly the same like they need rapid growth now but then you know i'd say that same thing about the church back in the day any religion back in the day even now because you know let's i basically think we live in a world where whether it's a cult or whether it's a mainstream religion we live in a world where it's like belief and faith and worship have been commodified what religion could you join now where you're not being look at those super churches and things like that this is not coming down on christianity or one religion over the other in my opinion they

all have elements of that and you know your personal beliefs are one thing but organized religion can certainly be exploitative, is all I'm saying. So with this cult, or this group, whatever you want to call them, they were led by a high priest who they called El Padrino, or the Godfather, who led them in their rites of cleansing, witchcraft, protection, and human sacrifice. Now under the instructions of El Padrino, his followers would abduct anyone he wanted, believing that his human sacrifices made the group invincible. And you can even see video footage of them. They really,

really believed that they were untouchable. And it's one of the weirdest parts of this whole, this whole case, like how strongly they believe that. And their depraved religious rights were unnoticed for years. And to this day, no one really knows just how many people lost their lives under the machete of El Padrino. The most important thing to understand about Matamoros is that it's just over the border from Brownsville, Texas. Literally, you can just walk over a bridge from Texas and be in Matamoros. In Mexico, the drinking age is only 16. This made Matamoros a very, very attractive prospect for spring breakers. I mean, it's like Zante for North Americans. Yeah, but you can't

walk to Zante. Yes, it's like if you could walk to Zante, if that easy jet flight to Zante was just a bridge for North Americans, that's what it feels like. And it feels like even younger because you can go from 16 and get smashed there. So obviously, as you can imagine, students flocked there and they could stay in super cheap hotels or they could just leave their cars in the United States, walk over the bridge, party in Matamoros, in Cali Alvaro Abrego, consistently full of revelers. Buying Corona's just for like a dollar. And on the 11th of March 1989, Mark Kilroy and his friends were partying. Now, Mark was a senior at the University of Texas at Austin.

His friends, Bill Huddleston and Bradley Moore, were both juniors at Texas A&M. And his fourth friend, Brent Martin, was a student at Alvin Community College. They'd all played basketball together in high school at Santa Fe, Texas. Mark Kilroy was 21 and a pretty good looking boy. The four mates party, they talk to girls, one of whom, and this is noted in almost every article I read, which is bizarre. One of the girls that Mark was talking to came second in a Miss Tan Line competition. Why is that important? I don't know. It's what, the 80s in spring break, Mexico? I think they're kind of making the point like,

oh, he was that good looking. He was talking to a Miss Tanline runner up. Like, I think that's why. Got it, got it. He leaves Miss Tanline eventually and they end up back at their hotel at about 2.30 in the morning. So they're in Mexico this night.

The next day they returned to Texas and they dropped in on a frat party in the evening but they actually decided they'd rather go back to Matamoros but this time they parked their cars on the US side of the border and crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande on foot. Also love, imagine being able to party that hard anymore. Like I know they're like 21 but seriously they go out in Matamoros getting smashed on one dollar coronas probably the alcohol there isn't great as well then the next day they just go to a frappe world tea and then head back to mexico like i went out one night on new year's eve here and i was hung

over for three days like that's unbelievable to me unbelievable i also just wish i lived somewhere i'd be like oh should we just go to mexico it's only half an hour like i guess we could be like want to go to no we can't we can't go anywhere fun spain go anywhere fun i actually think we've got a better deal we've got the whole of europe yeah but you can't walk there i mean oh brexit hey you know they're um starting a direct train eurostar from london to amsterdam though oh that'd be fun i mean it'll cost like hundreds of pounds but it's happening i've never been on the eurostar i always just do the channel tunnel it's really expensive it's cheaper to fly yeah flying such a pain in the ass though and then now we're gonna

fucking be even harder because we'll have those bloody blue passports and they'll probably make us not be allowed to go through with the other EU citizens anymore. Oh, for God's sake. Why? Anyway. The four boys get loose for a few hours. And then they decide to head back over the river to get their cars. Get loose.

I like that. You know, I heard me say that before. Get loose. Get loose. Literally never heard you say that before. Or what are you doing Friday night? I don't know getting loose that's hilarious it sounds like you're gonna sleep around getting loose anyway no judgment hannah no judgment thanks sorry your mum listens carry on uh she's all right she knows so they head back to their cars and we will

find this in this case like there are usually about two to three versions of events so we've got two accounts of what happened next number one mark hung back from the others because he needed a wee so he went into the forest into the woods woods, to go to the toilet, basically. Number two, he was called over by someone who his friends thought he knew. So this person was saying something like, didn't I just see you somewhere? Or something to that effect. So Mark goes over to this person to speak to them, and the others go on ahead.

Either way, whatever happened, Mark Kilroy did not cross the border with his friends. They backtracked a little bit to try and spot him, but after a while they assumed that he must have gone on ahead. So they crossed the bridge, went through customs, and were fully expecting to find Mark Kilroy already with their cars. But he was nowhere to be seen. And when they still had heard nothing by the next morning,

Huddleston Moore and Martin knew that something had to be wrong. Now, students were often reported missing in Matamoros. They usually just turned up, though, a few days later, totally safe with nothing more than a brutal hangover and absolutely no memory of the nights before. And so, in this case, it just started off as a routine missing person story. But there would be no sign of Mark Kilroy. He didn't show up at any of the usual places,

and the authorities on both sides of the Rio Grande began to suspect foul play. George Gavito was the deputy sheriff at Brownsville in Texas at the time, and due to their close proximity, Gavito had worked extremely closely with the Mexican police force for about 20 years, and surprisingly experienced nothing but absolute beautiful cooperation. That was until Mark Kilroy went missing and it just became like getting blood from a stone. The Matamoros police department simply told Gavito that Kilroy had been involved with narcotics and that's why he'd gone missing.

They refused to tell Gavito where they were getting this information from. So in other words, they were just saying he was flaying with fire and he got burnt, that he was asking for whatever had happened to him. Gavito had a suspicion, though, that this was not the case. So Donald Wells, the US counsel in Matamoros, was contacted and pictures of Mark Kilroy were circulated in hospitals and jails. And Bradley Moore, who was Mark Kilroy's friend and with him the night that he had gone missing, was even placed under hypnosis and apparently remembered Mark Kilroy speaking to a young Hispanic man with a cut on his face. Kilroy's parents flew down to Brownsville to lead the search

and the case was even featured on America's Most Wanted. I think it's really important, like with the hypnosis, that's such a weird thing for a police department to do, but I think it shows how desperate they were, that they absolutely had nothing to go on. So Gavito knew that time was of the absolute essence here because all of his potential witnesses would leave Matamoros in three days when spring break was over

and then there would be no hope. It's like a movie. It literally is. A student goes on spring break and is kidnapped by a cult. It is insanity. So, Gobito made sure that Kilroy's face was on TV, in the papers, everywhere and he kept it there as long as he could. But no leads surfaced and Gabito had no choice but to call in the big guns. Luckily Gabito had been working closely with Comandante Juan Benitez Ayala, the head of the federal police assigned to Matamoros. People were terrified of him and they got the job done. Like in the documentary, I'll post it on the Facebook group, Debito's like this huge American guy from Texas and he's talking about Comandante Ayala

and he's just like, he's five foot tall, but he stands eight foot tall. He's terrifying. Like so much so, like you would never see Ayala in a restaurant or in a bar. You would only see him when he was working because he was dealing with like heavy duty narcotics trafficking cases. So he was taking out incredibly powerful people and he was genuinely

too afraid to go out in public he thought if he went to a bar his drink would be poisoned like that's how important the people he was dealing with were so Gerito explained that he had a missing persons case and that the cooperation from the police department left a lot to be desired. And Ayala put his people to work promising to hand over any leads he found straight to Gavito because in Mexico you don't need a search warrant when the federales are on your side. But despite the extra muscle and a reward of $20,000 being widely publicised, nothing was found and no one had a clue where Mark Kilroy was. Dejected, Gavito went down to Comandante Ayala's office to discuss what their next move would be, and whilst he was waiting in the foyer, he heard a voice.

When Gavito turned round to see 22-year-old Seraphine Hernandez, who he knew was a student in Brownsville, Gavito and Hernandez had crossed paths a few months earlier when Seraphine reported his uncle, Elio Hernandez, to be missing. It's important to note that there are a lot of Mexican students in the area of Texas and it's reasonably common for young Mexican students to lead totally different lives on either side of the border. We're going to see this in a massive way later on. Now the Hernandez family were well known in Matamoros for drug smuggling. The ins and outs of Elio's kidnapping were pretty murky, but it seems like it was written off again just as a narcotics-related incident, which is why Seraphim had sought the help of Govito and the Brownsville Sheriff's Department. Now, Aiella explained that Seraphim had been arrested because he failed to stop at a police roadblock. The police followed him to Rancho Santa Elena, owned by the Hernandez family, about 20 miles west of Matamoros.

Police arrested Zaref and Hernandez on the spot, and upon searching the ranch, the police found 250,000 pounds of marijuana. They also found a hut, but it was quite big, more like a small barn, I guess, and inside they saw what they described as brujería, or witchcraft. Officers described seeing candles, bottles of liqueur, and a large metal pot in the middle of the floor there was also a caretaker at santa elena he was placed under house arrest and the police told him that they would be returning later to question him at about 2am that morning, and they had found Mark Kilroy. He was buried at the Santa Elena ranch. His legs had been amputated at the knees, and his brain had been removed from his skull and was missing. Since Mark's disappearance, less than a month before Matamoros, police had been showing his picture to everybody they questioned,

and the caretaker of Santa Elena was no exception. When shown Kilroy's picture, he calmly said that yes, he knew him, he had been here, and the caretaker of Santa Elena was no exception. When shown Kilroy's picture, he calmly said that yes, he knew him, he had been here, and the caretaker even admitted to feeding Kilroy when he was tied up in the hut. When Seraphine was shown the same picture, he said, yes, I know Mark. That's the guy everyone's looking for.

I know him. I kidnapped him. He's buried at the ranch. Just as easy as that. He just tells this terrifying Commandante the truth. He's buried at the ranch. Just as easy as that. He just tells this terrifying comandante the truth. He's not afraid. And none of it seems to bother him at all. Now, Gavita was stunned.

He couldn't believe that Serafin Hernandez was willingly giving up this information. He even asked Ayala if he had to torture Hernandez for this information. But he hadn't. Hernandez was totally unafraid. He believed that he was literally bulletproof, the police could do no harm, and that El Padrino would swoop in at any minute to release him from this police custody. He genuinely thought he was invincible, and you can see it in his interviews with the police. He's so unbelievably calm. So the police took

Serafin Hernandez back to Santa Elena the next day, so on the 11th of April 1989, and demanded that he show them where the body was buried, to which Hernandez replied, which body? Now Ayala is furious with the young man who seems to show no remorse and have absolutely no concept of what he's done being wrong. Hernandez explained that why he was hesitating was that there were so many bodies buried at the ranch that he was simply asking which one the Federales would like to be taken to, to which Ayala replies, all of them. And what follows is so weird. It was all on film. Serafin meanders around the yard outside the hut saying things like, there's Gilberto, I don't know his last name, and he makes it look like it's just the most mundane task in the world. And at one point, he even asked the Federales to order him

some food because he's getting hungry. He's so unbelievably detached from basically the whole universe, it seems like. It's completely mind-blowing. He genuinely believed that he was untouchable. And even though he was giving the Federales and the most feared Comandante in the district a guided tour of the atrocities he had committed and admitting guilt at every turn. Like, can you imagine that you are showing the federal police where you've buried people that you've murdered? And you're just like, actually, though, can I have a sandwich? That doesn't make any sense. And then finally, the police asked where Mark Kilroy was buried and Seraphine Hernandez pointed to a wire sticking out of the ground

and said that that's where Mark's body was. When asked what the wire was for, Hernandez explained that after Mark was killed, they stuck a coat hanger through his spine before they buried him so that once he had decomposed, they could pull it out of the ground and El Padrino could wear it as a necklace. And I think it's really interesting that Gavito describes Seraphim as being high on belief. You know, you hear those stories about like people who run into oncoming traffic because they're on like angel dust or whatever. It's like that, but he genuinely believes that he can, he's totally untouchable because of a person, because what of a person has told him. It's, it's incredible.

It's the power of belief. We aren't really going to dig into like the religious aspects of this. But what we're seeing here is that in these cult practices it's a practical application of your belief system like if you see it working you know someone is sick and they get better or someone gets a job or they never get caught by the police when they're running an enormous amount of drugs across the border every week you're gonna try it if you see it consistently working and how different is it really than praying for something how big of a step is it definitely it's like you described it's the practical application of it in many other

religions it's much more passive and it's much more i'll pray and the power of belief that prayer makes people feel better and then they think that that will lead to if you have enough faith if you pray hard enough if you believe hard enough, that that will lead to your desired outcomes. But in this, it's the next step. It's the practical side of it. It's much more proactive. I'm going to do this thing, make this potion, kill this person to get to the point that I want to, to have the thing that I want to happen, happen. And it's like you said, it's just because there's causation doesn't mean there's any correlation, but you, cause you watch some guy slash a chicken's throat. And then the next day, his grandma doesn't die. You can make that connection and say, Oh, well, how about if I

kill a guy? Will that mean that when I next carry a hundred thousand pounds of marijuana across the border, I won't get caught. If you believe that hard enough, it's almost like OCD and superstition. You know, when people are like, I can't walk onto that ladder because something bad will happen to get caught if you believe that hard enough it's almost like OCD and superstition you know when people are like I can't walk under that ladder because something bad will happen to me but nothing bad will happen if you walk under a ladder apart from maybe the ladder might fall on you but that's not because it's unlucky do you know I mean it's like superstition it's exactly what it feels like well okay I was gonna say it's not it was my mom uh went to a concert with a lady i don't know how she knew her and they were trying to decide which entrance that they should go into

wherever this concert was and this woman just goes oh god will decide what it's what like are you that's insane like you can't make the smallest decision for yourself but it is almost like i feel like people use it as a coping mechanism as well but people just be like oh inshallah like it's you know whatever it's like remove every grain of responsibility from yourself like if god wills it to be it will be and therefore if it doesn't work out if it doesn't happen then i don't need to feel bad about it because it wasn't god's desire in this it's almost the flip reverse of that it's i. In this, it's almost the flip reverse of that. It's, I can make this happen. It's almost like a self-help book written by, I was going to say the devil, but a self-help book written by, who's an evil person? I can't think of what.

It's like, you can, you can do this. I believe in you. You can make this happen. You just need to kill this person, bury him in the ground, make a necklace out of his bones and then it will happen for you did you ever watch that deron brown thing that was called push i don't think i did watch that no basically like i can't go into it in too much detail basically what happens is he uses all of these sort of mind control techniques and it's all on film and basically he convinces this person that it's okay to push another person off a building and it's all fake and it's not real but they did it with seven people and only one refused to push this person off like these people could be convinced in the space of about an hour to kill someone we're going off track but you know the the experiment they did with the people in the

electric shock where they had an actor in the other room and they were saying keep turning up the voltage at which you're shocking the person next door and the actor would i think it's the mildrum experiment something like that well remembered and it will be the actor next door yelps each time they get the shock and they'll keep telling them keep going keep going keep turning it up and they can see that at the end result it's like i don't know 300 volts or something and then they're told that that could kill that person. But as part of the experiment, we need you to keep going regardless of what you're hearing next door.

I'm wearing a white coat and I'm very official. I've got a clipboard and I'm telling you to keep going. Most of them did it, but most of them continued all the way to 300 volts, even though they'd been told that it could kill the person next door. It's crazy how much we'll go along with authority and how easily we can be brainwashed into doing things.

It's terrifying. Because you really like to think of yourself as having your own agency and your own free will. No, we're herd creatures. Pack animals. We are. And that's why things like not just organised religion, so many other institutions, so many other things

can allow people that want to conform and follow a herd to then become victims of exploitation. And that's sad. But anyway, back to the case. Serafina Hernandez, under police instruction, began to dig up the bodies and explained to Gabito, Ayala and the Federales that they had killed these people because they were worshipping. Ayala was able to arrest a further four members of this murderous cult on Hernandez's testimony, one of which was his kidnapped uncle Elio, who seemed to be doing just fine. So I have absolutely no idea why it was a kidnapping situation just a month before. So these four men were brought to the ranch at Santa Elena and they were ordered to start digging up the bodies.

Why aren't they getting forensics people to dig up these bodies? Excellent question. They even use like a tractor. So like there is no, this is not delicate crime scene analysis happening here. Genuinely. A tractor? Fucking hell. So love, you dig it up.

You put it there, you fucking dig it. No, that's not how you excavate a crime scene. So they uncovered a total of 23 bodies. Some of them had their throats slit and most of them had at least one vital organ missing. They all admitted to being involved in Mark Kilroy's abduction and murder in the same blasé way that Seraphine had, just without giving a single fuck. just one by one admitted to being involved. It's so interesting. Cults are fascinating. These guys that had been part of this cult, these people that have been part of this cult,

they'd been pretending to be policemen. They even had uniforms, badges and lights on their cars. And this is how they'd abducted their victims. They had approached Mark Kilroy when he was separated from his friends, showed him the badge and told him that he was under arrest for being too drunk. They handcuffed him, drove him to the ranch, blindfolded him with tape and left him in the back of their car. He was fed by the caretaker of the ranch until the mysterious Padrino ordered that Mark Kilroy was to die. It was clear from the state of Kilroy's body

that he had been killed with a machete strike to the back of the neck. Oh God. And when questioned, Hernandez and the others quietly admitted that it was all El Padrino. How convenient, the police thought. Oh God. than he knew what to do with. He still had no idea why these young, educated men with good families were riding around Matamoros disguised as police officers and murdering people left and right. Further investigation of the hut, though, revealed that the metal pot in the middle of the floor was filled with bones, sticks, railway spikes,

a horseshoe, a dead tortoise, and a human brain. I mean, what the hell hell that's some recipe i mean what was even going on and i just feel like the rancho santa elena sounds like a really like nice place to go hang out and yeah come see our pot filled with bones sticks railway spikes horseshoes dead tortoises and human brains the highlight of your trip is it weird that i think the biggest curveball in there is the tortoise like i was prepared for the human remains bit but the tortoise just really threw me off i actually thought the railway spike was that's so random so they didn't have any idea what was going on with this fucking cauldron either

and they also had no idea who was calling the shots who was el padrino who was this guy who was convincing these young intelligent men that abducting people was completely fine so what let's start with what we do know what we do know is that we've got a group of people moving thousands of pounds worth of marijuana across the border and according to deputy sheriff gavito it's quite common in mexico for drug cartels to practice santeria and like what's your first impression when you hear the word santeria what's the first thing that you think of santa satan no it's very like, it's very like, Catholic sounding. Exactly. So Santeria, like, I think it's actually quite well known there was a bit in like,

The Orange is the New Black had a bit of a Santeria subplot for a bit. It's not as it doesn't sound as scary as voodoo does. It doesn't sound as threatening or as dark what's anterior is it's an afro-american religion and it blends african shamanism with roman catholic iconography which is really bizarre so it's like african gods are given roman catholic saints names it's interesting though isn't it because this is what happens so often during like times during slavery and during colonialism where the west just went and obviously took over large parts of the world that had their own indigenous religions and infiltrated that with Catholicism to be able to, you know, well, firstly, it's a big tick, easy missionary work done.

And it's the combination of that. The indigenous religions in many places don't die. They just get absorbed into this Catholicism and it gives birth to these sort of hybrid religions and hybrid belief systems, which is fascinating, like anthropologically speaking. And yeah, so Santa Ilec is reasonably well known, I'd say, and is practiced peacefully by loads of people.

It doesn't necessarily need to be linked with something dark. But it was revealed that what was being practiced at the ranch at Santa Elena was not Santa Ia. It was Paulo Mayombe. So Paulo Mayombe originated from what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola with the Bokongo-speaking peoples. And it was brought to Cuba by enslaved Congo people

during the slave trade. So today, similarly to African diasporic religions like Santeria and Haitian Verdun, Palo Mayombe blends shamanic religious practices with spiritualism, magic, and Catholicism. And I've also seen Palo Mayombe, like, referred to as the dark side of Santeria, But Santeria has different origins. Its African roots are actually with the Yoruba people rather than the Congo people. So it is from, they do look quite similar and I can see why Palo Mayombe and Santeria

are often mistaken for two halves of the same whole, but they are different things. They have different origins. I think the idea of them being two parts of the same thing comes from like the definition of white magic, like Santeria tends to deal with white magic whereas Palamayombe doesn't draw a distinction between

types of magic and it can be used to hurt people and also it's quite focused on quick gratification like do this spell, do this thing tomorrow you will have whatever you want. And Paola's religious function revolves around the nganga. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

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Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster.

Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. This is what the pot in the hut at the ranch turned out to be. The Nganga is a magical cauldron composed of different soils, stones, wooden sticks, tools and bones. In this case it's pretty heavy on the bones and the human remains side. The Naganga is seen as the microcosm of the world and contains a powerful pact between the spirit of the dead and the Mpongo, the force of nature who rules the Naganga. The Paolo priest directs the spirit of the Nganga to perform works of magic, to heal, to curse, to make magical changes happen or to make pacts with new initiates.

And it's super Hollywood to borrow from loads of different African diasporic religions and slap a voodoo label on it. And it's also important to note that Paolo Mayombe can and is practiced peacefully paulo is very dead centric there is a significant focus on communing with your dead your ancestors for example and you see that loads in religions yeah i think it's interesting that like it has this quite dark appearance but ancestor worship is in every country in the world like communing with your dead is super common. So I don't think that's... Like, I've seen it described as, like, necromantic

and, like, all of that sort of stuff. It makes it sound worse than it is, I think. There are religions that practice this, or, you know, not even religions, like, cultures that practice this even further than that. So I wouldn't say this is particularly dark. Like, there's tribes in Indonesia that still do things like they will dig up their ancestors' remains and redress them and reclothe them and rebury them, which is fascinating.

And there's also, we were talking about it at work the other day where somebody said there's even a tribe somewhere that used to eat the flesh of the dead even after they had been buried. Yeah, I think I've heard about that. And then the problem was then there were huge outbreaks of like essentially mad cow disease because you're eating diseased putrefying human remains so don't eat grandma don't eat anyone whenever it's anything like this portrayed in a film it's always like really terrifying and people do call it voodoo they call all of it voodoo and it's

not that just that's just a word that the west has picked for like something they don't really understand and looks a bit scary and involves like a chicken like it doesn't not necessarily words but there are similarities between palamayambe and haitian verdun so like for example the origin of the word zombie and why we have this idea of zombies in our culture actually comes from a Haitian Verdun ceremony where they draw a pattern in the sand and that calls forth a particular god so each god has their own pattern so you can choose which one you pick and then that god will possess a person at the ceremony and that's where the idea of zombies come from and in Palo Mayombe you can draw a signature on the ground

next to your ninganga, next to your cauldron, and call forth a particular god or spirit that you would like to commune with. So there are similarities, and I can't, like, we can't sum up four entire religions in the podcast. But I think I might do a Minnesota on Haitian verdun because it was quite heavily featured in my dissertation and it nearly sent me over the edge so I might as well just milk it

I think so look out for that so as I said Santeria features African gods as Roman Catholic saints and uses a lot of Catholic iconography so I understand why people are afraid of it and see it kind of as a bastardization because like if you're a Catholic person and you see Catholic iconography that you recognize being used to do something you don't associate with, it's going to ruffle some feathers. Like people don't like what they don't understand, especially when they half recognize parts of it, like it's too close for comfort. And that's why people are so scared of it i think you know more and more of this information starts to come out as seraphim hernandez and his associates explained that el padrino would send them out to find people to sacrifice to the naganga if he wanted to make the naganga strong he would send them out to find a strong man for example so el padrino would kill him slice off his, and pour his blood into the Naganga to give it strength.

El Padrino wanted to give his Naganga, however, youth, so he sent Elio Hernandez out to find a young child. He came back with a young boy, but because the boy was crying, El Padrino said that he would not use the blood because it would make the Naganga sad. But they killed the boy anyway, and they just went out to find another one. This level of brutality is what's just so unbelievable. They're like, we don't even need this boy, so it's not like they even feel like they're worshipping him or using him in some productive way. They're like, no, I don't want to use him, he's crying, but kill him anyway. Now, El Padrino wanted to make the Nganga more intelligent, so he sent his followers out to go down to the main

strip of Matamoros, where he knew that students would be hanging out, to bring him back a medical student. This is where they found Mark Kilroy, and it was his choice of degree that singled him out, and it was his brain that was in the Naganga when it was seized by the police. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. I'm going to tell you who the fuck this El Padrino character is. His name was Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, and he was born in Miami in 1962. He was the son of a 15-year-old Cuban immigrant called Delia Gonzalez de Valles,

who was regularly arrested for multiple crimes, ranging from petty to cruel, including shoplifting, check fraud, grand theft, and even child neglect. She always escaped charges without probation. She barely got a slap on the wrist, really. And she credited Paolo Maiombe. She felt that her practice was protecting her from the authorities. She would enlist the help of her children, often using them as lookouts and thieves. At six months old, Delia had her son, Adolfo, blessed by a Haitian Paulo Meombe priest, who claimed that he would be destined for great power, and even said that he was the chosen one. So, since he's a baby, before he can talk, he's surrounded by this idea.

He's surrounded by Paulo Meombe, and also that he's special. And while Constanzo was still a boy, his mother moved them both to Puerto Rico, where just aged 10, Constanzo was an apprentice to a Palo Mayombe priest. It's unclear exactly how long they stayed in Puerto Rico for, but Adolfo Constanzo was back in Miami just in time to fail his high school diploma. And I can just imagine, like, if you think you're the messiah, you think you're the dark messiah of Palo Mayombe, like, you're not going to do chemistry, are you?

I don't think that chemistry was needed for the Noganga potions that he was making. And, you know, I think it falls pretty low on your list of priorities. He was also gay. And in a Rolling Stone article I read, they described him as a known homosexual which like i know it's 1989 but i really thought that the rolling stone would be a little bit more woke

but absolutely it not it was known it makes him sound like a sex offender so he was a known homosexual hanging around in mexico city like what a weird disappointed rolling stone that's what i was saying in 1983 he moved to mexico city and recruited his first two disciples one of whom martin rodriguez would become his long-term partner he read fortunes told wealthy drug dealers the best times to transport their goods over the border and freed them from curses aside from drug hotels his clients also included government officials police officers doctors movie stars and and even Interpol. Interpol. We're using these guys.

They take it very seriously in Mexico, man. Jesus. But that just shows you, like, that's how ingrained it is. Everyone's at it. And how high profile it was. How high profile it was as well. Now, Constanza was racking up a huge list of wealthy and important people whose spells protected them from the police, bullets, and their enemies. His ceremonies became more and more extravagant. This was like the need to put on more and more of a show. You've got to kick it up a notch. You can't just sacrifice a

chicken every time a government official comes over. Part of all of this is definitely being a showman, for sure. And this is when Constanzo started using human remains in his blood sacrifices. Constanzo was famous and he was raking it in. This gained him the devotion of his followers. He was even described by Anthony Zalaveta, a professor of anthropology and sociology at Texas Southmost, as the Pied Piper of death. Isn't that just the best name you've ever heard?

If I was going to be a cult leader, then yes, that would be the best name ever. Now, Elio Hernandez introduced the Hernandez gang to Constanzo. They were just small-time smugglers at the time, but about to hit the big leagues, and they needed protection. Elio asked Constanzo to be their high priest for the Hernandez's. They needed help. El Duby, one of their foot soldiers was wanted by the authorities in 1988 for a shootout elio asked constanzo to be the high priest for the hernandez's in exchange for a percentage of their profits constanzo agreed and promised them untold riches invincibility and that they would become bulletproof like he was making so much money in

mexico city like the offer from the hernandez's must have been massive for him to leave Mexico City and set up permanently in Matamoros which is like a border it's not Mexico City you know like it must have been an enormous offer there must have been something really great in it for him there's a particularly horrible story one of the graves was occupied by a young boy who's thought to be about 14 years old. And what had happened was, this is an example of just, like, the lengths these people are going to because of this man. Elio Hernandez had been instructed by Constanzo to find a boy for the Nganga, and he obliged. Constanzo ordered the followers to take the first boy that they saw, and they spotted this kid looking for a lost goat on the road near Rancho Santa Elena. They grabbed him quickly and put a bag over his head.

They carried him back to the ranch, where Elio decapitated him without looking at his face. The body was identified by his family to be Jose Luis Garcia. He had lived on the farm two miles up the road from Rancho Santa Elena and he was Elia Hernandez's nephew. He could only be identified by the grey and green football top he was wearing and the Garcia family had been searching for their son for three weeks and had not managed to gain the attention from the media and they gave like a really heartbreaking statement to the press when their son was found in his shallow grave. His mum says if it weren't for the kilroy boy none of the other men including my son would have been found and like that's you see this throughout the whole case it's so typical like

a white man with rich parents goes missing and suddenly the world gives a shit and it has been really apparent in the research for this case because the only evidence that i could find really for what happened to any of those 23 victims was the account of what happened to mark kilroy and i'm sure the other victims names were known and maybe they were even noted down to the police but i couldn't find a single article that lists all of the names of the bodies that was found the only cause of death and name that we know for sure is jose luis garcia and mark kilroy and i just think that's pretty fucking fucked there are 21 other people part of this a name that we know for sure is Jose Luis Garcia and Mark Kilroy. And I just think that's pretty fucking fucked. There are 21 other people part of this whole thing.

And this got so much press. This was all over the world. And not a single article lists the name of the other people. They only care about Mark Kilroy. It's ridiculous. And this is why when we talk about the less dead, we don't even have to go down the extreme of being like, oh, this person was a sex worker living on the fringes of society.

And that's why no one cared about them. And they didn't have a family who loved them. All of these children that they killed, all of these people that they killed as part of this cult, I'm sure did have a family that loved them. Sure, they weren't missing from homes. The reason they didn't care is because they weren't rich and they weren't white. And make no bones about it like that's the truth of the matter even there's like i can't remember what documentary it was maybe it was a madeline mccann documentary i was watching and this journalist said straight out the reason everybody

flocked to that case is because she was pretty she was white and her family were rich same with jean-benet ramsey why is it that those names just roll off our tongue? And that person said, if the person that goes missing is a child, if the person that goes missing is white, and if the person that goes missing is a girl, that's front page news. Everyone else is collateral damage.

It's fodder. It's whatever. And you're right, it's fucked up. Also, getting a list of all of those in the cult seems to be totally impossible to do. We have Serafin and Elio Hernandez, Sergio Martinez, David Serna Valdez, Sara Alderte. There is no record of other people. But I find it hard to believe that there were just five of them.

It's a massive fucking drug cartel moving hundreds of thousands of pounds of weed over the border into the US. And they do it with just a five-man operation. I don't know. And I kind of got the impression that these young men in there, and Sarah was in her early 20s as well, they're not the big guns. No, and they don't have the experience or the know-how to pull this off. There's not five people doing this.

But Sarah Elderte, by all accounts, was more powerful than any of the others within the cult. Sometimes they even referred to her as La Madrina or the Godmother. Now, remember what we said about Mexican students living totally different lives on either side of the border? This was it. At the University of Texas, Sara Elderte was an honor student. She was on the volleyball team. Everyone liked her. But the second she crossed the Rio Grande, she became a totally different person. She was a witch. Quote, unquote, witch. Whatever.

She had been a loyal follower of Constanzo since he began practicing Paulo Mayambe in Mexico City. And by some accounts, she was the one to introduce him to the Hernandez gang. At several junctures in their interrogation, the suspects made references to the 1987 horror film The Believers, starring Martin Sheen, stating that Sara Alderte had organised viewings of this film and they had all watched it several times. The reference to this film caused people to refer to the members of the murderous cult as The Believers, although I couldn't find any instance of them referring to themselves in this way yeah so for my sins i watched that film oh i love horror films i think they are the best

reflection of society you could possibly have because it's what people are afraid of encapsulated and this film follows martin sheen and he gets tangled up with this sort of santeria affiliated brujeria cult that practice sacrificing young children in new york city to gain political and financial power it is not a good film but i did see a really interesting theory that constanzo used the film the believers to whip up excitement in his followers in the same way that Manson used the Beatles helter skelter and I thought that was really interesting and in a search of Alderty's bedroom at her parents house revealed an altar in her bedroom displaying black candles beaded necklaces cigars and a blood spattered wall andah like she was instrumental in tempting the prey on the calle

like she she's a like she's a woman like of course she's it's going to be easier for her to lure in whoever they need and the day after the graves were discovered audete did not show up to school she simply called to say that she wouldilated bodies is a pretty fucking large personal problem. It's going to take more than a day. And it's not unusual for Mexican students to leave their social lives on the other side of the border. Roberto Cortino was one of Alderte's professors. The bicultural nature of Matamoros and Brownsville would have made this double life pretty easy to pull off. Once the murders in Matamoros and Alderte's involvement in them came to light,

her peers at Texas Southmost began to remember some odd things about her that they had just shrugged off before. For example, she had a nice car and a nice phone, even though her family were not well off. She wore black all the time. And most interestingly, she insisted on organizing a screening of the believers, after which she jumped up and began preaching the benefits of the occult. But everyone had been drinking and the other students had just thought that she was trying to freak them out. It never occurred to them that she was being serious. And as I'm sure you can imagine, parents in Texas were absolutely fucking hysterical when the news of the Matamoros murders broke out. Many even pulled their children out of school. There were overflowing town meetings all over. People were desperate to solve the issue of drugs,

death, and the devil south of the border. A flurry of false rumors were even started that Satanists were planning to kidnap children in revenge of the Matamoros murders, and confusing Satanism with Paulo Mayambe or Santeria or Voodoo is all too easily done. Nazara fled Matamoros for Mexico City before the police could get to her. The police still had no idea where Constanzo was, though. Comandante Alaia consulted his own Santeria priest who suggested that if they wanted to find Constanzo they would have to hit him where it hurts and burn the Nanganga. So Ayala along with a TV crew returned to Santa Elena and burned the hut and the Nanganga to the ground leaving 23 crosses in the ashes and later that same day like i just i love

this idea of a santa ria priest has been called in by the police and he said okay if you want to get him this is how you get him and then the same day within hours it all happens like don't give me the face. So, later that same day, at midnight, Gabito gets a phone call. They had found Adolfo Constanzo. He was in an apartment in Mexico City with his boyfriend, Martin Rodriguez, Sara Alderte, and El Duby, who's our...

He was our foot soldier who was in trouble and clearly had become a fan. So Constanzo had seen his Nganga being burned on the news and went absolutely mental. He totally, totally lost it. He started to burn money on the stove of this apartment and throw coins out of the window. And that is what gave the game away. Again, we've got two versions of what happened next. Number one, Constanzo ordered his boyfriend Rodriguez to shoot him and then shoot himself moments before the Federales

storm this apartment. The Federales allege that they found the couple riddled with bullets in a small cupboard. Doesn't really scream murder-suicide, does it? And like also this is this is ridiculous their federales say that the faces of the two bodies in the mexico city apartment had so many bullet wounds in their faces apparently they could not be identified i'm really not sure how like reliable that source is and it feels like a bit more of like a legend surrounding it like oh well they couldn't identify the body so he could still be out there he still could be alive they don't know it was him they couldn't identify the body but the crime scene photo exists i've seen it they look pretty easily identifiable to me like they make it sound like it's you know just a wholeer of faces and that's not the case at all. Like you can clearly see who it is.

So El Duby and El Derte are also present at this time. In this account, Costanzo ordered El Duby to kill him and Martine or that he would be punished in hell. So El Duby stood on a stool and emptied his machine gun into the closet door, killing Costanzo and Martine. And that, to me me seems like the most likely scenario I really really really do not buy the murder suicide thing so El Duby and Alcara Alderte were arrested and imprisoned. Mexican police also claim that in Mexico City they found over 40 more

victims that they connected to Adolfo Constanzo. And that was that. Constanzo was dead in the apartment. Felice found a book with all the names of the most important people he had worked his magic for. He had to die. Otherwise, he might have talked. I think this is why quite a lot of the details of this case are really fuzzy. Constanzo was involved with so many high-profile people.

That's why it all went quiet after they were like, oh, well, he's dead now. You know, no need to investigate this any further. Yeah. But what amazes me more than that, though, is the young people like Serafin Hernandez and Sara Alderte, just how they were taken in by Constanzo. So with Serafin Hernandez, Constanzo had done his job so well that he had this kid convinced that he could do anything because of his belief the whole organization was brought down i think that is so interesting like he just went and confessed everything because he thought nothing was going to happen to them it's so ironic he did his job so well in brainwashing seraphine hernandez into thinking that nothing could ever touch them

nothing could ever hurt them they would get away with it always that led him to go like just casually tell the police everything that happened and of course that's what brought them down the question is did they really believe or did they want the glamour i mean if you don't believe though are you going to be sacrificing humans well it's where do you draw the line like i can see like if you want the money and like to be respected you know people do awful things for money and power these are intelligent kids as well from like good families like well i suppose it's all about your mental state isn't it oh absolutely some people are much more susceptible to this than others and people who go after people

to be in cults etc they know how to profile who is going to be a good victim and who's going to be compliant and who is susceptible to this kind of thing what happens after this the aftermath is all very tragic mark kilroy's parents started an anti-drugs foundation in the wake of their son's death his father james kilroy started stated in a press conference mark never had any involvement in narcotics. He was afraid of narcotics, but it was the narcotics that killed him. When people sit there and tell you a marijuana cigarette doesn't hurt you, they're wrong.

Marijuana is what killed Mark. These guys are marijuana smugglers. So let's have a think about this. Firstly, I always find it really, I know this is tragic, but I always find it really hilarious when people say marijuana cigarette. It's funny. It's just a joint. A marijuana cigarette. What is that? I guess I know what he means. And anyone but what I do understand is that illegal drug smuggling is an enormous problem it's the number one source of crime in Mexico it's a problem and I think that that's what he means rather than like marijuana is the problem it's it's the smuggling of it like if there was no

smuggling cartel my son would still be alive absolutely he's not saying that his son died from an overdose of marijuana cigarettes he's saying you know that marijuana as a product and what these people are willing to do for it is what killed my son and you know i'm sure people have different views on this but absolutely fucking hell just legalize marijuana you'll kill the cartels i don't fucking legalize everything man then you can regulate it that's what i think you can control it maybe not like fucking meth or crack people will do it anyway it's better that it's regulated i don't know i i wouldn't agree with it on like things like that like meth crack amphetamine stuff like that but i think marijuana but you

can get amphetamines as a way i don't know if i buy the case for legalizing like meth i think yes with marijuana but no i probably draw a line on them legalizing meth also i came across because i feel like we have been quite careful about like delicately talking about palomar on me as like not necessarily a dark religion and it being it's like the misguided views of one select group that have caused this tragedy and also like fucking show me one religion that doesn't have some sort of atrocity connected to it show me one it doesn't exist but what was really interesting was i came across like a reddit ask me anything situation from a palo mayombe priest and one redditor brought up

adolfo constanza and asked this priest whether he thought that adolfo constanza was a true representation of paolo mayombe and this paolo mayombe priest came back with you know he was a serial killer and he used paolo mayombe because it was familiar and if he was a christian he would have been crucifying or stoning people which initially I thought was quite a good point but now I think it's bollocks yeah I don't buy this I don't buy this argument as soon as a crime is committed and that person says I am this religion and this is why I'm doing it we're very quick to be like oh no no no no no that person isn't anything to do with us but they self-identify as part of your religion and they have identified something

in the teachings of that religion that has led them down this path. This is a problem. You have scriptures, you have writings from thousands of thousands of years ago that are open to interpretation. I was actually watching the big questions today on the BBC, which is a great show.

I fucking love it. In which they were talking about, has the west misunderstood buddhism and sang suki is busy committing genocide or at the very least endorsing genocide against the rohingya muslims oh my god go read everything you can find about it because it is an atrocity and the world is looking the other way we're doing absolutely nothing about it because Myanmar is such a vital part of the world to control China etc etc and no one is doing anything she won the fucking Nobel Peace Prize and is now you know part of this genocide this Buddhist monk in this question to say she isn't a Buddhist she calls herself a Buddhist and they're saying no

but she grew up in England she didn't live in Myanmar so she's not really a Buddhist a And they're saying, no, but she grew up in England. She didn't live in Myanmar. So she's not really a Buddhist, a Burmese Buddhist. No. Yes, she is. And that's why she's doing it. This is what religion does in many ways, in many places, is that it is the haves and the have-nots. She believes so fervently in her Buddhism and she believes so fervently in their rights elevated above those of a minority like the Rohingya Muslims that live there, that word for word, what the generals say there in this coup genocide they're delivering is that to kill a Rohingya Muslim isn't such a sin because they are half a person. And this is what religion does. It makes the ins and the haves and it makes the outs and the have not. And then it becomes very easy whatever religion you are to do whatever you want so yes in the west especially we grossly

misunderstand other religions and what they really mean and what they can really do some of these just have very good pr departments yeah and i think like it's the sacrifice thing with panama that people don't like but if you're a catholic you're very fine with literally eating the body of jesus christ that's normalized for you what it's not that much of a far cry from killing a chicken being normalized do i mean but what is interesting so this priest in this ama said that you know there's absolutely no human sacrifice in palo mayombe and they only sacrifice animals but i did come across a few websites that claimed to be i am on so many fucking lists because of this podcast i swear to god i'm gonna get if i

ever try and go to the united states again they are gonna stop me at interpol anyway i did come across a few websites that claim to be selling legitimate human bones these are Palo Mayombe websites. And one of them was even selling the skull of a human baby for $2,000. So I don't know how much I buy that there's no human sacrifice in Palo Mayombe anymore. I don't know. I would agree with that. That's our Mexican... That's an interesting case. Killer cult. This is an interesting case. And obviously, I'm sure you guys won't agree with everything that we've said. But we know that you guys are smart anyone listening to this podcast you guys know what you're doing you you're intelligent people talk to us about it like i know so little about santeria and stuff like that like and if you know tell me i love it i'm

fascinated oh my god absolutely and if you have beliefs if you're a certain way please tell us because like genuinely, we're not closed minded. We're not narrow minded. We want to hear from you. We want to hear what your thoughts are, because it's only through that kind of diversity of thought and experience. Can we have a really good understanding of what people's belief systems are? I can only come at it from my point and Hannah can only come at it from her past and her

point. So let us know what you think and let us know what's going on. We'd love to know. And thank you for our new patreon supporters we have tiffany athens liddy laurie claire morrison petra clinbeal which is my favorite name in the world ever portia mcdougall also love that name jen paradiso and carrie boy who went from a one dollar to a five dollar thank you very much carrie thank you and some very quick five star review thank yous we've got Nicola G85 who says she's a lover of true crime and red-handed are offering something completely different not typical and extremely well researched oh thank you Nicola and I love this one we've got Mark Rafferty and I've looked

up how to say it so I think I'm gonna say it right this time Mark Rafferty and I've looked up how to say it so I think I'm going to say it right this time. Mark Rafferty says, Todd Murdens. I don't think that's it. I think that's right. I think that's right. Somebody tweeted us. They were like,

for God's sake, it's to mudden or something. To mudden? Anyway, whatever. That town that we can never pronounce. Favourite podcast. Mark Rafferty says, it's an excellent podcast

and hopes that we do a harold shipman episode old stop to death because he used to work in timid he's quite boring he's even the police when they were investigating it he he's probably got the highest body count of like a western serial killer but even the police when they were investigating it said it was he's one of the most boring serial killers ever i get it i get they're like local love but maybe he's a minnesota i don't think i can talk for an hour about harold shipman even his face is so boring we also have a review from michelle who says love love love the podcast girls are great fun yet interesting and well researched

and our social media moment of the week this was really touching actually lovely carlo who's a member of our facebook group posted and said you know i don't use itunes where can i review you and obviously there are a lot of you out there who don't use um the apple podcast app which is completely understandable so like car Carlo if you don't use iTunes if you could post about us in any of the Facebook podcast groups that would be incredible that's what Carlo's done and it really does help us so much so if you felt that way inclined that would be greatly appreciated absolutely and we'd never even thought about it like Hannah said but yes I think Carlo posted very kindly in true crime podcast group or there is also podcast we listen to group both those groups you should join anyway

and if you want to check us a review in there we'd very much appreciate it and we will see you we'll see you next week bye They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing.

From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part,

Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.