True Crime All The Time - Adolpho Constanzo & Sara Aldrete

Episode Date: September 18, 2017

We're headed down to Mexico by way of South Padre Island Texas for this episode of True Crime All The Time. Adolpho Constanzo and Sara Aldrete would make an unlikely pair. Aldrete had gone to college in the United States but called Matamoros Mexico home. She would meet the slick talking Contstanzo and her life would never be the same.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the facts of this mysterious couple. When a college student on spring break goes missing, Police from both Mexico and the US are involved in finding him. But what they discover is that Constanzo is the leader of a cult and that he has been involved in selling religious potions that require human sacrifice.You can support the show by going to patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact and merchandise information. New merchandise with the new logo is on its way!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Everyone and welcome to episode 45 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibby Gibson. Gibbs, what's going on today? Man, I'm feeling good. Man, you're always feeling something. Man. Love it when you're feeling something. It's good day in the neighborhood.

All right. So let's go ahead and do our Patreon shoutouts. We have Kathy Christelli. Christelli. I like that. Annalisa, no last name. You know, with a name like that, you can pull that off. You don't need one.

You don't need one. Drea, Ronnell. These are good names. No, some really cool names. That's the one that I'm worried that I'm butchering the most. But hopefully she'll reach out to me. I like it when people do. They either say, hey, you did a great job or, man, you royally jacked that one up.

And you should have let Gibby do it. Yeah, that's always their answer. Yeah. Frankie Stevenson, Tim Davidson, Kirsten Chan, Caitlin Tull, and Renee Williams. Like them all. Love it. We love new supporters. And going back into the vault, Gibbs, or getting you back in your cell, however you want to look at it.

My ass cheeks tightened up a little bit. I picture them wheeling you into the cell with the Silence of the Lamb's face piece. You know, if you're going to go to prison, that's the way to make your entrance because you know what? Nobody's going to mess with you. Nobody's going to mess with a guy that's strapped to a two-wheeler with a little face mask on. Trust me. Because there's a reason. There's a reason why you strap somebody up like that.

Yeah. It's a bad dude. So I know we got off on a rant there, but going back in the vault, we picked Megan Garrett. And Megan has been a huge supporter of the show from, you know, know, early, early on. So big shout out to Megan. Big shout out to all of our new supporters. And a continued shout out to all the people that keep supporting us Gibbs, whether it's on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Yeah, I love it all, man. And I do appreciate Megan, aka Megan. So I don't know why you keep thinking her name is Megan. I'm just saying.

Watch it. It'll turn out. It probably will be. And then I want to give a huge shout out to Maggie. she did a lot of work on this one researching writing she's just been an amazing help to the show and we love Maggie so you know big ups to her the Q&A thing turned out well no I liked it I had a lot of fun doing it with you you know I think it was relaxed there wasn't a lot of editing I had to do we just kind of let it flow and you know see where see where it went now where it went turned out to be pretty funny when you started talking about clue because you literally had no clue. I was clueless. You were clueless about how the game of clue worked, who the characters were.

Somehow you got a movie from the 60s, the graduate involved in it, as Mrs. Robinson was a character somehow in the movie or in the game clue. Like you didn't find her sexy. I wasn't even born when the graduate came out. Stop talking about stuff that you watched in high school. You found it on NextFix that night and watched it. I know you did. And once again, it is not NextFix. It's the next flick.

It's NetFix. Netflix. Come on, Hulu. You said Netflix. Oh, let's go to Hulu. Maybe you should just change it to Hulu. It's much easier to say. Ruku.

Where's everything we have with Hulu and Loooooo? Ruku. It's not Ruku, it's Roku. Oh. Well. Just stick with the Hulu. It's two syllables, super easy. Cable TV. There you go.

And you said that in a really cool, like, announcer voice, too. Cable TV. So a little plug for True Crime All the Time Unsolved. After you're done listening to this episode, jump over, download that one. We've got a great episode on the murder of Michelle Lawless, 19-year-old girl. that was murdered back in 1992. And this is another one, Gibbs, where, you know, police find a suspect.

They latch onto this suspect and it leads them down a bad path. Yeah. It's a tragic but, you know, unbelievably interesting path that this case takes because you have DNA, you've got a set of identical twins. I mean, there's a lot going on in this case. Twist and turn. Twist and turns. But let's get into our case for true crime all the time. This episode, we're doing

Adolfo Constanzo and Sarah Aldredi. And we don't do a lot of women on true crime all the time. And why is that, Mike? Well, you and I both believe that women are smarter than men and those that kill are smart enough to get away with it. Exactly. That's what, that's what we've come to the conclusion. They're very good. at doing murder. Aren't you ladies? Very good at doing murder. No, I mean, I think percentage wise, there's no doubt, right? Women killers, much, much lower than men. So Sarah Aldredi was born September 6th, 1964 in Madame Morris, Mexico. So we're going south of the border. We are. Now, this is a case that's going to take us Mexico across the border into Texas.

and kind of flip-flop back and forth a little bit. But it is our first case in Mexico. She was born in Mexico, but she actually attended high school in the U.S., in Texas. But even while she was going to high school, she was actually still living in Mexico. She applied for and received alien status. You know, she got a green card, basically. So she could attend college at Texas Southern University. So that card was actually really green?

No, no, I've never seen one. I just wondered. Why else, what do I call it green card? Why else would they call it that? I was just curious if it's actually green. Somebody will tell us. Yeah. We like it.

Someone will post a picture of their green card. And they might want to post a picture as well. Put them side by side. Either way. Either way. So Sarah Aldredi, she was known as a good student when people would talk about her. But she was very tall. I mean, we're talking six, six one, Gibbs, very tall for a woman.

She was studying at Texas Southern University to become a gym teacher. She was also in the process of getting divorced. She had been married to this much older man and they were going through a divorce. So she's got a lot going on in her life. She's a busy gal. She is very busy. But then she's going to meet a new man by the name of Adolph, Constanzo, and this is going to change her life completely.

So we first have to talk about Constanzo. He was born November 1st, 1962 in Miami, Florida. His mother came from Cuba and she was only 15 years old when she had Adolfo. That's early. A little early. A little early. Now, when Adolfo was six months old, he was blessed by a priest. of Palo Mayambi.

Easy for you to say. It's really not. But we have to talk about this because it is going to come up in this case a lot. And Paulo is some type of religion kind of developed in Cuba, I think, but was handed down by slaves from Central Africa all the way down the line. And Miami is a branch of this. this Pollo religion. And it's a religion based on the idea of respect for spirits, belief in the power of the natural world.

It's been practiced for a very long time, but it has this negative reputation because it's kind of been associated with types of dark magic. But it's really not the case. That's not how it started out. Now, the problem is Adolfo Castanza. is going to use this Palo Mayambi mixed with Santaria, and he's going to basically taint everything for anybody that practices this around the world. So I think probably more people have heard of Santaria than they have heard of Palo Mayambi or Paulo.

You know, Santaria is a means worship of saints in Spanish, derives its roots from the Caribbean, West Africa. And some of the customs associated with Santa Ria include communicating with the spirits of ancestors and gods. Now, there is some animal sacrifice.

It has priests and priestesses to carry out its rituals and ceremonies. It's like that ceremony and Conan the Barbarian with Arnold. Arnold. Shorsenegger.

What was his name? Shorcieneg. Naga. Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's, yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. It just sounded a little like you were leaning. It was leaning on its side a little bit. Arnold Schwarzenegger. So getting back to this blessing that was placed upon Adolfo when he was six months old. This was a ritual where human bones were boiled down into a liquid to be consumed. I mean, this is, you know, kind of some of the stuff that we're getting into here. It's like bone broth from, but not from cows. Yeah. No, I mean, that's basically what it was. But what they thought was that it was, it was a, it's almost like a

spell or it was a way that was going to help whoever drank it gain wealth and power. and his mother believed that he was a chosen person. He was destined for great things. So this was her way of kind of helping that along in her mind because this is what she believed in. Got to believe to achieve. That's what I hear. So Adolfo's mother was married a couple of times.

They moved to San Juan at one point, San Juan, Puerto Rico. and at a certain point they moved back to the U.S., she marries again, and this time she ends up marrying a man that has ties to a local drug trade and to the occult. And as a teenager, Constanzo made friends with Apollo Maambi priest who taught him not only how to deal drugs and be a con artist, but taught him how to. parlay this stuff gives into a career where he could profit from these illegal activities. This was a priest. Allegedly, I guess.

Okay. A priest of this, this religion, Palo Mayambi. Mm-hmm. Said, hey, let me help you fraud people. Well, to be fair, priests of all religions, you know. Well, that's true. You know, kind of veer off. Yeah, you could find.

Exactly. there's always a bad apple bad apple in every bundle priest bunch uh yeah a brush list what she said i said a bad apple in every bunch but it's not bad apple in every bushel thank you all right give me stead it straight just set it straight he got the podcast back on track we're ready to go we're ready to go so at this point constanzo's going down a bad path you know he's into the drug trade I guess he robbed graves. What are you robbing at graves, by the way? Well, and this goes back to this Haitian priest

because as part of this Palo Mayambi, like we talked about, they're making these spells and these potions. And a lot of what they need to make these are bones. So he's digging up people to be used in these spells that are supposed to, you know, whatever, give people more money, give them more power, give them better luck, whatever you want to, whatever that spell is that that person wants. And in 1983, Constanzo moves to Mexico City where he starts to build his own type of cult.

He's got a cult of personality. It's not quite that, not as festive as that. This is not going to be anywhere near that. and he starts recruiting people for this. Now, the one thing about Adolfo Constanzo is that he was homosexual and maybe he was bisexual because in a lot of the research, he had relationships with both men and women. That would be bisexual. Yeah.

Now, I know what bisexual means. I don't know. It sounds like you did it first. I think for the most part, he was homosexual. But technically, I think he was bisexual because he did have relationships with both men and women. Damn it. So Constanzo is working up this empire, this cult, whatever you want to call it. He's starting to be his own type of priest. He's making the spells. And his clients in Mexico, you know, they included drug dealers, hit men, politicians, police officers, all kinds of people that thought that

these types of spells would be good for them. You know, would help them in their drug trade, would help them defeat a rival. Whatever it was, they believed in these type of spells. But some of these spells, you know, I mentioned that some of them used human bones. Some of them used very specific animal bones. And we're talking about like zebras and lions, things that you just don't, you know, very expensive to get a zebra or a lion. Something you can't find at the local pet store. No. I mean, you've got to somehow, you know, get somebody to get that for you and ship it to Mexico.

So because of that, one of these spells Gibbs would cost thousands and thousands of dollars. So this guy is making a fortune not only off of peddling drugs because he did that, but he's making a ton of money just off of his clientele. that wants these spells. In 1986, Constanzo gets connected to the Calzada family. And this is one of the biggest, the most dominant drug cartels in Mexico at the time. And just having this connection made him even more money. Because now he's got a whole bunch of other clientele wanting these spells.

And at some point, as the family continues to grow, he starts to think that, he's the reason for all their success. And he's telling them this. And because of this, he says he wants to be made a full partner in the drug cartel. Well, they laugh at him. And they said, no, no, we're not going for that. Well, Adolfo Costanzo was not happy. So on April 30th, 1987, right, he's been associated with this drug cartel for about a year. Seven members of the Caldaza family, they just disappear. They were. They were reported missing a day later and it was noted that there was melted candles, there was some, there was all kinds of signs of like some type of weird ceremony at the house that everyone

had vanished from. They all vanished from the same house. Getting a little spooky, man. Scared you? Not me, but yeah. Now six more days would pass before police started recovering pieces of these bodies from a nearby river. And eventually they do recover seven bodies.

Now, some were in bits and pieces, but they figured out that they recovered seven bodies. All these bodies had been horribly tortured. The toes, the ears, the fingers were all missing. The hearts and genitals were mutilated. Whoa. This guy was not playing around. No. This is not somebody that you wanted to cross.

Two of the bodies were missing their spines. That's... That takes a lot of effort to remove a spine. I would think. I don't know that for a fact. You'd have to have some good tools. But I'm making an assumption

that that's not the easiest thing to do. Right. And two of the bodies were completely missing the brains. Now, it's probably not too hard, Gibbs, to figure out what happened to all these missing body parts. Costanzo used them

in his cauldron to make his spells. Getting back to Aldredi, you know, she's living at home with her parents at this point. She'd gone through this divorce. And on July 30th, 1987, she's driving through Matamoros. She's cut off in traffic by a Mercedes and she narrowly avoids getting in this serious car crash. The driver gets out. He's a handsome guy.

He's a smooth talker. And this turns out to be Adolfo Constant. And from the very beginning, they have a spark. You know, they get along great. But it turned out Gibbs that this was no chance encounter. Constanzo had been watching this drug dealer that Aldredi was dating. So this was all carefully planned. And he was able to seduce Sarah Aldredi, quickly introduced her to some of the occult practices

that, you know, he was into. and this would later become a big, big part of their relationship. He was able to break up Aldredi and her drug dealer boyfriend. So the two end up sleeping together, but this is not going to last long because, like I said, Constanzo preferred men, he told this to Aldredi, she was okay with it. And she accepted it and still wanted to be with him because by this point, she had become fascinated with the occult. All these different things that he had shown her, she was in.

Fascination. It was something you never done before and you start learning about it. I'm sure there was just some type of fascination there for her. Well, to the point that he actually called her La Madrina, which is like the godmother of this cult that he's starting. But everything with Constanzo was an angle because the other thing that, you know, he really wanted Aldredi because she did have some connections to this drug cartel run by the Hernandez family and they were having problems.

So he steps up to say that he can fix all their problems using Paulo Maambi. We're talking about animal and human sacrifices, which is going to eliminate all their enemies and keep everyone in their drug cartel safe. And Gibbs, all these people believed it because members would come out later and say that Constanzo had told them that he had a spell that would make them invisible to police and bulletproof as well. And they believed this. I mean, they literally thought the police could not see them as they drove down the street

in their car. I don't know what the hell they did they think the car was in. invisible too or just them inside the car. Like a cloak of a cloak of invisibility? You going Harry Potter on me? A little HP. A little HP. Now, he didn't want much.

He just wanted 50% of the profits. Just half. Of the cartel. Just let me have half. That's kind of a small price, really, if you think about it, to be bulletproof. And invisible. And invisible. At that point, you can take your whole game to another level, man.

So you got that going for you. I mean, you can come across the border left and right. one's ever going to see you. Right. Bring those drugs in and out. So this guy is just making a boatload of money from doing these spells. He's ramping up this cult. He's gaining members. And he moves the cult to a location about 20 miles outside of Matamoros. This whole time Gibbs, he's killing a bunch of people because he has to have human bones for these sacrifices to put in his cauldron. And when I say, Caldron, I mean Caldron. He literally is putting bones and things into this big metal pot and cooking them for these spells. Again, back to Conan the Barbarian and cooking bodies in

that big old pot. Maybe that's where you got it from. Right before the orgy scene. Boy, he just couldn't go an episode without throwing that in, could you? So that's the point I'm trying to get across here, that he is killing people to make these spells. he's making a lot of money off of it, but nothing is ever enough for this type of guy. And Gibbs, it's hard to over exaggerate how sick Constanzo was. He had all these different spells. I've talked about that. And each spell required different things to make the spell work, according to him.

And there was one spell that he was making specifically for someone who was paying big bucks for it. and the spell required a child. Very sick. And the story is that he had cult members go out, get a child off the street. As they were killing this child, the child started to scream. They were basically trying to slit this child's throat. And Constanzo said, that was no good. It would ruin the spell to have the child die in that.

that way while it was crying while it was screaming. So they killed the child and then went out and got another one. Really don't want to know what to say, man. I mean, they wanted a child for this thing. They get a child. They're not happy with what they did. So they just tossed it aside and went and got another one. Yeah. No, that's basically what happened. Tost it like trash. Disturbing. But this is how dark. This is how bad this guy was. Yeah. And in March of 1989, Constanzo steals 800 kilos of weed. It seems like a lot. Yeah, what's that pounds?

I don't know. You can't do that conversion? It's like a thousand pounds. I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. But he steals it from a rival gang and he wants a spell to make sure that all of this marijuana gets where it needs to get to,

safely, without anybody interfering. Invisible. This spell, Constan, Bonzo says is going to require a sacrifice of somebody with very high intelligence. So his idea is to send some cult members into Matamoros. It's spring break. There's all these college kids pouring into Madameau, Mexico. He wants them to get a college kid.

He thinks, okay, they're going to be smart. That's going to make my spell work. And one of the kids in Madame Morris on spring break during that time was Mark Kilroy. Mark Kilroy was born March 5th, 1968. He had just turned 21. His family moved to Texas from the Midwest after Mark was born, and he grew up in Santa Fe, Texas. This kid was an honor student, a Boy Scout. He played all kinds of sports. And he was very intelligent, Gibbs. He was ranked 14th out of 210th in his class. That's pretty good. But better than you and I. unless the remainder of ones were like you.

And he was really good at sports. You know, he started out at Southwest Texas University, transferred to a college called Tarlington State University on a basketball scholarship. That's pretty good. Yeah. I mean,

you've got to be pretty good to get a basketball scholarship. But he ended up giving it up. He transferred to the University of Texas to study pre-med. So again, gifted athlete. very intelligent. So Mark Kilroy and his friends had headed down to South Padre Island, Texas for spring break. So they're partying down there. But at the same time, Gibbs, they're parking at the border. And on some nights, they're walking over into Matamorris. They're partying in Mexico as well. Yeah. So, I mean, they're going to the beach and they're watching the

Miss Tanline Contest. I'm sure you did that when you went to spring break. It was probably Miss Copper Tan or Miss Copper Tone Copper Tone Copper Tane I've never heard of a Miss Tandline contest so I've seen some other types of contests

but not that one Talk about when you went to Tijuana No No I was a big Panama City guy For my spring breaks back in the day Yeah we know how you feel about beaches Yeah I don't like beaches

But you're right So they watched a couple of these Miss Tan Line contests on different days and on March 13th, they did catch one of these contests. And after that, this is when they decide to go to Madame Morris to party. So what they do, Mark and his friends, they park by the border, they cross the bridge into Mexico by foot. And Matta Morris at this time is full of college kids from the U.S. Right?

There's a bunch of people down their party in. It's spring break. You know, the drinks are cheap Gibbs, which I know you like. Like my cheap drinks. The drinking laws are pretty lax in Mexico. Like that too. Lacks drinking laws. When I was young.

So a bunch of college kids thinking that they're just going to have a great time in Madame Morris just part in the night away, they hit a bunch of different bars in the town. They meet some girls. At one point, Mark Kilroy disappears for a little bit with some girls that he has. had met, and it's about 2 a.m. when the guys are ready to go back to their hotel, they got across the bridge, they got to get back into the U.S. to get to their hotel. And as they're leaving the last bar, they see Mark leaning up against a car talking to a girl from one of the tan line contest, Gibbs, that they had seen. There you go. I guarantee you, somebody that listens to us has been in some type of spring break contest.

I guarantee you they have. Now, will they admit it? Maybe. But 2 a.m. and Mattom Morris, you have to picture this gives. Streets are very crowded. Tons of U.S. college kids. Everybody's going in different directions. And the group, as they're walking across the border, they get separated because of how many

people are traveling by foot. At one point, Mark Kilroy, stops to say goodbye to this girl from the tan line contest that he's been talking to. And one of his buddies that he's walking with, he's got to take a leak. So he goes around the corner in this alley. And when his buddy comes back, Mark is nowhere to be found. And his friends all get together. They realize Mark's gone.

They're looking for him. They go back to the bars, even though they'd already closed. I mean, we're talking about 4.30 a.m. at this point. And eventually they have to cross the border, hoping that Mark crossed as well and is waiting for them by the car. But when they get to the car, Mark's not there. So I'm sure a lot of stuff was going through their head at this point. They don't know if Mark maybe went home with one of the girls, went to another hotel. I mean, not home, but went to another hotel with one of the girls he had met.

But the next day, Mark doesn't return. so his friends have to call the police reporting missing. And it's later going to come out what exactly happened to Mark that night. He was lured by a man parked in a red truck. I guess this man called out to him, asked him if he need a ride. When Mark got close to the truck, he was grabbed by two men and wrestled inside. At one point, Mark was able to break loose, get out of the truck and take off. but he was caught by another car part of this kidnapping and taken at gunpoint.

He was subdued, handcuffed, and put in the back of this second car. Eventually, Mark was taken to the Colts Ranch, kept in the car by himself overnight. Somebody comes out the next morning, gives him some bread, eggs, and water. And it's about 12 hours after he's kidnapped that Adolfo Consumption. Constanzo finally comes to see Mark Kilroy. He's sizing him up. Yeah, and I think this is where the alert goes off in this story, you know, that things are not going to. Yeah, if you're eating your sandwich, you might want to put it down. Things are not going to go well from this point forward. Yeah. For Mark Kilroy. That's, that's for sure. He's sizing him up, Gibbs. Constanzo is looking

Mark over to see whether or not he's a suitable candidate for this sacrifice. Remember, we talked about they wanted a college kid for whatever spell that Constanzo was concocting. He put duct tape over Mark's face and mouth, walked him through a field to a storage cabin on the ranch. And this is sandwich alert time because Mark Kilroy was killed with a machete by multiple blows to the back of his neck and his head. And this was done Gibbs so that they could get to his brain. Constanzo used the brain, boiled it in his cauldron to make his spell. They chopped off Mark's limbs so that it would be easier to bury his body. And they put a wire into his spinal cord so that they could pull it out and use it for other rituals.

This is where we talked about him using spinal cords. and how would you get that out? They used a wire. Yeah, so they put the wire in and let the body decompose for a little bit and they come back and and then they would have the, they would be able to pull it out. The search for Mark Kilroy started out as any normal missing person's investigation. I mean, no one could have thought Gibbs that this had anything to do with this crazy type cult shit. There's no way.

No, you would never dream this is the outcome. home. No, I mean, the most likely thing you would think of is college student gets drunk. He's somewhere sleeping it off. He's going to turn up. Yeah. You don't think he's been kidnapped by a cult and hacked to death so that his brain and bones and different things can be used. Can guarantee a shipment of marijuana for a spell. Yeah. I mean, that's, you couldn't make that stuff up. Because there's a lot of students that go missing or reported missing on spring break. But they show up, you know, a few days later. They've got a hangover.

Mark Kilroy was one of 60 people who vanished in that area during the first three months of the year. But Mark's case got a lot more attention because his uncle Ken worked at the United States Customs Service. Which is an advantage. Yeah, that's advantage. if you've got a loved one that is missing, you're going to be able to shine a spotlight, get a little bit more resources than other people. And he does, right? He throws together a task force.

And then you got the Mexican police or... Policia. Policea. They're putting together their own little task force. Basically, they're helping look for him as well on the other side. And the Mexican police, they're going around. They're checking with informants and... witnesses and anybody that could provide a tip, seeing anything that could help them figure out

what happened to Mark. Now, it was said that at some point, police from both countries suspect that his disappearance involved foul play. You know, because we're past the point of he hasn't returned from a drunken night. It's pretty easy for them to start wondering if it had anything to do with drug-related activities. Well, there is a lot of drugs down there. And there's a lot of drug-related crime on the border between Mexico and the United States.

Well, no doubt about it. You know, this is prime time for the cartels and things like that to use these college kids as mules, you know, to get things back and forth. Even in smaller quantities. I mean, they still get it over. That's all they care about, you know. And it makes sense. You know, you've got the task force. They're going to make sure that they're looking at the hospitals, which would make sense.

I mean, that's going to be your number one thing. hospitals and jails. Jails, yeah. Yeah, did he get arrested? Did he get hurt somehow? You'd have to check both of those, which they did. They tried to retrace his steps that night based on what his friends told them. So one of the things I did find interesting was it was said that they actually hire some type of hypnotist.

Hippinid. Or hypnotist. Or hypnotist. So they hire this hippatic. Oh, my. I knew it was coming. I just didn't know it, didn't you? You saw it.

You saw it my face. So anyway, they hire someone to do some hypnotic trance stuff. And he works on the friend. And the friend's able to go back and give some descriptions, actually, of what he saw that night. And actually some pretty good descriptions. really, if you think about it, I don't know how that works.

I mean, I know how it's supposed to work. I don't know if I believe that it actually works. Have you ever experienced any of that? No, I've never been hypnotized. No? I've never seen anybody be hypnotized. I do believe that there are people that can be hypnotized, though. I don't know if everybody can.

I don't know if everybody's susceptible to it. I guess if you can get yourself to that level of, or that state of, I don't know what you call that. You're not asleep, but sure. I don't think I could ever be relaxed enough. I'm too agitated at all times. Yeah, I don't think I could either. Never relaxed enough to think that I could be put in that state.

Maybe we can find somebody that does that at CrimeCon and try to see if they can do that to you. How about they do that to you? Yeah, I'd rather than do it. And we'll just see what all other skeletons come out. I'd rather than do it to you and like give a magic word, a phrase word that anytime somebody says it's like when we're doing the podcast, I can go nickel and then you start like clucking like a chicken. That would be hilarious. But you don't think I'd hear that when I edit the podcast?

Part of the process would be that we would say when you edit the podcast, you will not hear you cluck like a chicken. Oh my gosh, dude. What do you think? I'm down for it. All right. So anyway, they're able to get very vivid descriptions from this guy. Yeah.

So the friend says that he had seen a. young Hispanic man wearing a blue plaid shirt, had a scar across his face talking to Mark before he vanished. He goes on to say that he remembers this man walking up to Mark and asking him, hey, don't I know you from somewhere, but he wasn't sure if or how Mark Kilroy responded. the problem is none of Mark's friends could recall the exact moment and place where Mark had vanished. We mentioned it, right? They've been drinking. There's a lot of people.

It's a little chaotic. 4.30 at night. Yeah, you're not going to remember that kind of stuff. You get the general area. So I think at this point, the police are thinking we probably have a kidnapping, right? Because it happens over there. Yeah. For either robbery or random.

Yeah. Although at this point there's been no demand. Yeah. But that was pretty, I mean, I remember, you know, proof of life. I've seen it. Yeah. So because there'd been no demand, I think they're probably leaning more towards robbery. But the one thing gives is that as time goes on, they're starting to believe that something bad happened to Mark. And one of the things that they think is that if he was killed, his body would have been dumped in some remote location. So they do bring in helicopters. They bring in people on ATVs. I mean, they're searching the Rio Grande River area, but they don't find any evidence

of Mark. They don't find his body. They don't find anything. And by this point, I'm guessing the media attention is pretty high. It is. And his parents get down to Mexico. Again, this kind of reminds me of the Natalie Holloway case that we did. on unsolved a little bit, right?

She disappeared. The parents come down. You know, they've got handouts. They're offering a reward for any information related to helping them find their son Mark. Sure. They meet with government officials. Again, a lot of parallels. Yeah.

To the Natalie Holloway case that we did. It actually is. And this case was featured on America's Most Wanted back in the day. So John Walsh profiled it. and that gave it a lot of national attention. And there were some tips. I mean, there were calls with tips that came in. People sent letters giving clues as to where Mark's body was.

But none of this stuff panned out, right? None of these tips, none of these clues led to them finding Mark. After two weeks of searching, Mark's parents returned to Santa Fe. And the whole town of Santa Fe, Gibbs, is helping to raise. money. I mean, they're having garage sales, car washes. They're doing whatever they can do to raise money to allow Mark's parents to go back and find their son. Yeah, but unfortunately, I mean, time is moving on and they still haven't had any good leads or found Mark. But on April 1st, Mexican police were stationed at a checkpoint and they see a vehicle run through the checkpoint without

stopping. And there's no way that the police could know, but the man driving this vehicle was the man who had kidnapped Mark Kilroy weeks earlier. So the police decide to follow the vehicle in an unmarked police car. They're not using their sirens. They're not tipping this guy off at all that they're following him. Yeah, and they follow him all the way back up to the ranch. And at this point, police are staking out the ranch and it's just about a half hour later when the man leaves the ranch to drive into the city and this is when police decide to make their move on the ranch to see what's going on and it doesn't take them very long gibbs you know they start finding a lot of stuff related to the occult they find weed but the police don't arrest anybody at this point you know

they make the decision that they want to try to get more evidence of the criminal activities that they believe are going on at the ranch. Because at this point, they're starting to think about links with organized crime, cartels, and they want to get those people. Sure, to the point. I mean, they even reach out to a lot of their informants in the area to see how this ranch is tied into the cartel or, you know, any type of criminal activity. And it's not until April 9th that they return.

And they arrest the kidnapper, the man that had kidnapped Mark Kilroy. They don't know that's what he's done. No, not at this point. We know it is. Right. They arrest his uncle, some other cult members, and the caretaker of the ranch. They take everyone to jail except this caretaker. And they actually interrogate him at the ranch.

They're asking a bunch of questions about what goes. on there and he spills. You know, he tells the police that there's a lot of criminal activity going on, a bunch of sorted things, but it's not like he's saying this to be like, oh, help me. He's saying it very matter of factly, like he's not worried about getting anybody in trouble. It's almost like, they're not doing anything wrong. Yeah, he's like, oh yeah, there's a bunch of sorted stuff going on. This is how we make a sandwich. We take the bread out. Right. We put the cheese on. Put a little mustard. He's just doing it just like that.

He's not worried at all. Yeah. The police show the caretaker a photo of Mark Kilroy, and he confirms that he did see Mark and actually says to the police, you know, look over there. There's a shack. That's where Mark was held before he was murdered. The police interrogate the kidnapper. He ends up confessing to kidnapping Mark participating in the murder.

And he also tells police about a lot of other people that had been killed at the ranch and had been subsequently used as human sacrifices. And this guy points the finger directly at Adolfo Costanzo and Sarah Aldredi as the leaders of the cult. He tells police that Kilroy was chosen at random because he was a college student and Costanzo wanted a white male. college student for his sacrifice. It gives, we have to talk about why all of these people are so willing to talk openly with police. And it comes out that the reason they are is because they don't believe anything can happen to them because they're visible of the spells.

There's no way that they can get in trouble because Costanzo's spells are so powerful that they'll protect them. I mean, Gibbs, he even agreed to take police to the place where they buried Mark Kilroy's body. And when the police get there, they see the wire sticking straight out of the dirt. Yeah, remember they ran that wire up through his spinal cord. Yeah, I remember. I was part of the discussion. You were there?

I was there. Hanging out with me. And Gibbs, he goes in detail to the police about what this wire. was used for, right? I mean, you've just mentioned it, but actually tells them that it's attached to Mark Kilroy's spinal cord so that they could pull out the bones later after the body had decomposed. Weird, buddy. No, they're super creepy. I mean, it's beyond creepy. This is weird, buddy. I mean, there's also stories about the fact that they, they were wearing some of the bones in necklaces. I mean, These people are way out there.

I mean, I guess the good thing is on April 11th, police take the kidnapper and for other people that they arrested at the ranch, right? They take them back to the ranch, give them shovels, you know. I mean, of course, they're there under the police being armed. And the police are making sure that they're going to do what they want. And they tell them, hey, shows where all the bodies are, start digging them up. We're not going anywhere until you do this. I called everybody involved, and we went out and met the commandante in the morning, and everybody headed out to this ranch.

And we got there, and they had set a feet with them. And they asked them, where's the body? And he says, which body? Just like that. Which body? Man, the commandante says, man, if you're playing games with me, and he got pissed off. Senevin says, hold on.

I want to know which body you want. What do you mean which body? Which body? I mean, there's a bunch of bodies out here. Isn't that just one body? Which body do you? Just like that. And look at him and I say, what do you mean?

Yeah, there's something buried. And he started walking through the corrals of the ranch. He said, there's one buried here. There's one buried here, one buried here. It's a lot of bodies. That would be an interesting day as a policeman to have somebody say, well, which body are you interested in? Because I got a shitload of them all over this ranch buried.

Yeah, that's a body for him. I mean, so they're going to dig up a lot of bodies that day. And they already know where Mark's body is, right? We already said that. So they're going to go there and actually dig his body up. And, of course, I think the police. are taken back a little bit because the fact that when they buried him, remember they removed his legs, you know, around his knee, knee area, right? Below his knee, they removed the legs. So it was a little strange.

Yeah, Gibbs, when everything is said and done, they find 15 mutilated bodies, including marks, and they later determined that these 15 bodies had been killed over the span of the past nine months. And police would officially identify Mark Kilroy using dental records. So they start to identify the other 14 bodies they found. And it turns out that most of these are going to be rival drug dealers, not just random people that the cult has plucked off the street to use as human sacrifices. Three of the bodies were never able to be identified. and the police find 243 pounds of weed. That's like Cheech and Chong amount of weed.

That's a serious amount of weed. Yeah, or Snoop Dog. 108 grams of cocaine. Yeah. Which is, seems like a lot. I don't know how much a gram of cocaine is. A lot of money, man.

Twelve firearms, three of which were submachine guns. How cool is that? 11 cars. 11 cars. And then police find the cauldron. Adolfo. caldron. That would be the creepiest thing to find. That would be. Because inside the

cauldron, they find remains of Mark's brain. Yeah. A goat. A bunch of chicken parts, turtle parts, herbs, a horseshoe for luck, some coins. And this is all mixed with animal blood. So you have to picture this cauldron nasty. So this Gibbs would be the downfall of the cult. Well, you'd hope so. It attracted international attention, forced the Mexican government to try to figure out who else was involved in the murder of Mark Kilroy. Adolfo Castanzo escaped with Sarah Aldredi and some other cult members, and they fled

to an apartment that he had in Mexico City. But they know who they're looking for. and there's a manhunt on to find Constanzo. And when they finally catch up with him, it's pretty much too late. So they find him by tracing a man who was buying a lot of groceries with U.S. dollars to this apartment. And it turns out that the man was buying all this food for Constanzo and his fellow cult members. The police show up at the apartment. Constanzo immediately tries to shoot at him through the window.

and he's such a chicken shit Gibbs that he can't bear to think that he's going to get caught. So what he does, he has one of the cult members shoot him and one of his male lovers. He tells the cult member to kill him both. And the guy does. He used a machine gun to kill both of them. And as police are getting ready to bust down the door, Sarah Aldredi runs out saying that Costanzo's dead. She said she had no part in the killings, didn't know what was going on until she saw it on TV, you know, professed that she was so sorry that Mark Kilroy was killed and that she really wasn't even a part of this cult.

She told police that Constanzo was holding her prisoner and was forcing her to follow some of these cult rituals. So police took what was left to the cult into custody and they charged these people with murder, criminal association and a whole laundry list of things. But obviously they couldn't charge Constanzo because he was dead, but they put all of them away for 60 plus years. Sarah Aldredi ends up getting 62 years. But in 2000 Gibbs, she writes a book and gets it published somehow from prison. I guess they must not have the same laws that we do here in the U.S.

about, you know, doing that type of stuff. but it's basically like the story of her life with Constanzo and I don't think she's very honest in this book because she goes on to talk about how she was taken hostage by him. So her version of events is obviously very flattering towards her and it paints her in a good life. She's probably trying to set it up to get an early release. Enough people read the book and buy into the fact that she was innocent. But I think even if she gets out of Mexican prison, I think the U.S. would want to have a go at her. Well, yeah, if she ever does get out, they want to charge her with the murder of Mark Kilroy.

Yeah. And I think they would if she ever gets out. But the one thing this did, Gibbs, talking a little bit about the aftermath, you know, I think this, the murder of Mark Kilroy, because it received so much media attention, it changed spring break. in a lot of ways, especially in down in South Padre, with people thinking, hey, I'm just going to walk over into Mexico and party for the night. Right. Tom, a generation ago, it was common for college students from Texas and beyond to go to border towns like Juarez, like Matamoros.

There, the spring break crowds were plentiful. The drinking age was lower. But now you're about to learn, or in some case, be reminded why all that changed. Mark Kilroy was 21 years old in 1989 from Galveston County, a UT student who planned to be a doctor. After a spring break trip with friends to Madam Morris, he never returned. And now really we're at peace knowing that Mark is safe and are with our Lord. He was abducted, picked off the street in the border town, which was then a popular spring break destination.

Ryan Fenley planned to go with Mark on the trip, not going, may have saved his life. I can't even tell to this day what made me change my mind. Carl Ralph did go, but he didn't go with Mark the night he was abducted. 27 years later, he still remembers the conversation he had hours before Kilroy was taken. The first time he's spoken of it publicly. He goes, don't worry about it, Carl. He goes, you're my friend. And those are the last words that he told me.

For all those friends, the loss. was profound and horrifying. Weeks later, the remains of Mark Kilroy and several others were found on a ranch near Matamoros. They had been sacrificed in a form of satiria, their blood consumed by the drug smugglers who deducted them. The prisoners said the human sacrifices cast a spell for them that protected them from arrest. Countless stories were generated across the country as well as books because Mark Kilroy was an American college student, and it changed spring break for a generation that remembered it. Yeah, man, so, I mean, you think about spring break back then today.

I mean, even nowadays, you need to worry about human trafficking. You have to worry about, you know, being forced to be the mule if you go into those areas. I mean, there's beautiful, beautiful places in Mexico, no doubt about it. spent plenty of time in different cities there, but it's not a real stable government. And what I mean by that is that the cartel really rules a lot of the local governments in those areas. So I would just be cautious, spending too much time, you know, as a college kid in those places. Yeah, and I would say that's especially true for the border towns. You know, when you're talking about something like Madame Morris or Juarez, I've been to

Juana, I've been to Tijuana, Juarez scared the shit out of me. Do you know what I was in the water? I was a little kid. No. But there was just something about it. It just didn't seem safe. And that was, you know, that was years and years ago. Now, you go into the destination cities where you fly in and you're at a resort and, you know,

that's a little different. but just crossing the bridge to go to one of these, or crossing over the border to go into one of these border towns, that ain't for me, man. It's just a little, it's a little different. I mean, Mexico has great people. They really do. I just think there's some bad apples.

Well, it's the drug. It's the drug. It's a drug business. To the point, I mean, you even get further south of Mexico, and, you know, they run their drugs up through Mexico, trying to get them in the U.S. as well. And it's just not a real warm and fuzzy place to hang out if you don't know your way around. So no meet and greet and Mattomoros.

No, I'll call in for that one. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to disparage Mexico at all. No, no. They do have some great people. But the drug influence is real. Yeah. And, you know, it spills across the border into parts of Texas and other neighboring

states and there's people getting killed over the Mexican drug trade, you know, in those states. It happens. There's not much that scares me. And I just, and I'm not saying this, I just wouldn't put myself in that position. No, no, I wouldn't either. All right. So that is it for the case of Adolfo Constanzo and Sarah Aldredi and another episode of true crime all the time.

So for Mike and Gabby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking. You know,