When Mark and his friends set out to spend a fun-filled Spring Break together, they never anticipated what the outcome would be of that March in 1989.
Mark Kilroy was born on March 5th, 1968, in Chicago Illinois. His parents, James “Jim” and Helen moved to Texas after Mark was born. Mark and his younger brother Keith grew up happy and healthy in Santa Fe, Texas, a small town just outside of Houston.
Mark was an excellent student, as well as an excellent athlete. He was an honours student, and attended Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas after his high school graduation in 1986. Soon, he transferred to Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas in order to take full advantage of a basketball scholarship. There, he made friends with his fraternity brothers as a member of Lambda Chi Alpha. Not long after this, Mark decided to give up his scholarship, and he transferred to the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the pre-med program, and was preparing for his MCATs, the Medical College Admission Test.
On March 10th, 1989, Bradley Moore, a childhood friend of Mark’s, drove to Austin to pick him up after finishing their exams. They were heading to Santa Fe in order to pick up two of their other childhood friends, Bill Huddleston and Brent Martin. The four had planned to spend their Spring Break in South Padre Island, Texas. A plan that had been in the making since the fall semester. All four wanted to spend one last hurrah together before they all inevitably went their separate ways.
That week, the boys checked into the Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, and decided to take advantage not only of the beach nearby, but of all of the free entertainment put on by beer sponsors, such as movies, concerts, surf-simulator activities, and opportunities to appear on TV commercials. The day they arrived, Mark and Bradley took advantage of the free phone calls home, and called their parents to let them know they’d arrived safely.
The four friends established a routine. In the mornings, they would head to the beach, and wait until the daily Miss Tanline contest was going to take place behind their hotel. When the contest was over, the friends would take a quick nap, and then decide to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in Mexico.
That evening, the four boys stopped to eat at a Sonic Drive-In in Port Isabel, Texas. There, they met up with some female students from the University of Kansas. The two groups decided to go to Mexico together, and they followed each other to the border town of Brownsville. There, they parked their respective vehicles, and then crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on foot.
That first evening was rather quiet, and the two groups spent a nice evening at Sergeant Pepper’s night club in Matamoros, Mexico. The women from Kansas went one way, Mark and his friends went another.
On March 13th, 1989, the routine went on as per usual. Early in the evening, Mark rean into some of his fraternity brothers, and hung out with them. Around 10:30 PM, Mark and his friends headed back to Matamoros just as they had the evening before.
The main street of Matamoros, Álvaro Obregón, was flooded with over 15,000 Spring Breakers. Seeing the hustle and bustle, Mark and his friends ended up at the Los Sombreros bar, as it had the shortest line to get in.
They soon left there, and wandered over to the London Pub, which had renamed and rebranded itself as Hardrock Café for the Spring Break crowd. The crowd was louder, and more rowdy than Los Sombreros, so the friends decided to stick together as much as possible through the crowded bar.
At around 2:00 AM, Bill suggested that the group head back to South Padre Island and catch some sleep. Once outside, Bill, Bradley, and Brent saw Mark speaking to a woman in a car. She’d been from the Miss Tanline contest. They indicated to Mark that they were walking towards the border, and Mark indicated that he would be following them. The group was slightly separated, through the hustle and bustle of the busy main street, meaning Bradley and Brent got ahead of Mark and Bill.
Bradley and Brent stopped at García’s, a popular restaurant near the border, and waited for Mark and Bill to catch up. Bill ducked into a nearby alley to relieve himself, and Mark waited for him. By the time Bill met up with Bradley and Brent, Mark was nowhere to be seen. They would never see their friend again.
The three searched for him through the busy streets, even after the bars and clubs had started to close. At around 4:30 AM, they came to the conclusion that Mark must have gone ahead and crossed the border without them, and so they themselves crossed in order to get some sleep.
When they woke up the next day, they realized that Mark wasn’t in the hotel room, and that he was nowhere to be found. They hastily called the police and reported him missing.
While Mark had been standing on the street waiting for Bill to finish his business, he was lured towards a parked truck by a man asking Mark if he needed a ride. In his intoxicated state, Mark decided to take the man up on his offer. As he approached the truck, Serafín Hernández García and Malio Fabio Ponce Torres got hold of him and wrestled him inside.
Mark was able to shake off his abductors, and he ran a couple of blocks in the direction of the border. He managed to escape, but was thwarted when a car driven by colleagues of García and Torres stopped him in his path. They threatened him at gunpoint. Mark was handcuffed, and thrown in the back of the second vehicle.
García, Torres, and their colleagues were known drug dealers in the area, and they had been given instructions to abduct a smart-looking white tourist. Mark fit the bill.
They drove through the back roads of Matamoros, and then turned down a dirt road which led to a private ranch known as Santa Elena. They left him in the car overnight, with only the ranch’s caretaker to feed him bread, eggs, and water.
Roughly twelve hours later, Mark was met with Adolfo Constanzo, the leader of the group that had taken over the ranch. Constanzo and his followers wrapped Mark’s face in duct tape, and led him through the ranch to a shed around the back.
Throughout the course of the night, Mark was systematically tortured and sodomized. Constanzo then led him out to the field where he murdered Mark with blows to the head with a machete. Constanzo then removed Mark’s brain, and boiled it in his nganga, an African metal pot which was used as a key part of Constanzo’s rituals. Constanzo then directed a member of his following to remove Mark’s legs, for easier burial. A wire was then inserted into his spinal cord, and Mark was buried in a shallow grave. The wire would make it easy for the spinal cord to be worn as a necklace after the body decomposed.
Adolfo Constanzo was born in Miami, Florida, in 1962 as a Cuban American. When his father died, his mother moved them to Puerto Rico, where she remarried. In 1972, they returned to Florida, where Constanzo’s step-father passed away soon afterwards. He left them a large inheritance. When his mother remarried again, Constanzo’s life would change forever. His new step-father introduced him to the worlds of drug trafficking, and the occult.
Constanzo’s step-father taught him a very stern philosophy – profit off of the foolishness of those who “killed themselves with drugs”. It was a philosophy that followed Constanzo throughout his life.
Around the same time, Constanzo’s mother firmly believed that her son had psychic abilities. He was soon introduced to the Afro-Caribbean religion of Palo Mayombe, as well as Santeria, both of which dabbled in the occult, and with Palo Mayombe participating in animal sacrifice. Constanzo started his teachings as a “palero”, someone who practices Palo Mayombe, and then reached the status of “padrino”, or high-priest.
In 1984, Constanzo moved to Mexico City where he made ends meet through modelling, and tarot card reading. He was so charismatic that he started developing a following. He was charming, and very good looking, allowing him opportunities to mingle with Mexico City’s elite. He would offer tarot readings, as well as ritual cleansing. For a fee, of course.
In 1987, Constanzo met Sara Aldrete, an honours student from Texas Southmost University. Aldrete was dating Gilberto Sosa, a drug dealer who was linked to the Hernández clan. Constanzo wanted an introduction to the clan.
Upon meeting Constanzo, Aldrete became the main recruiter for his following – his cult. Aldrete was a young, attractive woman. It was easy to lure other men to Constanzo’s side – or to their deaths.
Aldrete was able to keep her college life, and her cult life completely separate. Her professors and classmates had no idea what she got up to shen she left Brownsville, Texas for Matamoros, Mexico. And vice versa. Neither of her worlds touched each other.
Through Aldrete, Constanzo met the owner of the Santa Elena ranch, Brigido Hernández. Brigido kept a distance from Constanzo and his activities, but he couldn’t say the same for his family members Elio, Seraffin Sr., and Ovidio.
Mark’s disappearance began as a routine missing persons investigation. Police on the Texas side of the border figured he would turn up eventually, hungover, and a little worse for wear. However, more attention was garned to Mark’s case, over the other 60 people who had been reported missing in the first three months of 1989 in Matamoros, Mexico, due to his uncle working for the United States Customs Service in Los Angeles.
A police taskforce was soon established in Brownsville in order to investigate the disappearance of Mark Kilroy. Wanting to distance themselves from the bad press, the Mexican federal police tried to maintain that Mark had disappeared in Brownsville. Brent, Bill, and Bradley vehemently denied these claims. As a result, Mexican agents worked together with U.S. Officials to question informants, witnesses, and follow up on tips.
It wasn’t long before foul play, either a robbery-killing, or drug-related violence, was suspected in Mark’s disappearance. Bradley agreed to undergo hypnosis in order to assist the investigation.
Under hypnosis, Bradley recalled seeing Mark speaking to a man who’d asked Mark: “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” He could not recall if Mark replied. None of Mark’s friends could pinpoint the exact moment when Mark vanished. This led investigators to believe that Mark had been kidnapped either for robbery or ransom. As no ransom note had arrived, it was highly likely that robbery was the motive.
As Jim and Helen Kilroy were alerted to Mark’s disappearance, they soon made their way to the Rio Grand Valley to plead for information from the public, and distribute a missing person’s poster of Mark. They also offered a reward of $15,000 to anyone who could help locate Mark.
On March 26th, 1989, Mark’s disappearance was highlighted on the programme America’s Most Wanted. This garnered more tips, and nationwide attention to Mark’s case. None were solid enough to move forward.
A few days later, Jim and Helen returned to Texas, where they withdrew Mark from school, before heading home to Santa Fe, Texas.
On April 1st, 1989, Mexican State authorities grew suspicious when a vehicle ran through a routine drug-search checkpoint without stopping. The man driving the vehicle was Serafín Hernández García.
Rather than turn on their lights and sirens, the Mexican agents decided to follow the vehicle in an unmarked vehicle. They pulled off at a distance as the vehicle led them to the Santa Elena ranch. The officers watched García, before he took off again, heading towards the city, 30 minutes later. The officers took advantage of the opportunity, and made a quick, superficial search of the ranch.
They soon found evidence of cult paraphernalia, and marijuana traces. Officers decided to keep surveilling the ranch, rather than go in pre-emptively. They were also seeing evidence that the ranch was involved with the notorious Hernández clan.
On April 9th, 1989, officers arrived at the Santa Elena ranch in droves, arresting Serafín Hernández García, his uncle Elio, two cult members, David Serna Valdez and Sergio Martínez Salinas, and the ranch’s caretaker, Domingo Reyes Bustamante. All of the men were very relaxed as they were placed in police custody.
Bustamante revealed to police under interrogation that the ranch was frequently visited by members of the Hernández criminal group. He also identified Mark through a photograph as someone who had been to the Ranch.
In a separate interrogation room, Serafín Hernández García confessed easily to participating in Mark’s murder. He also confessed that several other people had been killed over the course of several months at Santa Elena.
He went on to identify Adolfo Constanzo and Sara Aldrete as the leaders of the group. He claimed that he wasn’t scared, as Constanzo had promised him, and his family, that the human sacrifices would mean they were immune from criminal prosecution. He then gave police details of what had happened to Mark Kilroy.
No matter what police heard int hose interrogation rooms, nothing would prepare them for what they found when they fully investigated the Santa Elena ranch.
Stay tuned for part two.
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Sources:
Inside The Gruesome Murder of Mark Kilroy At The Hands Of A Satanic Cult – Marco Margaritoff & John Kuroski – All That’s Interesting
The Work of the Devil – Gary Cartwright – Texas Monthly
Spring break gone wrong: Behind the strange ritual murder of Mark Kilroy – Bethany Wade – Film Daily
Casefile: A True Crime Podcast – Case 123: Mark Kilroy
Murder of Mark Kilroy Wikipedia page