The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (20 page)

or “head witch”—of his cult, adding her own twists to A popular premed student from Texas, Mark Kilroy the torture of sacrificial victims.

was not some peasant, transvestite, or small-time Constanzo’s rituals became more elaborate and

pusher who could disappear without a trace or an sadistic after he moved his headquarters to a plot of investigation into his fate. With family members and desert called Rancho Santa Elena, 20 miles from Mata-Texas politicians turning up the heat, the search for Kil-moros. There, on May 28, 1988, drug dealer Hector de roy rapidly assumed the trappings of an international la Fuente and farmer Moises Castillo were executed by incident, but in the end Constanzo’s own disciples gunfire, but the sacrifice was a disappointment to Con-would destroy him.

stanzo. Back in Mexico City, he directed his drones to By March 1989, Mexican authorities were busy with dismember a transvestite, Ramon Esquivel, and dump one of their periodic antidrug campaigns, erecting road-the grisly remains on a public street corner. His luck blocks on a whim and sweeping the border districts for was holding, and Constanzo narrowly escaped when unwary smugglers. On April 1, Victor Sauceda, an ex-Houston police raided a drug house in June 1988, seiz-cop turned gangster, was sacrificed at the ranch, and the ing numerous items of occult paraphernalia and the

“spirit message” Constanzo received was optimistic city’s largest-ever shipment of cocaine.

enough for his troops to move a half ton of marijuana On August 12, Ovidio Hernandez and his two-year-across the border seven nights later.

old son were kidnapped by rival narcotics dealers, the And then, the magic started to unravel.

family turning to Constanzo for help. That night, On April 9, returning from a Brownsville meeting another human sacrifice was staged at Rancho Santa with Constanzo, cultist Serafin Hernandez drove past a Elena, and the hostages were released unharmed on police roadblock without stopping, ignoring the cars August 13, Adolfo claiming full credit for their safe that set off in hot pursuit. Hernandez believed
el
return. His star was rising, and Constanzo barely
padrino
’s line about invisibility, and he seemed sur-noticed when disciple Florentino Ventura committed prised when officers trailed him to his destination in suicide in Mexico City on September 17, taking his wife Matamoros. Even so, the smuggler was arrogant, invit-and a friend with him in the same burst of gunfire.

ing police to shoot him, since he believed the bullets In November 1988, Constanzo sacrificed disciple would merely bounce off his body.

Jorge Gomez, accused of snorting cocaine in direct vio-They arrested him instead, along with cult member lation of
el padrino
’s ban on drug use. A month later, David Martinez, and drove the pair back to Rancho Adolfo’s ties to the Hernandez family were cemented Santa Elena, where a preliminary search turned up mar-with the initiation of Ovidio Hernandez as a full-ijuana and firearms. Disciples Elio Hernandez and Ser-fledged cultist, complete with ritual bloodletting and gio Martinez stumbled into the net while police were on prayers to the
nganga.

hand, and all four prisoners were interrogated through Human sacrifice can also have its practical side, as the evening, revealing their tales of black magic, tor-when competing smuggler Ezequiel Luna was tortured ture, and human sacrifice with a perverse kind of pride.

to death at Rancho Santa Elena on February 14, 1989; Next morning, police returned to the ranch in force, two other dealers, Ruben Garza and Ernesto Diaz, wan-discovering the malodorous shed where Constanzo kept dered into the ceremony uninvited and were promptly his
nganga,
brimming with blood, spiders, scorpions, a added to the sacrifice. Conversely, Adolfo sometimes dead black cat, a turtle shell, bones, deer antlers—and a demanded a sacrifice without rhyme or reason. When human brain. Captive cult members directed searchers
53

CORLL, Dean Arnold

to Constanzo’s private cemetery, and excavation began, conviction of criminal association. Constanzo’s
mad-revealing 15 mutilated corpses by April 16. In addition rina insisted that she never practiced any religion but to Mark Kilroy and other victims already named, the

“Christian Santería”; televised reports of the murders at body count included two renegade federal narcotics Rancho Santa Elena, she said, took her by complete officers—Joaquin Manzo and Miguel Garcia—along surprise. Jurors disagreed in 1994 when Sara and four with three men who were never identified.

male accomplices were convicted of multiple murders at The hunt for Constanzo was on, and police raided the ranch; Aldrete was sentenced to 62 years, while her his luxury home in Atizapan, outside Mexico City, on cohorts—including Elio and Serafin Hernandez—drew April 17, discovering stockpiles of gay pornography prison terms of 67 years.

and a hidden ritual chamber. The discoveries at Rancho Santa Elena made international headlines, and sightings of Constanzo were reported as far away as Chicago,
CORLL, Dean Arnold

but in fact, he had already returned to Mexico City, Indiana-born on Christmas Eve of 1939, Dean Corll hiding out in a small apartment with Sara Aldrete and grew up in a combative home, his parents quarreling three other disciples. On May 2, thinking to save her-constantly. They divorced while Corll was still an self, Sara tossed a note out the window. It read: infant, then remarried after World War II, but Dean’s father provided no stabilizing influence, regarding his Please call the judicial police and tell them that in this children with thinly veiled distaste and resorting to building are those that they are seeking. Tell them that a harsh punishment for the smallest infractions. When woman is being held hostage. I beg for this, because the couple separated a second time, Corll and his what I want most is to talk—or they’re going to kill the younger brother were left with a series of sitters, their girl.

mother working to support the family on her own.

Rheumatic fever left Dean with a heart condition, A passerby found the note, read it, and kept it to resulting in frequent absence from school, and he himself, believing it was someone’s lame attempt at seemed to welcome the change when his mother remar-humor. On May 6, neighbors called police to complain ried, moving the family to Texas. A part-time business of a loud, vulgar argument in Constanzo’s apartment—

making candy soon expanded to become their liveli-some said accompanied by gunshots. As patrolmen hood, and Corll was generous with samples as he arrived at the scene, Constanzo spotted them and sought to win new friends.

opened fire with an Uzi, touching off a 45-minute battle In 1964, despite his heart condition, Corll was in which, miraculously, only one policeman was drafted into military service, where he displayed the wounded.

first signs of homosexuality. On turning 30, in Decem-When Constanzo realized that escape was impossiber 1969, he seemed to undergo a sudden shift in per-ble, he handed his weapon to cultist Alvaro de Leon sonality, becoming hypersensitive and glum. He began Valdez—a professional hit man nicknamed “El

to spend his time with teenage boys, like David Owen Duby”—with bizarre new orders. As El Duby recalled Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley, passing out free the scene, “He told me to kill him and Martin [Quin-candy all around, hosting glue- and paint-sniffing par-tana]. I told him I couldn’t do it, but he hit me in the ties at his apartment in Pasadena, a suburb of Houston.

face and threatened me that everything would go bad At the same time, he displayed a sadistic streak, leaning for me in hell. Then he hugged Martin, and I just stood toward bondage in his sexual relationship with young in front of them and shot them with a machine gun.”

men and boys. On one occasion, during 1970, Brooks Constanzo and Quintana were dead when police

entered the apartment to find Corll nude, with two stormed the apartment, arresting El Duby and Sarah naked boys strapped to a homemade torture rack.

Aldrete. In the aftermath of the raid, 14 cultists were Embarrassed, Corll released his playmates and offered indicted on various charges, including multiple murder, Brooks a car in return for his promise of silence. Later, weapons and narcotics violations, conspiracy, and as his passion turned to bloodlust, Corll would use obstruction of justice. In August 1990, El Duby was Brooks and Henley as procurers, offering $200 per convicted of killing Constanzo and Quintana, drawing head for fresh victims.

a 30-year prison terms. Cultists Juan Fragosa and Jorge The date of Corll’s first murder is uncertain. Brooks Montes were both convicted in the Esquivel murder and placed it sometime in mid-1970, the victim identified as sentenced to 35 years each; Omar Orea, convicted in college student Jeffrey Konen, picked up while hitchhik-the same case, died of AIDS before he could be sen-ing. Most of Corll’s victims were drawn from a seedy tenced. Sara Aldrete was acquitted of Constanzo’s mur-Houston neighborhood known as the Heights, their disder in 1990 but was sentenced to a six-year term on appearance blithely ignored by police accustomed to
54

CORONA, Juan Vallejo

victims may have been buried around Corll’s candy shop, but authorities show no interest in pursuing the case any further.)

In custody, Brooks and Henley confessed their role in procuring victims for Corll through the years, with Brooks fingering Henley as the triggerman in at least one slaying. “Most of the killings that occurred after Wayne came in the picture involved all three of us,” he told police. “Wayne seemed to enjoy causing pain.”

Convicted of multiple murder in August 1974, Henley was sentenced to life imprisonment, with Brooks drawing an identical term in March 1975. A year later, Houston authorities announced that recent investigations of child pornography had linked other local pedophiles to Corll’s murder ring, but no prosecutions were forthcoming. Elmer Henley’s conviction was overturned on appeal in December 1978, on the issue of Elmer Henley (center) in custody (Wide World API) pretrial publicity, but he was convicted and sentenced to prison a second time, in June 1979. Both of Corll’s accomplices have been eligible for parole since 1983, dealing with runaways. Two were friends and neighbors but their periodic bids for freedom are routinely of Henley, delivered on order to Corll, and sometimes rejected. Henley, meanwhile, has emerged as an accom-the candy man killed two victims at once. In December plished artist, his paintings featured at two Houston 1970, he murdered 14-year-old James Glass and 15-galleries in March of 1998. One of his favorite subjects: year-old David Yates in one sitting. The following beach scenes.

month, brothers Donald and Jerry Waldrop joined the See also ARTWORK AND MEMORABILIA

missing list, with Wally Simineaux and Richard Embry slaughtered in October 1972. Another pair of brothers—Billy and Mike Baulch—were killed at separate
CORONA, Juan Vallejo

times, in May 1972 and July 1973, respectively. Corll’s A native of Mexico, born in 1934, Corona turned up in youngest known victim was a nine-year-old neighbor, Yuba City, California, as a migrant worker in the early residing across the street from Dean’s apartment.

1950s. Unlike most of his kind, he stayed on after the On August 8, 1973, a tearful phone call from Elmer harvest, putting down roots and establishing a family, Henley summoned Pasadena police to Corll’s flat. They graduating from the role of picker in the fields to found the candy man dead, six bullet holes in his shoul-become a successful labor contractor. By his mid-thirder and back, with Henley claiming he had killed his ties, Corona was known to ranchers throughout the

“friend” in self-defense. The violence had erupted after county, supplying crews on demand. There was a bit of Henley brought a girl to one of Corll’s paint-sniffing trouble during 1970 when a young Mexican was

orgies, driving the homosexual killer into a rage. Corll wounded—his scalp laid open by a machete—in the had threatened Elmer with a gun, then taunted his café run by Corona’s homosexual brother, Natividad.

young friend when Henley managed to disarm him.

Upon recovery, the victim filed suit against Natividad Frightened for his life, Henley insisted that he shot Corona, seeking $250,000 in damages, and the accused Corll only to save himself. But there was more.

hacker fled back to Mexico, leaving the case unre-That afternoon, he led detectives to a rented boat solved. No one linked Juan to the crime; its violence shed in southwest Houston, leaving authorities to hoist scarcely seemed to touch his life.

17 corpses from their shallow graves in the earthen And yet. . . .

floor. A drive to Lake Sam Rayburn turned up four On May 19, 1971, a Japanese farmer was touring his more graves, while six others were found on the beach orchard when he noticed a fresh hole, roughly the size at High Island, for a total of 27 dead. Henley insisted of a grave, excavated between two fruit trees. One of there were at least two more bodies in the boat shed, Corona’s migrant crews was working nearby, and the plus two more at High Island, but police called off the farmer shrugged it off until that night, when he search, content to know that they had broken Califor-returned and found the hole filled in. Suspicious, he nia’s record in the JUAN CORONA case. (Author Jack summoned deputies to the site next morning, and a bit Olsen, in The Man with the Candy, suggests that other of spadework revealed the fresh corpse of transient
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