12 Bodies Found Near Border Called Drug Cult Victims

BROWNSVILLE, Tex. —  Police found a mass grave just south of the Mexican border Tuesday containing the bodies of 12 people who were the victims of human sacrifice by a satanic cult of drug smugglers, officials said.

“It was horrible,” Cameron County Sheriff Alex Perez said at a news conference in this border city. “It was like a human slaughterhouse.”

Mexican federal police arrested four people, sheriff’s Lt. George Gavito said. He said the suspects were U.S. and Mexican citizens, but did not identify them further.

The dead found by the federal police included 21-year-old University of Texas student Mark Kilroy, who vanished during his spring break last month while in the Mexican city of Matamoros, Gavito said.

Kilroy apparently was chosen at random by drug smugglers who hoped human sacrifices would protect them from harm, Gavito said. He was taken after the cult members “were told to pick one Anglo male that particular night,” the lieutenant said.

The cult had been involved in human sacrifices for about nine months, he said, and prayed to the devil “so the police would not arrest them, so bullets would not kill them and so they could make more money.”

Authorities would not comment on the other victims, and would not say whether any of them were U.S. citizens.

Evidence of Voodoo

The 12 bodies were found Tuesday in a field about 20 miles west of Matamoros, along with evidence of voodoo or magic, Gavito said.

“I’ve been an investigator 15 years and it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Kilroy, a premedical student, vanished from a crowded street on March 14 while on a drinking foray with a group of friends in Matamoros, a city of 180,000 just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville.

Law officers on both sides of the border had no clues concerning Kilroy’s disappearance despite an intensive search, the questioning of nearly 100 people and a $15,000 reward.

The 3-foot-deep grave containing Kilroy’s body was found after Mexican federal police alerted U.S. officials early Tuesday that they had obtained confessions from the suspects, officials said.

At least one of the suspects admitted involvement in Kilroy’s death, said Oran Neck, chief U.S. Customs agent in Brownsville.

The student’s parents, Helen and James Kilroy of Santa Fe, Tex., arrived in Brownsville on Tuesday following the discovery.

Authorities refused to talk about the evidence or pinpoint the location of the grave. The area was sealed, Gavito said.

The case is being investigated by Customs, the U.S. attorney general’s office, Mexican federal authorities and local law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border.

Texas Atty. Gen. Jim Mattox said Texas authorities “are ready to assist in any prosecution or investigation.”

“There might be other bodies,” Mattox said. “There are questions about how many are Americans, and also questions about how many crimes took place on that side of the border and how many on this side.”

It was the third drug-related mass killing discovered near the border in less than three weeks.

Mexican authorities found the bodies of three women and six men March 29 on an abandoned ranch near Agua Prieta, just across the border from Douglas, Ariz.

Five were at the bottom of a well and four in an earthen septic tank. All nine were bound and had been tortured and mutilated, officials said. Mexican and U.S. investigators said the slayings were drug-related.

The bodies of three more men killed in similar fashion were removed from the well on April 1. All were believed to be Mexican nationals.

On March 27, two people from Arizona and three from the Mexican state of Sonora were found bound and stabbed in a shed in Tucson. Those deaths also were said to be drug-related.

Officials said Tuesday that it was possible the Tucson and Agua Prieta cases were linked.