The strange story of Magdalena Solis, the High Priestess of Blood.
A prostitute named Magdalena Solis had an entire village believing she was an Inca Goddess. All they had to do was hand over their money, and sleep with whoever she directed, for a reward. She would go on to become one of the world’s most notorious female serial killers
This is her story
In late 1962 and early 1963, brothers Santos and Cayetano Hernandez, a pair of petty criminals, arrived at the small Mexican village of Yerba Buena.
At the time Yerba Buena was populated by fifty impoverished and mostly illiterate inhabitants.
As part of a scam, the brothers proclaimed themselves prophets and high priests of the “powerful and exiled Inca gods.” The villagers never questioned them – in fact, they welcomed the brothers with open arms – especially as they had promised them gold and treasure.
In return for the treasure – the brothers demanded worship and tribute from the villagers. This soon progressed to asking for sexual services. The sect was born!
In the caves where the Inca treasures were allegedly hidden, the brothers organized narcotic-fueled orgies and treated many villagers, both men and women, as sex slaves. However, the villagers began to grow impatient at not seeing their promised treasure.
Faced with possible exposure, the Hernandez brothers traveled to Monterrey in search of prostitutes who would take part in the farce. They eventually made contact with Magdalena Solis and her brother, who traveled back to Yerba Buena with them.
During one of the cave rituals, using a smoke screen, the Hernandez brothers introduced Solis as the reincarnation of an Inca goddess. Under her influence the rituals became more grisly and perverse as Solis became enamored with consumption of blood and sadomasochism.
Murder by torture
Magdalena eventually took over leadership of the village – this was the start of the real horror. Two villagers, tired of the sexual abuse, wanted to leave so were brought before the “high priests”. Solis’s condemnation was clear: the death penalty.
The two sect members were lynched.
After these first two murders the crimes evolved, becoming more violent. Bored with simple orgies, Solis began to demand human sacrifice. She devised a “blood ritual”: The sacrificed (which was always a dissenting member) was brutally beaten, burned, cut and maimed by all the members of the cult.
Thereafter, blood-letting was practiced: The blood was deposited in a cup mixed with chicken blood (the ritual also included animal sacrifices and the use of narcotics such as marijuana and peyote).The victim was made to bleed to death.
Solis drank from the chalice and then handed it to the priests (the Hernandez Brothers and Eleazar Solis), and finally the other members, each who had their turn to drink. The belief was that this gave them extra-natural powers.
The butchering went on for six continuous weeks in 1963, a period in which 4 people died in this way. In the last sacrifices they reached the point of dissecting the heart of the victims alive.
Arrest, trial, consequences
In May 1963 when a 14-year-old local resident, Sebastian Guerrero, witnessed by chance one of the rites in progress.
Freaked out – he ran over 25 km, from Yerba Buena to the town of Villa Gran, to the nearest police station.
The next morning, an officer, (Investigator Luis Martinez) escorted him home and in the process he was able to show him where he had seen the vampires.
That was the last day that Sebastian Guerrero and Luis Martinez were seen alive.
In May 1963 when a 14-year-old local resident, Sebastian Guerrero, wandered near the caves where the Solis sect was performing their rites. Attracted by the lights and noises coming out of one of the caves, he witnessed one of the rites in progress.
He ran over 25 km, from Yerba Buena to the town of Villa Gran, to the nearest police station. He failed to give any other description of the “group of murderers who prey on ecstasy and who were gluttonously drinking human blood.”
The next morning, an officer, (Investigator Luis Martinez) escorted him home and in the process he was able to show him where he had seen the vampires. That was the last day that Sebastian Guerrero and Luis Martinez were seen alive.
On May 31, 1963 police, in conjunction with the army, deployed an operation in Yerba Buena. Eleazar and Magdalena Solis were arrested on a farm in the town, in possession of a considerable amount of marijuana. Santos Hernandez was shot by police bullets while resisting arrest. Cayetano Hernandez was assassinated by one of the members of the sect, called Jesus Rubio, who, before the crisis, wanted to be a part of the body of high priests for protection.
In subsequent investigations they found, first, the carved up bodies of Sebastian Guerrero and Luis Martinez, near a farm where the Solis siblings were arrested (they had removed the heart of the latter in the style of Aztec sacrifice). They then found the bodies, also dismembered, of the other six persons in the vicinity of the caves.
Magdalena and Eleazar Solis were sentenced to 50 years in prison for only two homicides (those of Guerrero and Martinez), they were not able to confirm their participation in the other six murders because all the cult members arrested refused to testify.
Many members of the sect were shot in the shootout with the police because, as they were armed, they barricaded themselves in the caves. Those who were arrested were sentenced to 30 years in prison for six counts of murder in the form of “group or gang murder, or lynching.” Their illiterate and pauperised condition served as mitigating factors.