Magdalena Solis

Case record: Magdalena Solis

Overview

Magdalena Solis participated in a blood-drinking sex cult in Mexico. She helped to convince villagers in Yerba Buena that she was a goddess and orchestrated blood rituals that involved numerous murders. When the human sacrifices were discovered outside the village, police came in and rounded up the cult.

Magdalena Solis, also known as the “High Priestess of Blood,” was a serial killer and a member of a cult in Mexico responsible for orchestrating several murders. She participated in drinking the blood of the victims. She was convicted of only 2 of the murders and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Other details

The case was described as one of the few documented cases of women serial killers who had a clear sexual motivation. Magdalena Solis was also described as a sex offender. She was portrayed as organized and as a sexual predator who killed in groups.

Magdalena Solis was described as responsible for at least 8 murders, and it was also stated that some sources placed the actual number of victims close to 15. The murders were described as committed in the small community of “Yerba Buena,” near the city of Monterrey in the Mexican state of Nuevo León.

Magdalena Solis represented herself as a goddess and ordered numerous sacrifices for blood rituals.

Magdalena Solis was described as coming from a poor family and most likely dysfunctional. She was described as having developed a severe theological psychosis, including religious delusions and delusions of grandeur, and marked sexual perversion expressed in the consumption of the blood (vampirism) of her victims. She was also described as committing crimes with terrible sadism, and as practicing incest, fetishism, and pedophilia.

She was also described as having practiced prostitution at a young age and working in that profession until her marriage, together with her brother Eleazar Solis, who also acted as her pimp. The Hernandez cult was described as involving Santos and Cayetano Hernandez in 1963.

The offence

Magdalena Solis was involved in a cult that conducted blood rituals. After joining the sect, it was stated that Magdalena Solis “took over” and that she began demanding human sacrifice. A “blood ritual” was described in which a sacrificed person, described as a dissenting member, was “brutally beaten, burned, cut and maimed” by cult members. Afterward, the victim was made to bleed to death.

It was described that the blood was deposited in a cup mixed with chicken blood and that the ritual included animal sacrifices and narcotics such as marijuana and peyote. Solis was described as drinking from the chalice and then giving drink to the priests (the Hernandez Brothers and Eleazar Solis), and finally giving it to the other members.

The case description included that the blood was the only decent food for the gods, and that through it the gods preserved immortality. Magdalena Solis was described as needing to drink blood to stay young forever. She was described as the reincarnation of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue.

The butchering was described as continuing for six continuous weeks in 1963, during which 4 people died in this manner. In the last sacrifices, it was stated that the heart of the victims was dissected while they were alive.

Background: the Hernandez brothers’ cult

Brothers Santos and Cayetano Hernandez were described as petty criminals who devised a scam in late 1962 and early 1963. They reached Yerba Buena, described as a marginalized community in northern Mexico with a little more than 50 people, all mired in extreme poverty and mostly illiterate. They proclaimed themselves prophets and high priests of “the powerful and exiled Inca gods.”

The cult was described as operating on promises that the “Inca gods” would give treasures hidden in caves in the mountains surrounding the village in return for worship and tribute. The brothers were described as claiming that the “Inca gods” would soon come to claim authority over their former kingdom and punish unbelievers. The text also stated that the “Inca gods” belonged to mythology of pre-Hispanic Peru (and that it would have been more logical to say they were Aztec gods).

It was described that the Hernandez brothers founded a sect that became relatively prosperous. Adherents demanded economic and sexual taxes (both women and men). It was described that the Hernandezes moved from being thieves to cheats and sexual slaveholders, organizing orgies in which narcotics were used.

The cult was described as continuing until believers became impatient at not seeing the promises fulfilled. The brothers then went to Monterrey to search for prostitutes who wanted to be part of the farce and made contact with Magdalena and her brother Eleazar Solis, who agreed.

During a ritual, it was described that they presented Magdalena Solis as the reincarnation of a goddess using “a cheap magic trick: a smoke screen.” The text stated that Magdalena would believe in the lie.

The narrative portion also described that early in 1963 the Hernandezes convinced Yerba Buena that mountain Inca gods were willing to give fabulous wealth in exchange for undivided loyalty and sexual favors, and that villagers cleared out mountainside caves to use as temples for their rituals.

Investigation and arrest

It was described that after crimes occurred, police investigated the case and began talking about a satanic cult.

A night in May 1963 was described in which a 14 year old local resident, Sebastian Guerrero, wandered near caves where the Solis sect was performing rites. He was attracted by lights and noises coming from one of the caves and encountered what was described as a terrible slaughter. Guerrero ran over 25 km from Yerba Buena to the town of Villa Gran and the nearest police station. The officers laughed at Guerrero’s statements, taking them as ravings of a disturbed or drugged boy.

The next morning, an officer, Investigator Luis Martinez, escorted Guerrero home and, during the process, it was stated he was able to show Guerrero where he had seen the vampires. It was then stated that Guerrero and Investigator Luis Martinez were last seen alive on that day.

Police dismayed by the disappearance of Guerrero and Martinez took the case seriously and started talking about a satanic cult.

On May 31, 1963, police, in conjunction with the army, deployed an operation in Yerba Buena. It was described that Eleazar and Magdalena Solis were arrested on a farm in the town, in possession of a considerable amount of marijuana.

Santos Hernandez was described as being shot by police bullets while resisting arrest.

Cayetano Hernandez was described as being assassinated by a member of the sect called Jesus Rubio, who was described as having wanted to be part of the body of high priests for protection. It was stated that Cayetano Hernandez was killed by Jesus Rubio before the crisis.

In subsequent investigations, it was described that investigators found the carved up bodies of Sebastian Guerrero and Luis Martinez near a farm where the Solis siblings were arrested, and that the heart of Luis Martinez had been removed in the style of Aztec sacrifice. Investigators were also described as finding the bodies of the other six persons dismembered in the vicinity of the caves.

Many members of the sect were described as being shot in the shootout with the police because they were armed and barricaded themselves in the caves. Others who were arrested were sentenced later.

Trial

It was described that the Solis high priests and twelve followers were brought to trial on 13 June, 1963. Each of them received a prison sentence of 30 years, in the narrative portion.

Sentencing

Magdalena and Eleazar Solis were sentenced to 50 years in prison for only two homicides, described as the homicides of Guerrero and Martinez. The investigation was described as not being able to confirm participation in the other six murders because all the cult members arrested refused to testify.

Those arrested were described as being 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 was described as mitigating factors.

Outcome

Magdalena Solis was sentenced to 50 years in prison in June 1963.