Mexico's most sinister serial killers + Otis list of the worst cartel killers

Written and Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Noreste article

Subject Matter: Mexico's most notorious serial killers and Cartel killers
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

A record of the history of impulsive men and women with a cruel impulsion of death ( Otis: plus a selection of the worst killers from Cartels, who for some reason don't make this articles list, despite killing sometimes for pleasure, when it was not required ).

Reporters: Infobae and Otis B Fly-Wheel
He was called El Chalequero. He killed 20 women in eight years. All prostitutes that he beat, strangled and decapitated in the central zones of Mexico City. He was compared with "Jack the Ripper", because they were contemporaneous and he was the first serial killer registered in this country.

His history is contained in the first of four volumes of the "Red Book", edited by the Foundation for Economic Culture (FCE), that is a compilation of the crimes and criminals in Mexico's history, but it is not unique.

There was before, another Red book, published in 1870 by liberal writers such as Vincente Riva Palacio, Manuel Payno and presumably even Manuel Zarco, who made a compilation of the most famous crimes of his times.

Since then, the Red Book has been a strong element in the information on offer from Mexico, of the serial killers and the main protagonists. Through the recounting of crimes and murders, both of the individuals, and the collective ones that shake us by waves, it is possible to narrate a chronicle of the country, wrote the journalist and playwright Vincente Lenero in the prologue of the first volume of the Red Book in 2008.



Here we present a record of the history of the most famous serial killers in Mexico, from El Chalequero to the Mataviejitas, named by the media, real name Juana Barrazas, a woman arrested in 2006 and sentenced to 759 years in prison for the murder of 16 adults.

The term serial killers is attributed to FBI agent Robert Ressler, who in his book "serial killers" of 1998, narrates that he coined the name when recalling the television adventure series he saw as a child, because at the end of each chapter the viewer was left in suspense until the following weeks episode. He assures this sensation remains in the serial killer when they discover that the crime has not been as perfect as they live out in their fantasies.

Says Ressler: " after every crime, the serial killer thinks of things he could have done to make the killing more satisfying". That is a fixed idea that leads him to act again, writes the former agent.

In Mexico, forensic psychology has delineated some of its characteristics, but the best knowledge of the cases of Mexican serial killers is the Red Book of events, which has served to document their histories. Here are some that caused a stir at the time.

Francisco Guerrero, "El Chalequero".

Between 1880 and 1888 this man killed 20 prostitutes. The chronicles of the time describe him as a man who, despite being almost illiterate, acted in a very polite way with women to gain their trust. But in reality he was quarrelsome, vile, self serving and manipulative. The nickname of El Chalequero came from his style of dress, as they say he used to wear fitted pants, sashes and a vest. The Police arrested him on February the 13th, 1888, after being denounced by the neighbors of one of his victims.

The authorities could not verify his responsibility in the rest of the murders, but one was enough for him to get the death sentence. However, the then President Porfirio Diaz revoked his sentence and ordered a 20 year prison sentence in San Juan de Ulua, Veracruz, where he was released by mistake in 1904. Upon leaving prison he had one last victim, Antonia, an elderly woman whom he raped, beat and killed. His arrest is attributed to a reporter who investigated the case and compared the murder to those that occurred years ago. He returned to prison in 1908. This time to Lecumberri, where he was sentenced to death in 1910 at age 70.

Gregorio Cardenas "Goyo"

Known as "The Strangler of Tacumba", he committed his crimes between August and September of 1942. His victims were a work companion in chemical sciences, and 3 prostitutes. He first had sexual intercourse with them, then hanged them and buried them in the garden of his house. In 1942 he confessed his crimes after his mother admitted him to a psychiatric hospital.

He was imprisoned in Lecumberri, Goyo kept to himself in prison: he attended psychiatric classes, received family visits, maintained relationships with nurses and even had a license to leave whenever he wanted. He obtained his freedom in 1976 by a pardon of the then president Luis Echeverria and that year, the house of representatives paid him a tribute for being an example of social re adaptation.

Higinio Sobera de la Flor "El Pelon"

His first murder reported by the press occurred in 1952. His victim was the driver of the then Miss Mexico, Ana Bertha Lepe. He was a captain of the Army who he shot in the central Insurgentes Avenue in the streets of Yucatan, in the Roma colonia. The press reported after the crime, El Pelon took refuge in the arms of his mother, who protected him from a violent father. Some books identify him as an industrial or landowner in the state of Tabasco.

His mother took him to a hotel and from there he went looking for a woman to have sex with. His next victim was a woman he did not know and who refused to drink coffee with him. He kidnapped her, took her to a motel and killed her. The authorities could only prove these two homicides, but they suspected that he was responsible for other deaths.

Already in the prison of Lecumberri, doctors Alfonso Quiroz Cuaron, Alfonso Millan and Jose Sol Casao examined him and diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. He was sent to the asylum of La Castaneda. There he was called the " psychotic muralist" because with his own excrement he painted murals on the walls. Upon obtaining his freedom, many years later, the legend ran that he was seen wandering through the forest of Chapultepec, throwing bread crumbs to the animals.

Macario Alcala Canchola "The Mexican Jack"

There was only ever proof that he murdered two prostitutes, but there was suspicion that he killed 12 more. His crimes occurred in the sixties, in Mexico City and the press called him "Mexican Jack" because he identified himself this way during his trial. He came from a low income family, he had a basic education and his life was marked by failure: for a time he was a member of the Presidential Guard, but was fired for his incompetence and indiscipline.

Later he wanted to dedicate himself to boxing, but he never managed to stand out. Then he went to work as a preventative police, and adopted the false name of Fernando Ramirez Luna, but he was also fired after being accused and found guilty of charges of abuse of authority and excessive use of force during arrests.

He was married and had several children. During the investigations into the killings and subsequent trial, his wife declared that Macario "feels superior to everyone around him". He was arrested for the killing of a woman named Julia, who was found dead in a hotel in September 1962. In the mirror, Macario left a message written with lipstick that said: "Mexican Jack, I challenge Cueto", the then Police Chief.

That same month he was arrested and taken to prison, and sentenced to 60 years.

The Gonzalez Valenzuela sisters "Las Poquianchis"

This is how the Gonzalez Valenzuela sisters, Maria Luisa, Delfina, Maria de Jesus and Carmen were known, and to whom there is attributed at least 150 murders, most of them prostitutes who worked in their brothels. The authorities alleged that many of their victims were buried alive. They were originally from El Salto, Jalisco, and during their childhood they were victims of family violence. To escape the abuse of their father, Carmen eloped with her boyfriend when she was a teenager. But her father found her and had her imprisoned in the municipal prison.

The sisters worked as labourers in a textile factory, where they received miserable salaries, ( Otis: not much changed there then). When their parents died, they received a modest inheritance and used it to open a brothel and began their crimes. They gained fame for their bar in San Francisco de Rincon, Guanajuato, where they were called "Los Poquianchis". They recruited women using deceit and forced them into prostitution.

On January 6th of 1964, they were arrested after one of their victims escaped and reported them. The authorities found a small cemetery with human remains. Their story inspired Jorge Ibarguengoitia to write his novel " Las Muertas", which served as a script for the same file directed by Felipe Cazals.

Juana Barraza Samperio "La mataviejitas"

As a fighter she was called " The lady of silence". This woman was found responsible for at least 12 robberies and 16 murders of elderly people committed between 1990 and 2006, in Mexico City. She went to their houses posing as a nurse and then killed and robbed them. That is why the press named her as "La mataviejitas". She was sentenced to 759 years in prison and is still imprisoned in Santa Martha prison, where she claimed her innocence in various interviews with the press.

After nine years in prison, in July 2015 she married another inmate but a year later they were divorced. One fact was that she always wore red when committing her crimes.

Raul Osiel Marroquin "El Sadico"

He kidnapped all his victims, all homosexuals, whom he hanged, butchered and placed their bodies in suitcases the he left in the vicinity of the Metro Chabacano and Asturias colonia, in Mexico City. "I do not regret what I did, if I had the opportunity I would do it again, only that I would be more careful not to be caught, and would not make the same mistakes that lead to my capture, the only thing I regret is what my family is going through now", he said after his arrest in January of 2006, he was sentenced to 288 years in prison for the 4 persons he was charged with killing.

Jose Luis Calva Zepeda "The cannibal of Guerrero"

Authorities said he was responsible for three murders of women: his partner, a former girlfriend and a prostitute. But not only that: they found that he ate parts of their bodies and that's why they called him " The Cannibal of Guerrero", because he lived and operated in the Guerrero  colonia of Mexico City. He was arrested on October the 8th of 2007 and died on December 11th of the same year after committing suicide in jail with a belt.

OTIS: LIST OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS CARTEL KILLERS, MAKES THOSE ABOVE LOOK LIKE MOTHER THERESA IN COMPARISON. ALL HAVE ALLEGED BODY COUNTS IN THREE FIGURES, AND HAVE TAKEN PART IN THE KILLING NOT JUST ORDERING EXECUTIONS.

This list must be subjective and not exhaustive as there have been so many, with very few cases ever proven and much of what is said has probably been exaggerated to inflate the climate of fear required by the cartels to operate in the manner they do.

No 1. Los manos con ojos, Óscar Osvaldo García Montoya “El Compayito”
Affiliation: Beltran Leyva Organization

Garcia Montoya is said to have personally committed 300 murders and ordered up to 600 others during his criminal career which began in 2002 as a sicario for the Beltran Leyva brothers. During this time he was a high level operative for Arturo Beltran Leyva, Édgar Valdez Villarreal "La Barbie", José Gerardo Álvarez "El Indio" and Jose Jorge Balderas “El JJ”. 

Garcia Montoya served in Mexico’s Marines and under went counterinsurgency training in Guatemala by a unit of Los Kaibiles, an elite Guatemalan army unit known for its extreme violence and human rights abuses during the civil war against leftist guerrillas in that country.

Garcia Montoya, 36 years old, was born in Guasave, Sinaloa, and served in police forces in Baja California and Sinaloa after leaving the military.
 
Among the executions attributed to Garcia Montoya was the beheading of 24 laborers in the La Marquesa area of Mexico City in 2009, a crime which shocked the nation at the time for its brutality that is commonplace today. 

(Otis: without doubt Garcia Montoya loved killing, a psychopath with few equals for the amount of kills he racked up. How he didn't make the list above is any one's guess.)

No 2. Jesus Ernesto Chavez Castillo, The Camel
Affilitation: Bario Azteca/Juarez Cartel

In shocking testimony during the murder trial of an alleged Mexican drug cartel enforcer, the star witness in the case - himself a cartel hit man - told jurors that he stopped keeping track of the number of people he had killed when the number approached 800.

Jesus Ernesto Chavez Castillo, the star witness in the trial of his former boss, Arturo Gallegos Castrellon,gave grisly details about how Castrellon grew the Barrio Azteca gang from a Texas prison gang into the band of contract killers for one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels, the Juarez Cartel.

Chavez testified that he had a daily murder quota he was expected to meet to instill fear in police, elected officials and the public at large.

Chavez - under Castrellon's rule - says he helped earn Juarez, Mexico, the title of 'Murder Capital of the World' by killing thousands of people over a four-year period while working for the cartel.

In addition to the staggering number of murders for which Chavez has taken credit, the manner in which he killed is as brutal as it is shocking.

Chavez told jurors that he often beheaded or dismembered his victims as a means to impress his boss, Castrellon. The goal of each murder, he testified, was to make it as brutal as possible so 'that it would be big news.'

(Otis: another psychopath who enjoyed killing immensely, felt not a single second of remorse for any of his victims, like many others making this list, he could butcher someone, then sit down and eat dinner like nothing had happened).

No 3: Manuel Torres Felix, El M1, El Ondeado
Affiliation: Sinaloa Cartel

El Ondeado makes the list not because of the amount of kills he racked up, but because of the amount of people he killed in just a few short weeks after the death of his son and wounding of his daughter at the hands of the Beltran Leyva Organization. Allegedly he ordered anyone from BLO or Los Zetas, and all their support staff rounded up and brought to his ranch where he personally sadistically tortured and killed them himself. The butchers bill was over 200 persons in just two weeks.

4: Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, El Diego
Affiliation: La Linea/Juarez Cartel

Acosta Hernandez admitted after becoming the head of La Linea in 2008 that he had personally ordered or participated in more than 1500 murders. Even if we take that ratio of 3:1 he personally killed over 500 people. Another ice in the veins, cold blooded psychopathic killer that the world could have done without.

5: Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, El Lazca, The Executioner, El Verdugo
Affiliation: Los Zetas

El Lazca pioneered a lot of the torture and killing techniques used by Los Zetas for maximum psychological effect on the Mexican public, his enemies and the Mexican Government. Another killer who personal count was in the multiple hundreds, and who enjoyed cruel and unusual means of killing animals as well as humans, with being killed by immersion in boiling oil among his favorites. He had no compunction in killing women, children, men or animals. El Lazca has been accused of cannibalism.

Certainly his own men were more scared of what he might do to them than the enemy cartels might. He took brutality to new heights in Mexico, and the antagonistic cartels rushed to catch up in their brutality.

6: Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, El Z-40
Affiliation: Los Zetas

El Z-40 has a reputation for sadism matched by very few in Mexico. If even half the stories attributed to him were correct, his reputation is well founded. Trained by El Lazca himself, his personal love of killing is legendary even among the list above and below. His pleasure in seeing his victims suffer, and his bloodthirsty methods and at odds with the manner in which he was captured, without offering any resistance.

Rosalio Retta, aka Bart Simpson, the Zeta hit man said that Z-40 was the most blood thirsty man he ever met in Los Zetas, and that he was never happier than when torturing or killing someone. Z-40 is thought to have a body count into the hundreds, and enjoyed a guiso, stuffing a live person into a 200 litre diesel container, dousing them in gasoline and setting them alight. George Grayson RIP who wrote several books on Los Zetas designated El Z-40, the most sadistic sicario of all. He, like El Lazca, has also been accused of cannibalism.

7: Melissa Margarita Calderon Ojeda: La China
Affiliation: Sinaloa cartel

Our list couldn't be complete without at least one female, and she is Melissa Margarita Calderon Ojeda, aka La China. She worked in Baja California Sur for Fuerzas Especiales del Damaso. She rose quickly through the ranks to take charge of the Los Damaso in La Paz and Cabo San Lucas. She greatly increased the murder rate in BCS and would arrange for people to be kidnapped, and after killing and dismembering them, she would have their body parts left on the doorsteps of their houses.

With a personal body count of over 180 victims, she became so blood thirsty that her own boyfriend turned her in, after she defected from Los Damaso, when the Sinaloa cartel wanted to replace her with El Grande, freshly out of prison.

8: Edgar Huerta Montiel, El Wache
Affiliation: Los Zetas

Edgar Huerta Montiel, El Wache, has been linked to some of Mexico's worse massacres, including the San Fernando 72, and the Allende massacre. When interviewed by authorities he admitted to personally killing over 600 persons, and given the amount of people disappeared by Los Zetas, this figure may not be that far from the truth.

El Wache worked for Los Zetas in the San Fernando area, kidnapping bus loads of migrants. Organizing gladiator style battles between the bus passengers to see whom had the willingness to kill, so they could be trained as Los Zetas cannon fodder. Witnesses saw him personally kill 10 men from just one bus.

Many of the above sadistically enjoyed killing but does that necessarily make them psychopaths? Indeed not, many cartel sicarios interviewed claim they had no choice in the matter, because if they did not kill under the cartels orders, they would have been killed themselves. This has been seen in many wars where troops who would not attack would face fire from their own side for cowardice.

For all of the peaceful societies around the world, men and indeed women who would not hurt anyone, have been conscripted in armies and become efficient killers for their countries, but the difference being, they stopped when it was not required any more. The killers in the list above all killed when it was not necessary and were seen to enjoy killing and torturing subjects.

A psychopath lacks conscience, guilt and empathy which makes them manipulative, volatile and sometimes criminal, a psychopath is a pathological liar, has a grandiose sense of self worth, no regard for law and order and has shallow emotions.

Below is a list of traits shown by psychopaths and one can see how, many of the above showed most or all of these traits.

glib and superficial charm
grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self
need for stimulation
pathological lying
cunning and manipulativeness
lack of remorse or guilt
superficial expression of emotion
callousness and lack of empathy
parasitic lifestyle
poor behavioural controls
sexual promiscuity
early behaviour problems
lack of realistic long-term goals
impulsive irresponsibility
failure to accept responsibility for own actions
many short-term marital relationships
juvenile delinquency