If you ever needed an example of how journalism can change the religious aspect of a story, look no further than the media outlets currently doing retrospectives on the kidnapping and killing of Mark J. Kilroy twenty years ago. Kilroy was a University of Texas pre-med student on spring break in Mexico. On March 14, 1989 he was kidnapped and ultimately killed by a group of drug traffickers lead by the charismatic and insane ex-fortune-teller to the stars Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo.

“Kilroy arrived at South Padre Island on March 11 with friends Billy Huddleston, Brent Martin and Bradley Moore, joining the tens of thousands of students who each year made the trek to a warm sun, alluring beaches and unfettered nightlife on both sides of the border. Sometime during a visit to Matamoros on their third day in the Valley and into the early morning hours of March 14, Kilroy became separated from his group. They never saw him alive again … Constanzo’s followers selected Kilroy at random. Most of the other victims were competitors in the drug trade.”

Now, here’s where things get tricky. Constanzo adhered to his own twisted and distorted variant of Palo Mayombe, and ran his drug operation like a cult (complete with brainwashed followers), with numerous ritualistic human sacrifices (mostly competitors) being done to “feed” his magical power. The Mexican press dubbed Constanzo and his followers “narcosatánicos” (Satanic drug dealers), sensationalistically linking Constanzo’s warped Afro-Carribean practice with Satanism. Now, twenty years later, The Brownsville Herald’s report takes the time to unwrap the tangled story interviewing anthropologist Tony Zavaleta, an expert in African diasporic religions who advised police twenty years ago and witnessed first-hand the horrifying work of the cult. Zavaleta makes it clear that Constanzo was a madman engaging in a twisted and isolated distortion of Palo.

“…they also found evidence of “Palo Mayombe,” an imported Afro-Caribbean religion. It would be engrained into their memories. Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, the ringleader of the drug gang, gave the religion a “bad name” in the “self-styled” manner in which he practiced it, anthropologist Tony Zavaleta said … He has met with Palo Mayombe practitioners during the past 20 years in the Rio Grande Valley, other Texas locations and Mexico City and, “They all, with no exception just lament what Constanzo did and he caused them so much harm and so much damage (to their religion).” Zavaleta said he recently talked to a “santero,” a person who practices Santería, who also is a “palero” and a “padrino.” And in talking about the 20th anniversary of the Rancho Santa Elena massacres “he went into a rant about Constanzo, about ‘ese loco,’ ” Zavaleta recounted.”

Now, compare that excellent bit of journalism by Emma Perez-Trevino with the report by local television station KVUE.

“…the work of a satanic cult, the leader, a Cuban-American who promised drug traffickers protection in exchange for human sacrifices … the satanic cult’s so-called godmother was a student at Texas Southmost College, now U.T.-Brownsville … Many still refer to it as the work of the devil, just across the border from a Spring Break paradise.”

Even though KVUE also interviews Zavaleta, they don’t include any information from him about the formation of this cult, satisfied to call it “Satanism” and move on. Now think about how many people saw that television newscast as opposed to reading the two in-depth pieces from The Brownsville Herald and you start to see how religious misinformation starts to spread. I suppose “Satanist” has a bit more “zing” than “twisted and isolated offshoot of Palo Mayombe”, but it isn’t correct and clouds the true facts of this horrible event. As horrible as this case was, and no doubt as much as ethical practitioners of Palo and related faiths wish this wasn’t in their history, the truth can ultimately benefit them. If labeled “Palo”, ethical journalists can at least find and interview modern practitioners who can explain the distorted nature of Constanzo‘s insane cult. But if they are “Satanists” then people make all sorts of troubling associations, and most likely triger interviews with “Satanic Panic” peddlers who have a vested interest in inflating a largely imagined threat (or genuine modern Satanists who will have little to no knowledge about the case).

Tags: Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, African diasporic religion, journalism, Mark J. Kilroy, Mexico, Palo, Satanic Panic, Satanism, Texas, Tony Zavaleta