Magdalena Solis: The High Priestess of Blood

Magdalena Solis: The High Priestess of Blood

  • Born to an impoverished dysfunctional family in Mexico, Solis became an underage prostitute to make ends meet.
  • Established a cult and convinced illiterate villagers she was a reincarnated goddess.
  • Is one of just a few documented cases of sexually motivated female serial killers.

Magdalena Solis never stood much chance at leading a normal life. Born in the 1930s to an impoverished dysfunctional family in Monterrey, Mexico, Solis became an underage prostitute to make ends meet. Her brother Eleazar was her pimp. This was her situation until 1963. Though she didn't know it yet, her life was about to take a wild and violent turn.

Magdalena

Meanwhile, brothers Santos and Cayetano Hernandez, a pair of petty thugs, had struck up a scam in the nearby small town of Yerba Buena. It was a marginalised community of 50 poor, illiterate inhabitants. The Hernandez brothers had taken advantage of the local hicks' naiveté and established a cult. The bumpkins worshipped them as High Priests of the powerful and exiled Inca gods, providing them with tribute in exchange for treasure supposedly hidden in the nearby mountain caves. For a while the Hernandez cult prospered. Santos and Cayetano kept the Yerba Buena people as sex slaves and held narcotic-fuelled orgies in the caves. Eventually though, the followers began to tire of the promised treasure failing to materialise and began to voice dissent. The High Priests had to do something.

They went to Monterrey to find prostitutes to join in on the scam and keep the ruse going. It was here that Magdalena and Eleazar met the Hernandez brothers. They joined them and returned with them to the cult. At the next cave ritual Magdalena appeared to the stunned cultists through a smoke screen. She presented as the reincarnation of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue. Eleazar became the third High Priest of the cult. The only problem was that the trick worked too well! Magdalena took her role too seriously and began to believe her own deceptions, developing a severe theological psychosis. She soon took over control of the cult and took it in an even darker direction, involving drinking blood and sadomasochism. She became known as the High Priestess of Blood.

Magdalena ruled the cult with an iron fist. When two cultists tried to leave the group, she summoned everyone else before her and the High Priests. She sentenced the two would-be deserters to death as punishment for their betrayal. The cultists, too afraid to defy Magdalena, obliged her by lynching the condemned pair. After that, any dissenting cultist became a human sacrifice in Magdalena's honour. Her blood rituals involved the cultists beating, burning, cutting and maiming the sacrificed until they bled to death. Their blood was then collected in a chalice, mixed with chicken blood (animals were also sacrificed) and drank by all present to give them supernatural powers, eternal youth and immortality. All the while they smoked vast amounts of dope and consumed peyote. This continued for some time. Four more dissenters were butchered in this manner. By the end the bloodthirsty cult had perfected the art of dissecting the still-beating hearts of their victims before they bled out. One power-hungry cultist, Jesus Rubio, tried to join the inner sanctum of the High Priests, but was rebuffed.

Human sacrifice was a religious practice of the pre-Columbian Aztec civilization
Human sacrifice was a religious practice of the pre-Columbian Aztec civilization, as well as other Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Maya and the Zapotec. The extent of the practice is debated by modern scholars.

Something happened in May 1963 that would turn out to be the beginning of the end for the cult. Attracted by the noises and lights coming from the caves, a local boy, 14-year-old Sebastian Guerrero stumbled upon the cult in the midst of a blood ritual. He fled to the closest police station and informed the cops that he had seen a group of murderous vampires preying on ecstasy and gluttonously drinking human blood. His claims were dismissed as that of a wild imagination. The next day officer Luis Martinez humoured Sebastian by returning to the cave with him before he was supposed to drive the boy home. The boy and the cop were never seen alive again.

Now police took the claims seriously. In conjunction with the army they descended on Yerba Buena on May 31. Magdalena and Eleazar were arrested at a farm in possession of a large amount of dope. Santos resisted arrest. The cops shot him for his efforts. Cayetano was assassinated by Jesus as retaliation for his earlier refusal to promote him to High Priest. The rest of the cult barricaded themselves in the caves and engaged in a shootout with the cops. Most of the cultists were shot in the fire fight. Those who were taken alive were eventually sentenced to 30 years for the murders. The Solis siblings were sentenced to 50 years each. Even now the cultists refused to testify against their leaders. The dismembered bodies of the 8 known victims were recovered, some missing their hearts (it is speculated that the actual number of victims is higher).

Magdalena Solis is one of just a few documented cases of sexually motivated female serial killers.

Serial killers, Crime
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