Magdalena Solís: The High Priestess of Blood
The former child prostitute came to believe she was the reincarnation of an ancient Aztec goddess, and commanded her followers to engage in human sacrifice
It was a warm May day in 1963 when 14-year-old Sebasian Guerrero was out exploring near the small village of Yerbabuena (sometimes spelled Yerba Buena) in southern Tamaulipas, Mexico. At the feet of the eastern Sierra Madre mountains, the area had many caves — and many legends about lost gold and hidden treasures inside them.
It was near dark when Gurrero saw something that intrigued him: flickering lights coming from inside a nearby cave. As he got closer to investigate, he began hearing sounds — human sounds, but not sounds of talking or singing. He may have even caught a whiff of the scent of incense — probably copal, the resin used since the Aztecs, now favored by brujos and curanderos.
His curiosity now nearly eclipsed with fear, Guerrero approached the mouth of the cave, careful to stay silent and out of sight. As he cautiously peered inside, his eyes came upon a scene too terrible to be believed.
Inside the large cavern, most of the villagers were gathered. Many of them were nude, engaging in sex; others were passing around a ceremonial chalice, drinking the dark fluid it contained.
At the far end of the cave, upon an elaborate altar, Guerrero saw where the dark fluid came from: a human being, hacked to pieces, the final drops of his blood being collected in chalices.
Standing above them all was a woman, holding the bleeding heart of the man who was lying on the altar.
Terrified, Guerrero ran more than 15 miles to the town of Villagrán — the closest police station to the isolated village. There, he breathlessly tried to explain what he saw, saying the villagers were “drinking blood like vampires.”
The Villagrán police laughed the boy off, thinking his imagination had carried him away.
But he insisted that something terrible was happening in the caves near Yerbabuena. So the next day, police inspector Luis Martínez agreed to follow the boy to the area to see for himself.
Neither of them would be seen alive again.
Until recently, the small village of Yerbabuena had been quiet — sleepy, even. Even calling it a “village” was giving it too much credit: it was actually an ejido, or communal farm, comprising only about 20 families.
There were no schools, or police, or even a church. The poor, mostly illiterate residents engaged in subsistence farming, selling what little corn and beans they could spare in the nearby towns.
Then, in 1962, the Hernández brothers, Santos and Cayetano, arrived in Yerbabuena. The brothers had previously traveled around northwest Mexico, pulling off various scams and then leaving town before they could be caught. Why they chose Yerbabuena, an isolated village without any money or resources, is a mystery.
When the Hernández brothers arrived, they claimed to be prophets of the ancient Incan gods. Using slight-of-hand tricks, they convinced the villagers that they had supernatural powers. The brothers told the villagers that, if they obeyed the brothers and followed their directions, they would be led to the vast riches rumored to be hidden in the nearby caves.
To bolster their claims, the brothers made up strange rituals with cannabis-laced incense smoke and animal sacrifice, which they performed inside one of the caves.
Since the poor villagers had no money to give them, the brothers began demanding other “tithes.” They ordered the villagers to serve them, essentially making the entire village their slaves. The small-time scammers were now living like kings.
They also sought out the prettiest girls in the village — even as young as 14 — and told their parents that the girls needed to be given to the brothers to “learn about sex.” The villagers didn’t dare disobey, since this was the word of the gods, after all.
Once the brothers had had their fun with the girls, they would sell them off to traffickers who would send the girls to the border towns and force them into sex work.
The brothers didn’t just demand sex with the young girls, however. They would demand sex from nearly anyone, at any time, and the awe-struck villagers had to obey. After a time, the rituals began to include sex, essentially turning into orgies.
However, as the months went by and there was no gold, some of the villagers began questioning the Hernández brothers’ supposed power. So, in order to keep the scam going, the brothers told the villagers that they would leave to go talk to their gods, and would come back with a goddess.
Of course, the brothers didn’t travel to a mountaintop to pray; they traveled to Monterrey, the largest nearby city and home to some of the sex traffickers they had previously dealt with. Their plan was to convince a sex worker to come back to Yerbabuena with them and pretend to be a goddess in order to keep fleecing the villagers.
It didn’t take them long to find Magdalena Solís. Solís had been forced into prostitution at the age of 12, but also had a lucrative side-hustle as a fortune-teller and medium, claiming to channel the spirits of long-dead brujas. When the Hernández brothers told her about the scam, she eagerly accepted, and she — along with her pimp/brother, Eleazar — traveled back to Yerbabuena with the Hernández brothers.
She did not simply ride in on the back of a horse, however. Once the brothers returned to the village, they told everyone that their goddess would arrive that night, but they had to perform a ritual to summon her.
So, that evening, the villagers participated in the brothers’ ritual. At one point, the brothers produced a thick cloud of smoke, and once it cleared, Solís stood before them. The villagers were awestruck.
The formerly abused girl now held total power over the villagers. She was supplied with all the cannabis and peyote she wanted — which was quite a bit. Under the influence of these drugs, Solís now really believed she was a goddess — specifically, the reincarnation of the Aztec (Mexica) mother goddess Coatlicue.
Under her reign, the cave rituals began to become even darker. Villagers were given peyote — either consensually or not — during the rituals, making them highly susceptible to her commands. Solís insisted that not only should they perform animal sacrifice, but that they should drink the blood to gain immortality.
The ritual orgies escalated as well. Like nearly everything else, they were directed by Solís, who demanded the villagers engage in incest and bestiality.
At one point, two of the village men began to question the increasingly disturbing new religion and wanted to leave. So Solís labeled them as “unbelievers” and ordered the villagers to beat the men, then lynch them.
From that point, her blood lust spiraled out of control. She insisted that the rituals now include human sacrifice, and any villager who wasn’t obedient enough would find themselves on the altar, to be beaten, burned, and hacked to pieces by their fellow villagers.
Not content with simply butchering her victims, now Solís began copying ancient Aztec sacrificial rituals, cutting the hearts out of her victims while they were still alive. It was one of these gruesome rituals that Guerrero had stumbled upon that warm May evening.
When days went by and Guerrero and Martínez didn’t return, the Villagrán police went to the state police. On May 31, 1963, the state police, along with a contingent of the Army, went to Yerbabuena to find the missing men and learn what was going on.
They found the Solíses, along with Santos Hernández, in a farmhouse, “high off their faces” and in possession of a large amount of cannabis. The Solíses were promptly arrested, but Hernández attempted to flee. The police shot him dead.
Seeing the massive armed forces descending on their little village and arresting their goddess, the rest of the villagers holed up in the surrounding caves. The villagers and the police and army engaged in a shootout, but the few poor villagers were massively outgunned. Those who survived the shootout were taken into custody.
Upon searching the area, police found the bodies of Guerrero and Martínez on the property of the farmhouse where the Solíses had been living. Their hearts had been cut out of their bodies. A search of the nearby caves yielded the bodies of six more victims, many of whom had been dismembered.
Cayetano Hernández was also found dead, but police would later learn he had been murdered by another villager, Jesus Rubio. Rubio had learned of the brothers’ scam and wanted in on it. When Hernández refused to cut him in, Rubio murdered him.
The Solíses, along with Santos Hernández and the other villagers arrested in the raid, stood trial in Ciudad Victoria. Since none of the villagers would testify against them, Magdalena and Eleazar Solís were only convicted of the murders of Guerrero and Martínez. They were sentenced to 50 years each.
The remaining villagers were convicted of “group or gang murder or lynching” for the other six victims and given 30-year sentences.
Though the remains of eight people were found, it was suspected that the cult may have murdered up to 16 people.
It isn’t known what happened to Solís; if she served her time, she would have been released in 2013. However, some reports state she died in prison.
Sources:
“Magdalena Solis: The High Priestess of Blood,” Bizarrepedia. https://www.bizarrepedia.com/magdalena-solis/
“Mexican Death Cult,” Murder With Friends. https://youtu.be/STb2oZZ9fIg
Thomas, Jessika, “The Haunting Story of Magdalena Solis, The Mexican Prostitute-Goddess Who Took Over a Murder Cult,” Ranker.com. https://www.ranker.com/list/magdalena-solis-facts/jessika-gilbert
Zavaleta, Tony, “The Cult of Yerba Buena.” https://drtonyzavaleta.com/the-cult-of-yerba-buena/
