Eerie Encounters : Magdalena Solís, The High Priestess of Blood

Sebastian witnesses Anomaly 

 The Sierra Madre Oriental is a mountain range that starts from the southern border of Texas and continues 700 miles through the northwest section of Mexico. Almost halfway across this mountain range, on its eastern face, lie a series of caves. Many small isolated villages that are populated mainly by illiterate poor farmers are situated around these caves. On one night in May 1963, a 14-year-old boy from one of these small villages named Sebastian Guerrero, went out to venture into these caves. He did it quite often as there was a local belief that these caves had treasure in them.

 As always, he got out of his house, walked up the mountain and started walking towards the first cave opening he saw. As he was walking, he saw light come out of a cave opening far away on his right. From what he knew, the caves never had people visit them before especially at night hence seeing this light intrigued the young boy. He started walking towards this lit-up cave and with every step he took towards it, he was going farther away from his village.

 As he got closer and closer to the cave, he started hearing a sound that appeared to be the laughs or screams of a person. His curiosity increased and he walked even faster toward the cave. At about 200 feet away from the opening, he started hearing people singing and chanting in unity and one person screaming out of extreme pain. Sebastian slowly sneaked into the cave entrance, hid behind a big opening and peeked into it. What he saw inside terrorized him and he started running away from the cave as fast as he could. While running he had a strong sensation that he was being followed. The young boy did not run towards his village but, to a nearby police station that was almost 10 miles away.

 Sebastian did not even stop running after he broke into the front door of the police station. The police who were completely off guard by him calmed down the hysterical boy. After he finally composed himself, he opened up to the police about what he had seen.

Sebastian and Luis go missing

 Sebastian told the police that he saw a vampire inside the cave surrounded by a group of people. The police who were serious until then let out a sigh of relief and told the young boy that he might have had a nightmare and drove him back to his village. When Sebastian woke up the next day, he was not able to get what he had seen the previous night and was extremely disturbed. So, he went back to the police station and asked them to investigate the cave. The police, however, never took him seriously and shoed him away. He repeatedly insisted that something evil and dangerous was there inside the cave and if they did not intervene it would take the lives of people. After pleading repeatedly, one officer named Luis Martinez asked Sebastian to take him to the cave so that he would investigate it. Sebastian who was grateful to this officer got into the car with him and took him to the cave.

 Later in the day, the other officers started to grow worried as Luis and the kid had not returned after heading to the cave. Also, Luis was not reachable on his radio. The police waited for them to return until that evening after which, they went to Sebastian village hoping that the boy would have returned. But even Sebastian’s whereabouts were not known. It was at this point that the police understood that it was an emergency. As they were understaffed, they sought the help of the Mexican military and headed towards that cave in search of Luis and Sebastian. What they saw would shock the entire world. In order to know what they saw inside, let us travel back to December of 1962.

The ploy of the Hernández brothers

 Santos and Cayetano Hernández, two scammers who were also brothers, engineered a plan to grow wealthy quickly. To execute it, they went to a small isolated village called Yerba Buena which had only 20 families and whose primary occupants were illiterate and poor. This village was present right below the cave which Sebastian and Luis went to investigate. Right before the new year, this scammer duo got into Yerba Buena and put on a dramatic show telling how they were the prophets of an exiled Inca God. They told them that if they were obedient and did the thing they commanded, this God would bring them wealth. They were extremely good salesmen and as a result, they convinced the gullible villagers into believing their disguise and obeying them.

 The villagers believed their words so much that they practically became slaves to the brothers. They gave them anything they wanted and did everything they asked them to do. However, after a couple of months, some of the villagers started to get frustrated with the brothers as they were losing their wealth instead of gaining some. Also, they were being treated extremely bad by the Hernández brothers which made them question if they were really prophets. As this opinion was slowly beginning to become the opinion of the whole village, the brothers who had already looted the village dry decided to try and rescue their mission.

Entry of the Pseudo-Goddess 

 To accomplish this, they went to a close by city and went in search of prostitutes to aid them with their ploy. Their search ended when they met Magdalena Solís, a prostitute in the city. They told them about their ploy and asked her to pretend as an actual income goddess to instigate belief in the villagers once again. She liked this idea and agreed to do it in exchange for some money. So, she along with her brother who acted as her pimp was taken into the village secretively by the Hernández brothers. The scammer duo dressed her in an Incan goddess costume and hid her in one of the caves in the mountain. Later, they went to the village, gathered up the villagers, told them that they had a special ceremony in the cave and took them into the cave.

 After all of them were inside, they created a smoke screen using basic magic tricks and made Magdalena emerge out of it as a goddess. Standing amidst the smoke, she told them that she would kill them all if they dare disobey her. The villagers were intimidated by what she said and ended up completely believing her. The villagers started believing the Hernández brothers again and things seemed to work again.

 Everything went as planned except, for the pseudo-goddesses change in attitude. After being, a prostitute for a major portion of her life, the way these villagers saw her gave her a sense of control and respect for the very first time. She started herself as a goddess of the village and this goddess was not really a merciful one. She completely took control over the village by giving death threats and soon raised to the pinnacle of the authority structure surpassing the Hernández brothers. Although the brothers did not like this, they did not intervene as they were getting to exploit the villagers the way they wanted.

Magdalena's blood rituals

 As time went by, the pseudo-goddess started to abuse the villagers physically, mentally and sexually. She started displaying strong sadomasochistic and paedophilic tendencies and used the villagers to fulfil her extreme fetishes. She also convinced herself that in order to stay a goddess, she had to drink blood. Hence, she demanded the villagers to provide her with blood which they heeded. They slaughtered their farm animals and pets, drained out their blood and gave it to the pseudo-goddess.

 As the abuses and blood rituals continued, two villagers in some time of April felt that they had endured enough and decided to flee the village. The Hernández brothers who somehow got to know about this told Magdalena about it. After getting to know about this, she immediately told the villagers to get into the cave for a special ceremony. Once everyone was in, she pointed at the two who were planning an escape and ordered the remaining the kill them. The other villagers obliged and beat the two of them to death. Once they were dead, Magdalena dragged their corpse to a pike she had set up in the cave and tied them up. She then took a chalice, walked towards the corpses and pressed it against the bodies to fill it with their blood. Once it was filled, she proceeded to drink it. It was at this point that the pseudo-goddess felt that she should drink human blood instead of animal blood.

 In the oncoming weeks, Magdalena would call the villagers often for these blood rituals, ask the villagers to kill the one she pointed at and drink their blood. With time, she felt that killing the sacrifices spoils their blood. So, she started to tie them up, cut out their hearts while they were still alive and drink their blood.

Sebastian and Luis are discovered

 This exact scene is what poor Sebastian saw that night in the cave. The next day when he and the officer went to the cave to investigate, they would have their hearts carved out by the pseudo-goddess who would drink their blood as well.

 When the police and armed force arrived at the cave, they were attacked by the villagers which led to a shootout. The shootout killed most of the villagers and the Hernández brothers. Once the shootout stopped, they headed into the cave in search of the boy and the officer. However, they were able to only find their heartless bodies surrounded by pieces of human flesh. After searching the village, they found Magdalena and her brother hiding in a hut. They were later convicted and sentenced to 50 years in jail.