OH MY GEEZ
In Northern Mexico, during the 1950s and 1960s, sisters Delfina and Maria de Jesus Gonzalez operated a large prostitution ring. They also went on a massive murdering spree that prostitutes, wealthy men and illegitimate babies fell victim to.
Getting Busted
Like so many other murderers who have been caught in the past, the sisters were turned in by a relative when police busted them. The pair thought their family member Josefina Gonzalez might have been the person who turned them in.
Josefina played a part in the kidnapping of a local girl and when police interrogated her, she told them the horror movie worthy story about “the bordello from hell”.
Growing up in Poverty and Abused
The girls were brought into the world in poverty in El Salto de Juanacatian, Jalisco.
The girls were abused by their father, Isidro Torres, who expected them to follow a very strict set of rules. Oddly enough, he was part of the local police force who patrolled in their remote part of Mexico on horseback.
He was known to shoot people who were innocent during an argument and he would even lock the girls in jail as means of punishment for wearing clothes he deemed sexy or makeup.
Moving to San Francisco del Rincon
Because of his bad cop behavior, Torres made some enemies and had to move his family to San Francisco del Rincon, which is 100 miles north from Mexico City. The sisters started making a new life for themselves and were desperate to get away from their cruel parents.
So, they made the choice to start a prostitution business.
Buying the Saloon and Starting the Prostitution Ring
To start their ring, they knew they were going to need money so they started by opening a salon.
This wasn’t enough and they wanted more so they started offering the local police sexual favors in exchange for the police to let their business do its thing. They also started bringing local girls into prostitution and even had girls from Mexico City, San Juan de los Lagos, and San Juan del Rio.
Luring in Poor Girls from Rural Areas
The sisters had a method they developed for getting their prostitutes.
They chose girls from the rural countryside as prostitutes and the prettiest ones were offered positions as either waitresses or maids. They even went so far as to add a classified ad, promising the girls they could have a place to live while making money.
Once the girls arrived, they were forced into sex slavery.
‘The Black Eagle’ Is Hired to Kidnap Sex Workers
Every so often the sisters would become lazy and would then hire men, either Hermenegildo “The Black Eagle” Zuniga or Estrada “The Executioner” Bocanegra to kidnap girls for their prostitution ring.
These girls were held in captivity and many of them never even got to see the light of day. The virgins were placed aside for customers who would pay top dollar and the others were raped and beaten by those passing through their brothel.
The clients who visited were soldiers to councilmen. These girls received no payment for the services they were having to provide.
Killing Prostitutes
The murdering didn’t start until the prostitutes started becoming pregnant. The sisters made the girls abort their children and they burned the fetuses on the ranch.
It wasn’t long before the main brothel, Rancho El Angel, got a reputation for being a concentration camp. If girls either got sick, refused sex with customers, or developed STDs (which happened often) they were killed and then buried next to the fetuses.
Starving, Beatings and Burnings
The killings were carried out in numerous ways; locking the girls in a room until they starved, beating them with heavy logs, etc. Some of the bodies would be burned in a mass grave and others in a shallow grave.
Sometimes they even killed men who they knew to have a lot of money. It didn’t matter how much money they had, the sisters could never get past their fear of being poor.
Catalina Ortega Escapes
Even though there were so many rumors in the town, nothing was done until one of the sex workers who had been kidnapped, made an escape in 1964.
Her name was Catalina Ortega, she told police in Leon, Guanajuato about her kidnapping and the torture and abuse at the brothel. Prostitution wasn’t illegal at the time and with how many of the police participated in the activity at the brothel, nothing could have been done.
Luckily for her, the officers in the office that day weren’t clients of Rancho El Angel.
The Police Search The Gonzalez Ranch
Not too long after Ortega escaped, the sisters sent out their men to find her. Because she slipped off from a hole in the wall at the right time, she could get to her mother without being found.
Once the police started questioning anyone who may be connected to the sisters, they got the confession from Josefina and obtained the search warrant for the Rancho El Angel.
Prostitutes Show Police Where Dead were Buried
What police discovered that day was terrifying.
The girls being held were in terrible condition and were all too happy to show them where others were buried along with the children and clients.
A total of 91 dead bodies were uncovered.
The sisters were dubbed “the most prolific murder partnership” by Guinness World Records.
The Gonzalez Sisters Stand by While Bodies Are Dug Up
While volunteers excavated bodies, the sisters stood to the side wearing all black as if they were in mourning. Strangely enough, “The Black Eagle” was helping dig up the bulk of the graves.
‘The Poquianchis’ Become Headline News
After the Mexican press caught wind of the story, it blew up and the sisters received the nickname “The Poquianchis” because one of their first salons was bought from a man called “El Poquianchi”.
They hated the nickname but that didn’t stop the press.
The two were persecuted for the crimes they had committed and they even stated they participated in Satanic rituals and made the girls they kidnapped perform bestiality. One of the sisters died in jail in 1984 and the other was released in mid-1990s and disappeared soon after.
Comments