Santa Muerte Members May Have Sacrificed Children

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46919631/#.T3mzzGE1-So

The following is an article from MSNBC with a few paragraphs omitted the link at top will take you to the entire article.


Santa Muerte (St. Death) appears to be a holdover from the pre-Spanish days of Mexico*. It is often invoked and "prayed" to by cartel members who seem to hold that Santa Muerte can sanction stealing and murder if these are done in her name or as an offering to the same. I personally believe that the plague of beheadings, at least in part,  is an attempt for the cartel members to grasp at the old Aztec days. Many of La Raza and others hold to a sort of Mexican superiority complex and refuse to admit any influence from the Spanish or Christianity in the culture. A return to the good old times of beheading enemies will allow them a sense of power as well as frightening off any other potential enemies and guaranteeing cooperation from others.


I have very little time to write a this moment. Suffice to note that the end of the article indicates that this was done for the money that the sacrifices were expected to yield due to the blood offering. I prefer to work and avoid unnecessary expenditures in order to have money.


* Unlike other non-Christian practices that are given a sort of veil of Catholicism in Latin America, Santa Muerte devotees to do appear to have taken their practices from West African slaves. This occurred mostly on the Caribbean Islands and became known and Santeria and Voodoo.





"Mexican prosecutors are investigating the poor family living in shacks outside a small town near the U.S. border as alleged members of a cult that sacrificed two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman to Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, a figure adored mostly by outlaws but whose popularity is growing across Mexico and among Hispanics in the United States.

The killings have shocked the copper mining village of Nacozari, on the edge of the Sierra Madre, and may be the first ritual sacrifices linked to the popular saint condemned by the Roman Catholic Church.

Authorities say the throats and the wrists of the victims were cut with knives and axes, and their blood was spread on a Santa Muerte altar. Their bodies were then buried near the shacks where the alleged cult members lived.

When a 10-year-old boy went missing in July 2010, his mother and her boyfriend told police that acquaintances had seen him begging in the streets of nearby Agua Prieta across the border from Douglas, Arizona, and that they would go find him, said Espinoza.

A second 10-year-old boy went missing in early March, prompting Sonora state's missing persons unit to send agents to Nacozari, said the police chief. That boy's mother and her boyfriend reported it to state authorities, who discovered weeks later that the two boys knew people in common.

The missing boy Martin Rios was the son of the ex-girlfriend of a man named Eduardo Sanchez. The second boy, Jesus Martinez, was the step-grandson of Eduardo Sanchez's new girlfriend Silvia Meraz.

Agents on Wednesday unearthed the body of the boy Jesus Martinez buried in the dirt floor in the bedroom of one of the Meraz daughters. They then began arresting family members, who led them to what agents believe are the remains of the other boy, as well as the grave of 55-year-old Cleotilde Romero, a close friend of Meraz who disappeared in 2009.

"They thought that by offering the blood, they would be protected for some time," Larrinaga said. "According to them, Santa Muerte was going to tell them where the money was. They all identify themselves as fanatic followers of Santa Muerte."

R. Andrew Chesnut, chairman of Catholic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the book "Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint," said there have only been unconfirmed reports of human sacrifices related to the figure in Mexico in recent years.

Chesnut said the 2007 shooting deaths of three men appeared to be related to Santa Muerte because the bodies were abandoned at a shrine to the figure outside the border city of Nuevo Laredo. But they showed no signs of being sacrificial killings.

Meraz told reporters she has believed in Santa Muerte for more than two years.

"Santa Muerte was going to offer us money," Meraz said.

Asked if she thought she had received anything, she answered with a profanity, her voice breaking: "What can she give you? Nothing."