Magdalena Solís was 16 years old in the spring of 1963, according to the Tamaulipas newspaper Expreso, when two brothers from a small farming settlement in northeastern Mexico brought her from Monterrey to act as the priestess of a cult they had built on a promise of buried treasure. Within weeks the cult at La Yerbabuena, in the municipality of Villagrán, Tamaulipas, had turned on its own neighbors. On May 31, 1963, two people were burned to death in the settlement, and before dawn the next day a police raid ended in a gunfight that, by the count Expreso found in the papers of the time, left 14 dead, 15 wounded and 40 under arrest. Magdalena Solís and her brother Eleazar were caught soon afterward.
Almost everything else said about her is later retelling. Popular accounts in English and Spanish give her a title, the "High Priestess of Blood," and a long list of ritual killings carried out over weeks in caves near the village. The reports of 1963 that can be traced, as relayed by two Tamaulipas news outlets in 2021, describe something smaller and more confused: a fraud that had held a poor community for months, two killings by burning, a frightened teenage witness, and a police operation that went badly wrong. Her trial is known only from later accounts that cite no court record, and no reliable account says what became of her.
La Yerbabuena was a former ranch in Villagrán, in the hills of western Tamaulipas near the border with Nuevo León. It became an ejido, a communal land grant, through the efforts of the men who later led the cult. According to Expreso, Cayetano Hernández Rivera was born there on August 7, 1919, and his brother Santos on February 15, 1923. In November 1957 Cayetano led local farmers in asking Governor Norberto Treviño Zapata for ejido land, and the grant was made on July 28, 1960. El Mañana of Nuevo Laredo, in a 2026 retrospective, described the settlement as home to about 50 people who grew maize and beans for their own use, isolated and without paved roads.
Expreso's account, written by Marvin Osiris Huerta Márquez in 2021 from Monterrey and Guadalajara newspapers of 1963, says the Hernández brothers used their standing to present themselves as high priests of a mixture of doctrines. They promised their neighbors a share of a treasure hidden in the mountains, and in return took their possessions and support. Many residents, the article says, paid them tribute. The brothers bought marijuana outside the village and shared it at their gatherings.
Many popular retellings make the Hernández brothers drifting criminals who arrived from somewhere else. The Expreso account, built on local records, has them born in the place and among the founders of its ejido. A 2017 feature by Canal 5 of Televisa and a 2021 article in Infobae both describe the cult as a fraud that mixed Aztec and Inca mythology and took money from the people of Yerbabuena.
The treasure never appeared, and the followers began to lose faith. According to Expreso, it was then that the brothers went to Monterrey to find a woman to serve as a priestess. They found María Magdalena Solís Castillo, then reported to be 16, and her brother Eleazar, 21. The Solís siblings came from the ejido José Delgado in the municipality of Mainero, next to La Yerbabuena.
Expreso says that once she was installed at La Yerbabuena she took a leading part in the group's gatherings. It reports that, under the influence of marijuana and peyote, she ordered two young men of the village who wanted to leave the group to be lynched. The article does not name the two men or give a date. No court record showing these killings to be hers has been reported, and the reports relayed in 2021 do not say how they became known.
Later accounts say much more. Televisa, Infobae and El Mañana describe her being presented to the followers as the reincarnation of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, and they describe weeks of ritual killings. None of these retellings traces those details to a document, a witness or a 1963 report. The 1963 reports relayed by Expreso and by Opinión Pública record that villagers spoke of sacrifices and secret burials in a cave near the settlement, and that police were still searching for it on June 6, 1963. Whether such a place, or any further victims, were ever found was not reported.
On Friday, May 31, 1963, Cayetano Hernández was shot dead with a shotgun at La Yerbabuena, according to Expreso. Opinión Pública, an online news outlet in Tamaulipas, wrote in 2021, from the reports of El Diario de Ciudad Victoria, that Cayetano, who styled himself "El Santo Padre," was killed by his own companions. Neither account names the person who fired. Several later retellings name a follower as the killer, but none of them traces that name to a 1963 report.
Cayetano's death set off a day of violence against people outside the group. Expreso reports that a member of the cult put the blame on Celina Saldaña, a housewife of the ejido. She was burned to death. Héctor Arias, a visitor from La Boquilla, Nuevo León, was burned with her. Opinión Pública lists Celina Saldaña and two brothers, Arturo and Héctor Arias Luna, among those killed, and says the two brothers were burned alive. Expreso says another paper of the time reported that a man named Armando Arisa Lerma also died in the fire.
According to the 1963 reports summarized by Expreso, Santos Hernández and the Solís siblings told the crowd that fire would purify the spirits of those being killed. That is the most direct link between Magdalena Solís and any death that the traceable 1963 reporting records. A woman of the village who was badly beaten that day survived because police reached her in time.
Celina Saldaña and Héctor Arias are known from these reports only by name, by her place in the ejido and by his home in Nuevo León. Neither the 1963 reports relayed in 2021 nor any later account records their ages, their families or anything else about their lives.
A 14-year-old boy, Sebastián Guerrero, saw the killings and walked about 25 kilometers to Villagrán to tell the police, according to Expreso. Only one officer took him seriously: Luis Martínez Hernández, an agent of the state secret police, who called Ciudad Victoria for reinforcements.
The popular version of this part of the story is different. In it, Martínez walks the boy back to the village alone, and neither is seen alive again; Televisa in 2017 and Infobae in 2021 both tell it that way, and Infobae adds that the bodies of both were later found near the caves. The 1963 reports relayed by Expreso and Opinión Pública do not describe any such walk. In those reports Agent Martínez Hernández died in the police raid on June 1, and Expreso lists Sebastián Guerrero among the dead of that day as well. The reports relayed in 2021 do not say how the boy died. Opinión Pública, following El Diario de Ciudad Victoria, lists among those shot by police after firing on officers a 14-year-old it names José Guerrero; whether the two accounts refer to the same boy is not stated in either source.
A detachment of the secret police from Ciudad Victoria, under commanders José Inés Infante and Juan Piña, with Román Juárez as chief, reached La Yerbabuena at about five in the morning on Saturday, June 1, 1963, Expreso reports. Its agents included Jesús Santillán, Antonio Pérez, Ángel Torres Balboa, Octavio Cruz Alemán, Manuel González and Juan Rodríguez Briones.
Rodríguez Briones gave his account to El Porvenir of Monterrey from the Civil Hospital in Ciudad Victoria, where he was being treated for a gunshot wound. "We were met with gunfire by a very large group of people," he said, in Expreso's quotation of the 1963 report. He estimated that at least 20 people were inside the building where the shooting began, and said that the followers of Santos Hernández shouted "¡Adelante con Cristo!" ("Forward with Christ!") as they fired. He saw fellow officers fall, among them Luis Martínez Hernández, before he was hit.
The Guadalajara daily El Informador, as cited by Expreso, reported that agents Gregorio Briones, Alfonso Nava, Guillermo Ramírez and Guadalupe Ramírez were also killed. Wounded officers named in the reports include Cruz Barrientos, Guadalupe Nava González and Rodríguez Briones. Dr. José Hernández, director of the Civil Hospital in Ciudad Victoria, spoke to the press about the wounded.
Opinión Pública, following El Diario de Ciudad Victoria, which put out an extra edition on June 1, adds that Commander Juan E. Piña of the rural police survived when a bullet struck his metal badge, and that the municipal trustee (síndico) Vicente Sánchez and the municipal police commander Leopoldo Estrella were among the wounded. Governor Praxedis Balboa Gojon sent the state attorney general, Pablo Villanueva, with security forces and went to the town hall at Villagrán himself. The photographer Juan Nava Baltiérrez documented the events.
The army's part was unclear even at the time. According to Expreso, people in Linares, Nuevo León, reported a convoy under a Major Rogelio Gómez, with four officers, 57 soldiers and six vehicles, passing through around midnight. The Seventh Military Zone said it had no involvement, but its chief of staff, Colonel José Durán Almaraz, said unofficially that two platoons from the Eighth Military Zone at Tampico had entered the ejido. Opinión Pública says army forces arrived from Tampico after the first exchange of fire.
The counts differ. The figure in Expreso's account is 14 dead, 15 wounded, four of them gravely, and 40 arrested. Opinión Pública gives the first toll reported by El Diario de Ciudad Victoria as seven dead and ten wounded, police among them, and says rural police took 39 prisoners to Victoria. Both accounts say Santos Hernández was killed by police; Opinión Pública says he died with a man named Juan Vázquez Guerrero and the 14-year-old it calls José Guerrero, after they resisted arrest and fired on officers.
The prisoners taken to Victoria included many women and children. Opinión Pública says some of the teenagers had fired weapons during the fight. Most of the prisoners were released on June 5, according to Expreso, and most of those refused to go back to the ejido.
On June 6, more personnel from Victoria were sent to reinforce the rural police of Mainero and Villagrán. The teaching of the Hernández brothers had spread to neighboring settlements, and the police were looking for suspects there, as well as for the cave the villagers had described.
Magdalena and Eleazar Solís got away during the shooting. They were found soon afterward hiding on a farm nearby with a large quantity of marijuana, Expreso reports. Opinión Pública says the cult's leaders had fled and that rural police under Commander Piña captured them later, naming Eleazar and María Magdalena Solís among several people taken. The sources do not give the date or the circumstances of the capture in more detail.
The charges filed against Magdalena Solís, the court that heard her case, the date of any verdict and the sentence have never been published from any court record. The two 2021 Tamaulipas accounts built on 1963 newspapers stop with the arrests and the search of early June 1963. Neither reports a trial.
Later accounts do report one. Televisa's 2017 feature says Magdalena and Eleazar Solís were sentenced to 50 years in prison. Infobae, citing in part the Mexican criminologist Ricardo Ham's 2016 book on Mexican serial killers, reported in 2021 that the siblings were convicted only of the deaths of Sebastián Guerrero and Luis Martínez, the only killings that could be proven, because surviving members refused to testify, and that each received 50 years. El Mañana in 2026 said surviving members were prosecuted, that most received up to 30 years, and that Magdalena Solís received 50. None of these accounts names a court, a judge, a date or a case number.
The reported conviction for the two deaths of the boy and the agent sits uneasily beside the 1963 reports relayed in 2021, in which both died during the police raid, amid gunfire from many people. How a court could have assigned those deaths to the Solís siblings, who are not described in those reports as among the shooters, is not explained in any account. The sentence therefore rests on the claims of later accounts and is not an established fact.
Nothing reliable records how long Magdalena Solís spent in prison, where she was held, whether she was released, or when or where she died. The same is true of her brother Eleazar.
The number of victims. Popular accounts attribute eight killings to the group and suspect Magdalena Solís of more, a figure repeated by Infobae in 2021. The 1963 reports relayed in 2021 record two people burned on May 31 (three if Armando Arisa Lerma is counted), the two young men said to have been lynched earlier, and the dead of the June 1 raid. The raid deaths were the result of a gunfight between police and the followers of Santos Hernández.
The rituals. The descriptions of blood rites, of victims killed over six weeks in caves, and of Magdalena Solís presented as a reborn goddess come from later retellings that cite no record. The 1963 reports relayed in 2021 mention only that villagers spoke of sacrifices and secret burials in a cave, which police were looking for on June 6.
The date of the raid. Several later accounts, including Infobae and El Mañana, put the raid on May 31, 1963. The 1963 reports relayed by Expreso and Opinión Pública put the burnings on May 31 and the raid in the early hours of June 1.
The death of Cayetano Hernández. Later accounts name a follower as his killer and give a ritual motive. Expreso says only that he was shot with a shotgun, and Opinión Pública that his own companions killed him.
The boy and the agent. In the popular story, Sebastián Guerrero and Luis Martínez walked into the village together and vanished. In the reports relayed from 1963, the agent died in the raid and a boy of 14 was among the dead.
The place. Some later articles put La Yerbabuena in San Luis Potosí or in the municipality of Mainero. Expreso and Opinión Pública place it in Villagrán, Tamaulipas, next to Mainero, where the Solís family came from.
The sentence. The 50-year terms are reported only in later accounts, with no court record traced.
August 7, 1919: Cayetano Hernández Rivera born at La Yerbabuena (Expreso).
February 15, 1923: Santos Hernández born at La Yerbabuena (Expreso).
November 1957: Cayetano Hernández leads local farmers in asking Governor Norberto Treviño Zapata for ejido land.
July 28, 1960: the ejido land grant is made.
Late 1962 or early 1963: the Hernández brothers' treasure cult is under way at La Yerbabuena.
1963, before May 31: the brothers bring Magdalena Solís, reported as 16, and her brother Eleazar, 21, from Monterrey; two young men who wanted to leave the group are lynched, on her order according to Expreso.
May 31, 1963 (Friday): Cayetano Hernández is shot dead; Celina Saldaña and Héctor Arias are burned to death; a boy of 14 reports the killings to police at Villagrán.
June 1, 1963 (Saturday), about 5 a.m.: secret police from Ciudad Victoria reach La Yerbabuena and are met with gunfire; Santos Hernández, Agent Luis Martínez Hernández and others are killed. El Diario de Ciudad Victoria publishes an extra edition.
Early June 1963: Magdalena and Eleazar Solís are found hiding on a nearby farm and arrested.
June 5, 1963: most of the prisoners taken to Victoria are released.
June 6, 1963: police reinforcements search neighboring settlements and the hills near La Yerbabuena.
Date not recorded: later accounts report that the Solís siblings were sentenced to 50 years in prison.