Meraz was born in 1968 and lived at Nacozari de Garcia in Sonora, northern Mexico. Between 2009 and 2012 three people were killed: Cleotilde Romero Pacheco, fifty-five, in 2009; Martin Rios Chaparro, ten, in 2010; and Jesus Octavio Martinez Yanez, sixteen, in 2012. The victims' throats were cut and the bodies were buried at the family's property; blood was collected as part of the ritual.
Eight people were arrested, most of them members of Meraz's own family, including her son and her nephew. The prosecution described the killings as sacrifices made at an altar to Santa Muerte, a folk saint venerated widely in Mexico and outside the Catholic Church.
She was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, along with several relatives; those who were minors at the time received juvenile terms.
Two points belong in the record. The first is that the cult framing came from the prosecution and the press, and the Mexican reporting of Santa Muerte routinely attributes crimes to the devotion itself, which tens of millions of people practise without violence. The second is that the killings, the burials and the family's participation are documented; it is the explanation that is contested, not the deaths.