Further reading for Adolfo Costanzo
Buried Secrets: A True Story of Serial Murder by Edward Humes
Few things in the 1980’s were as terrifying to Americans as the phantom threat of murderous satanic cults living and operating under the radar in any given community. It was a complete fabrication, of course. A total fantasy of conservative Christian paranoia in the face of a changing world. But Adolfo Costanzo was all the evidence any of these people needed to confirm their suspicion that vile, malicious death cults could be performing wicked ceremonies in any given basement on any given night. Costanzo wasn’t an American but his crimes would touch American soil and that was really all that mattered.
From a young age, Adolfo was dedicated to the service of a Palo Mayombe magician in Mexico by his mother. This magician trained him to adulthood like some kind of evil Jedi — A Sith, I guess? If you’re into that sort of thing — in the ways of his religion, a Latin-flavored riff on the African Traditional Religion of Palo Mayombe, the darker, older version, simply known as Palo, and a pastiche of Afro-Caribbean mystical systems, ranging from Vodun to Santeria. This magician, however, had it all wrong and got it all right in the most terrible ways. Tossed aside were the esoteric religious qualities of these traditions, the real meat of the faith. Instead, Costanzo and his mentor focused on the personal empowerment qualities and the darkest shades of the system, the binding of souls and the creation of a spiritual creature called an Nganga. Their Nganga was physically represented here in the Earthly realm as a cauldron containing gore and human waste, a means of programming and feeding an unseen spiritual force which did the magician’s bidding to terrible ends.
Costanzo would use the knowledge imparted to him by his teacher to perform tasks similar to those his teacher did for the most powerful folks around his community, eventually landing him in the service of the growing drug cartels which would eventually roar to life on American shores in the new millennium. And either through the workings of actual magic or just shit luck, Costanzo managed to gain popularity, money, and influence as a guy who could make spooky shit happen when you most needed it. Need someone to die? Need to shake a court appearance? Need to make a particular “business arrangement” work in your favor? Costanzo was your guy. And because of his stunning success rate, he amassed a following of disciples that did his bidding, killing competitors, threats to his power, and bringing in victims to be sacrificed to the Nganga, which now demanded human blood.
For the time, Costanzo got away with things for as long as he did because he killed people who were typically considered nuisances to the police and federales, but they caught him slipping when he killed an American and the FBI had no choice but get involved. Between 1986 and 1989, prime time for the American Satanic Panic, Costanzo and his cult were responsible for the deaths of 13 confirmed victims but were suspected of as many as 26.
