Avoid Mexico, victim's dad urges spring breakers

Texas man makes plea; offficials across border play down fears
08:19 PM CST on Tuesday, March 15, 2005
By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News
BROWNSVILLE – The father of a Texas student killed in a 1989 sadistic ritual murder during spring break in Mexico is warning students to avoid crossing the border this year.
"I just hope students stay out of Mexico," said Jim Kilroy, a resident of Santa Fe, near Houston. "The drug dealers are ruining it, and the police aren't there to protect you."
Mark Kilroy, 21, disappeared on March 14, 1989, while barhopping with friends in Matamoros. Investigators later blamed the murder on Adolfo Jesus Constanzo, a self-styled practitioner of African voodoo whose followers had chosen Mr. Kilroy at random.
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Mark Kilroy, a pre-med student from the University of Texas at Austin, had dashed across the border to visit the clubs in Matamoros. His friends reported him missing the next day, and the case captured national attention.
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Mr. Constanzo had told followers that he wanted to sacrifice someone to protect a load of 800 pounds of marijuana that he planned to send across the border.
Mr. Constanzo, linked to at least 23 ritual murders, was not captured alive. He ordered a follower to shoot him before he could be apprehended.
Other members of the cultlike ring got jail terms ranging from 40 to 67 years. And that's "without probation," Mr. Kilroy said.
After the killing, Mr. Kilroy and his wife Helen started an anti-drug group, the Mark Kilroy Foundation. The nonprofit organization (www.markkilroyfoundation.org) supports drug treatment centers and educational programs. Its 10th dinner dance and auction will be April 9 in Hitchcock, near Houston.
"When something like this happens, you kind of get appointed by a higher force to get involved and try to keep children safe," said Mr. Kilroy, who wrote a book about the tragedy and donates the proceeds to the foundation. "If I were just some ordinary person, people wouldn't listen."
But they should, he said, especially during spring break.
E-mail teaton@dallasnews.com
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