WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT. A serial killer who worked as a butcher spent decades luring his victims to his home, where they would meet a horrifying end, before he was finally caught
A 34-year-old mother of two said goodbye to her family and headed out to the shops one morning – but she never returned home.
Renya Gonazales’ police officer husband immediately started looking for her, but he was not prepared for what he would find.
When Bruno Portillo discovered what had happened to his beloved wife, he would, along with his colleagues, end up unravelling a horrifying series of crimes and catching a prolific serial killer, the identity of which nobody would ever have suspected.
Under the flashing lights of nightclubs, as people danced unawares to the music, the serial killer would often select his victims before tricking them into coming back to his home – where he would murder them, take apart their remains, and eat them.
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Caught when he was 72 years old, Andres Filomeno Mendoza was well respected in his community – even elected to lead a local political group.
He had for 20 years continued his murdering and cannibalistic spree uninterrupted, but when he targeted 34-year-old Reyna, it all came crashing down around him.
Reyna’s husband Bruno went to Mendoza’s home to see if he knew where she was that evening, but the pensioner refused to let him inside, immediately raising his suspicion.
He returned to Mendoza’s home in Mexico City with his law enforcement colleagues, filled with rage that the elderly man might have some knowledge of where his wife was. But nothing could have prepared him for what he saw next.
On the kitchen table were his wife’s dismembered remains. Mendoza, a former butcher, admitted that he had killed Reyna and tried to run away, but the police officers stopped him in his tracks.
Searching his home, they found the remains of many more victims and evidence linked to many cold cases of missing women.
The evil serial killer – dubbed the Cannibal of Atizapan – was called “affable” by his surprised neighbours, as bones were discovered in the basement of his home and forensic analysts and other experts were brought in to see just how prolific his crimes were.
He chillingly kept a list of the women’s names in a notebook – there were 30 written down – and more than 300 bones were discovered in his basement, with 4,000 fragments and pieces around the entire home. There were also videotapes of the murders found.
By the year after his arrest in 2021, 19 people’s remains had been confirmed, 17 women, one child, and one man.
He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Reyna, and admitted to eating parts of his many victims’ remains – several of whom he had selected after they angered him for rejecting his sexual advances, including one he “peeled the skin” from because she was “pretty”.
