United States: forty years each for a teenager killed at a Santa Muerte shrine
Record class
Context only
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
gang members maintaining a Santa Muerte shrine; no spiritual authority over the victim
Organization
No organization assigned
Spiritual nexus
NOT AN AUTHORITY-ABUSE CASE. Recorded as victim-directed ritual: the shrine and the claimed offence against it are what the prosecution established as the killing's frame.
- Violent occult ideology or sacrifice
- Ritual, oath, or initiation
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2021-01-01 · convictions and sentences
Texas state court, Harris County. Diego Hernández-Rivera and Miguel Alvarez-Flores, MS-13 members, were convicted in 2021 of the 2017 murder of fifteen-year-old Genesis Cornejo and each sentenced to forty years. Prosecutors said she was chosen as a ritual sacrifice and killed at the gang's Santa Muerte shrine after allegedly disrespecting it.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- the girl killed at the shrine after allegedly disrespecting it
- the killing framed by prosecutors as a ritual sacrifice
Primary record
Sources
- national broadcaster court reporting verdict and sentencing report ABC13 Houston: convictions and sentences.
Local broadcaster's court report.
Related record
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