'The Last Narc' Episode 2: Guadalajara cartel avenges drug bust by raping, torturing and killing American tourists
The period after Enrique S 'Kiki' Camarena Salazar destroyed Mexican drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero's massive marijuana plantation by burning it to the ground and the Guadalajara cartel suffered a loss of millions of dollars. Kiki was abducted, tortured and killed shortly after this. Amazon Prime docuseries 'The Last Narc' explores the investigation led by former DEA Supervisor and Special Agent Hector Berrellez that brought Kiki to justice.
Kiki's actions led to a wave of fury, frustration and paranoia among co-founders of the Guadalajara cartel-Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo. René Lopez, who was present during the time Kiki was captured revealed how Caro Quintero was furious and seething for revenge - his biggest crop was destroyed. Following this, the cartel knew that the DEA was going to come after them. "Any person who looked like a gringo was from the DEA," Ramón Lira reveals in the docuseries, "All of them, they were from the DEA," he adds. Mexican drug cartels were becoming increasingly paranoid about the DEA catching up with them.
By December 2, 1984, two months before Kiki's kidnapping, Guadalajara was gripped in chaos and terror. The news was rampant with reports about violence against American tourists, particularly White people. First, seven Americans went missing namely Ben and Pat Mascarenas of Nevada, and Dennis and Rose Carlson California (only to name a few) were abducted in broad daylight from rich suburban areas. In reality, they weren't anywhere related to the DEA - the two couples were Jehovah's Witnesses.
Ramón Lira recalls how he was instructed by Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo to tie them up and interrogate them about the police, the CIA and the DEA. When he took his report of their innocence back to Fonseca, he was in turn instructed to take them to another apartment to torture them. Jorge Godoy, a former police officer in Mexico, expressed regret over their killings."They knocked on the wrong door".
Hector also recounted the gory details of how the tourists were tortured. "The women were raped in front of their husbands. Then they're taken to a ranch where the women were repeatedly raped again. As the women are being tortured by running a rope between their legs, their vaginas are bleeding."
It was the Los Dormidos aka 'The Sleepers', led by Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, the Mexican drug lord, who disposed the bodies for the Guadalajara Cartel. The tourists were begging for their lives while being tortured but were shown no mercy.
In January 1985, a week before the kidnapping, two tourists walked into a seafood restaurant owned by Caro Quintero named La Langosta. The restaurant was a special place for the Narcos and for the government people. According to Prime Video, John Clay Walker was a Vietnam combat veteran who was awarded two Purple Hearts during his service in the United States Marine Corps. He was accompanied by Albert Radelat who was studying medicine in Texas.
When the 'cowardly psychopath' Quintero saw the two, he commanded the two be taken to a storeroom, where they were interrogated and tortured with ice picks. Walker died on the scene from blunt force trauma to the head. Radelat was still alive when the men were wrapped in table cloths and taken to the San Isidro Mazatepec Park in Zapopan and buried.
Walker's family was desperate to find him (dead or alive) at this point and it was only six months after their deaths that they were discovered.
In 'Narcos: Mexico', which took fair creative liberties, Walker was portrayed by Brian Buckley in Episode 7 'Jefe de Jefes'.
All four episodes of the docuseries are currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.