The California Killings: ‘Los Palillos’ and the Acid Bath Murders

After strangling the two victims, the gangsters threw their bodies head-first into barrels of acid, using the techniques of an infamous

Tijuana killer known as “El Pozolero” or “The Stewmaker.” They buried the remaining bones and flesh in arid ground under a horse ranch.

The macabre burial site was not in Mexico however but north of the border in San Ysidro on the outskirts of San Diego.

The 2007 murder was the work of a gang called “Los Palillos,” a breakaway from the Tijuana Cartel that went on a kidnap and murder spree that took the lives of at least fourteen victims in the United States, both in California and as far away as Kansas City, Missouri. They also dressed up like U.S. cops, shot at a real Chula Vista officer, and held hostages (mostly other cartel affiliates) for ransom in suburban San Diego homes.

Cartel sicarios slay the vast majority of their victims in Mexico, which has suffered more than 400,000 murders since 2006. The traffickers prefer to keep things quiet in the United States where they are making billions of dollars selling drugs. However, there have been a few notable reports of cartel violence on U.S. soil. The Zetas unleashed a string of homicides in southeast Texas and “El Mano Negra” quietly made hits for decades. But perhaps the worst cartel spillover was the Palillos murder trail in Southern California the 2000s.

While media did cover the Palillos case, most Americans haven’t heard of it. Local police initially struggled to connect dots on the various bodies, especially in different states. Evidence came out gradually and it took two years after the acidified corpses were buried before agents discovered them. Courts convicted most Palillos members in trials in the 2010s, but some gang members are still at large.

Agents who cracked the case have now retired and are able to speak more freely about it. Among them is Steve Duncan, a hardened agent who knows as much as anyone in U.S. law enforcement about cartels: he worked for the California Department of Justice and was in a task force that brought down the Tijuana Cartel. While most of the Palillos’ victims were themselves linked to traffickers, Duncan says it was crucial to stop them murdering on U.S. soil.

“They are doing it on our territory and they are getting away with it. And eventually someone innocent is going to get hurt,” Duncan says. “Because a Chula Vista police officer got shot at, it really motivated us to get going…That was a huge deal. We were pissed.”

While tragic and brutal, the Palillos story plays out like an action movie. It involves betrayal and disrespect, luring victims with honey traps, and shoot-outs on California streets. And it ends with a spectacular take down and most of the culprits go to jail.

In this case, U.S. law enforcement finally stopped the cartel getting away with murder north of the border. But they might not hold that line forever.

“It’s important that people know that this can happen,” Duncan says.