THE 1847 MYSTERY: THE DEVIL DISGUISED AS A PRIEST AND THE CHRISTMAS EVE MASSACRE

At exactly midnight, Christmas Eve 1847, while 73 parishioners were bowing their heads awaiting the blessing, a deafening crash rang out, followed by the sound of iron chains tightening the main doors from the outside. Amidst the thick, choking yellow smoke, the smell of rotten eggs began to rise from the floor, yet the revered priest on the altar showed no signs of panic.

He calmly pulled out a gas mask, strapped it to his face, and coldly looked down at his flock as they began to writhe in death. That cold stare through the mask… It haunts me more than any ghost I have ever recounted in these files. It is the starkest proof that once greed takes the throne, even the holiest of places can turn into a slaughterhouse.

And the most terrifying demon never comes from hell; it always comes from the human heart. Welcome to the bloodiest Christmas Eve in Mexican history. Dear friends, there are Christmas nights that bring no peace but instead open the gates of hell. I want to take you back in time to the night of December 24, 1847.

Imagine the biting cold air of the Mexican highlands in a small, lonely village named San Miguel de los Remedios. That night, 73 pious sheep—from silver-haired elders to nursing infants—stepped through the heavy oak doors of the San Miguel Arcangel church to attend the Misa de Gallo, the year’s most solemn mass to welcome the birth of Christ.

They brought beeswax candles, wore their finest clothes, and carried hope for a miracle amidst times of famine. Yet, when the dawn of December 25 broke clearly, when the fog lifted, people were horrified to realize that only 42 survivors walked out of there. The most haunting thing was not the number of dead, but the way they departed.

When the authorities and Dr. Chrisenio Mendoza, the region’s only physician, entered the cathedral the next morning, what welcomed them was not the usual sacred scent of incense, but a pungent, acrid smell—a grotesque blend of sulfur and the sickly sweet scent of death.

You know, in the remaining forensic records, Dr. Mendoza trembled when describing that scene. The bodies were not lying in neat rows; they were scattered everywhere. Some lay dead right at the main entrance, fingernails broken, embedded with wood splinters and dried blood, proving they had clawed in desperation at the doors locked from the outside.

There were mothers clutching their children in the corners, trying to use their gaunt bodies to shield the little ones from something invisible hovering in the air. But here is the detail that makes this case so brutal and confusing it chills the bone. A knot I want you to ponder with me.

If it were merely an asphyxiation accident or a fire, why did at least 10 victims have very strange wounds? They were not burns, nor bruises from being trampled; they were stab wounds—sharp, clean stabs piercing the heart or slitting the throat. Try putting yourself in Dr. Mendoza’s shoes at that moment, lifting the cloth covering a victim’s face and seeing that cut, a spine-chilling question emerges.

While everyone was suffocating, panicking from the toxic gas, who—and why—had enough composure and cruelty to walk through that chaotic crowd, using a knife to take the lives of those already dying? That person was certainly not a victim. That person was a hunter, and those 73 humans were just prey in a cage. To understand why this tragedy happened in a godforsaken place like San Miguel, we need to look at its context.

In 1847, Mexico was a bleeding country. The war with the US had just ended in bitterness. The nation was exhausted; famine was rampant. San Miguel de los Remedios was no exception. It was a town forgotten by time, nestled deep within misty valleys, where poverty clung so persistently that people said even the wind carried the taste of dust and despair.

In such dire circumstances, the church was not just a place of worship but the only lifebuoy—people clung to their faith. And more importantly, they placed absolute trust in God’s representatives there. They never suspected that this naive trust was the sharpest weapon the villain would use against them. And now we must speak of the source of all sin.

Greed. In San Miguel, for hundreds of years, there had been a rumor, a legend that adults whispered to each other by the fire, never daring to speak aloud. It was said that when the Franciscan friars built this church in the 18th century, they built it not only with volcanic stone and mortar but also hid a secret there—a massive treasure of gold bars.

Silver coins minted from secret mines never declared to the Spanish authorities, and countless holy relics of solid gold encrusted with gemstones. The people of San Miguel considered this the Legend of the Franciscan Treasure. To the mud-stained farmers, it was just a fairy tale.

But to someone—someone educated, ambitious, and living right in the heart of the church—it was no fairy tale; it was a target. He saw the thick walls of the church not as a shelter for souls, but as a giant safe waiting to be cracked. And tragically, to open that safe securely…

To embrace that gold and vanish without pursuit, he needed a perfect plan—a plan demanding the sacrifice not of one, but of everyone capable of bearing witness. Christmas Eve 1847 was the golden time for that plan. It was no coincidence the tragedy struck on the holy night when everyone—old, young, big, small—gathered in one place, and the church bells were loud enough to drown out every desperate scream.

The villain calculated every detail, but he forgot one thing: the blood of the innocent is never silent. Friends, there is an old saying: “A smiling face but a dagger in the heart.” This saying seems born to describe the portrait of the man behind the tragedy at San Miguel.

Join me in stepping into the parsonage right next to the church, a place that should have been the most peaceful, but turned out to be the kiln of crime. The head of the parish at that time was Father Ebbi Monterubio. He was no ordinary country priest. Picture a man nearly 1.8 meters tall, with small eyes cold as razor blades, always exuding an authority that made others bow their heads.

Born into a wealthy merchant family in the capital, educated properly not only in theology but also in mathematics, medicine, and especially chemistry, Monterubio always carried a hidden arrogance. To him, this dusty, poor village of San Miguel was not a place to serve, but a place of exile.

He despised the poverty of the parishioners, considering them ignorant fools. And it was that superiority complex that allowed him to rationalize his crime: that he deserved that treasure more than anyone else, and the lives of those peasants were just odd numbers not worth worrying about on his journey to wealth in Europe.

But Monterubio did not act alone. Beside him was a drifting shadow, a weak but extremely dangerous link: Thomas Aguirre, his 23-year-old nephew. If Monterubio was the scheming old wolf, Thomas was the starving, panicked hyena. This young man was gaunt, his limbs always trembling—classic signs of a heavy alcoholic.

He came to the village under the guise of helping his uncle, but in reality, he was fleeing gambling debts in the city. Monterubio kept Thomas close not out of familial love, but because he needed a pair of dirty hands to do the things a priest could not do himself. A toxic relationship, where the strong manipulated the weak through fear and empty promises of a regal life.

The abnormalities began to creep into the parsonage in early December. Our most important witness, Mrs. Catalina Herrera, the devoted housekeeper who had been with the church for a decade, was the first to sense this chilling change. She recounted that Father Monterubio suddenly became secretive, easily startled, and strictly forbade her from going near the office area or the entrance to the basement.

There were nights when the wind howled through the door cracks, she lay awake hearing strange sounds coming from underground. Not the sound of prayers, but the sound of metal striking stone, the heavy dragging of sacks, and sometimes fierce whispering arguments between the uncle and nephew.

But the detail that haunts me the most, the priceless detail exposing Monterubio’s cruelty, was his mysterious trips to Puebla. He sought out Aurelio Nazera, a chemical merchant with a respectable appearance. He lied, saying he needed to buy chemicals to clean and restore the church’s old silverware.

Sounds reasonable, right? But look at the list of things he bought: Concentrated sulfuric acid, mercury salts, and brimstone (sulfur). Anyone with a bit of chemistry knowledge knows these are not cleaning agents; they are ingredients to create the reaper. When mixed in a closed environment, they produce highly toxic gases capable of destroying the lungs and nervous system in minutes.

Monterubio didn’t just buy them; he asked very carefully about ratios, evaporation rates, and how the gas disperses in a closed space. He wasn’t buying chemicals; he was buying a death sentence for his parishioners. And more horrifying was the testing.

During the subsequent investigation, people found dozens of dead rats and rabbits curled up in iron cages in the church basement. They didn’t die of hunger; they died in thrashing postures, eyes bulging, lungs congested. Imagine those two men, one old, one young, standing in the dark basement watching small animals writhe in pale yellow toxic smoke, then nodding in satisfaction and taking notes in a notebook. Those were the rehearsals for Christmas Eve.

To them, the 73 humans upstairs were no different from these lab rats, just obstacles to be cleared to open the way to the treasure. Mrs. Catalina also recalled that in the week before Christmas, the atmosphere in the parsonage was as tense as a string about to snap. Thomas drank more.

He muttered to himself, his shifty eyes looking at everyone as if they all knew his secret. Once, she saw Thomas holding a pig-slaughtering knife, sharpening it repeatedly on a whetstone. The cold skritch-skritch sound echoed in the deserted noon. When she asked, he just smiled a distorted smile. “Preparing a feast, old woman. A big feast.”

She never suspected the ingredients for that feast would be the lives of the villagers. Their preparation was meticulous to a chilling degree. They calculated not only the amount of poison gas but also human psychology. They knew Christmas Eve was when people were most off-guard. They knew that when the doors closed, the sound of hymns would drown out any strange noises.

Monterubio, with his sharp mind, turned the House of God into a giant mousetrap. He reinforced the door latches, secretly prepared iron chains hidden under the pews, and sealed the high ventilation holes, leaving only the ducts leading up from the basement. Everything was ready; the wolf and the hyena were licking their lips, waiting for the moment the prey stepped into the cage.

But in the darkness of greed, there was one thing they didn’t foresee. When crime reaches its peak, suspicion among accomplices also begins to sprout. A toxic seed that would make that fateful night more chaotic than any script they had ever written. Have you ever wondered what the most painful betrayal feels like? I’m not talking about betrayal by a lover or friend, but the betrayal of faith.

That night, 73 residents of San Miguel de los Remedios stepped into the church with hearts full of reverence, believing they were entering God’s protective embrace. But in reality, they were voluntarily stepping into a giant stone coffin that had been prepared for them. The clock struck 10:30 PM. The church bells rang clearly, echoing through the valley like a sweet call of death.

Look at that scene through the eyes of Don Patricio, the village’s honest blacksmith. That day, he wore a crisp white shirt his wife had scrubbed with wood ash until it was spotless. Sitting in the front row, looking up at the brass chandeliers he had polished himself.

The candlelight flickered on the statues of saints. The scent of pine resin from the decorations blended with the heavy smell of beeswax, creating a warm atmosphere that lulled the senses. Children ran around their parents’ legs, eager for the sweet cakes after mass. Everything was too peaceful, too perfect. That false perfection was the velvet curtain covering the sharp blade waiting behind.

But there was one person who felt something was wrong—Mrs. Esperanza Morales, the village midwife. With the instinct of someone who welcomes life and witnesses death, she noticed Father Monterubio was very strange today. The priest stood on the altar, draped in magnificent vestments embroidered with gold thread, but his hands shook violently whenever he raised the chalice.

His voice, usually resonant and commanding, was today choked, broken, and unusually high-pitched, as if being strangled by an invisible fear. And his eyes—instead of looking at the parishioners with benevolence, he constantly glanced toward the main doors and windows like an animal guarding an escape route.

Mrs. Esperanza shuddered and pulled her shawl tighter. A premonition told her something terribly wrong was about to happen. And then the fateful moment arrived. Exactly at midnight, when the mass reached its most sacred part—the Liturgy of the Eucharist. When the priest raised the host high and prepared to read the prayer, a deafening sound rang out, tearing apart the solemn silence.

Bang! The massive oak doors at the main entrance slammed shut, not by wind but by a powerful force. Immediately following was the clanging of heavy iron chains being pulled tight and the cold click-click of padlocks being snapped shut from the outside. The entire cathedral fell dead silent for a second. That silence was heavier than a thousand screams. Everyone turned to look at each other, bewildered.

Maybe someone slipped, or it was a new ritual? But no, when the strongest men, led by Don Patricio, ran to shove the door, they realized the horrifying truth. The door wasn’t just closed; it was barricaded tight. At the same time, from the windows on both sides of the church, the rapid thud-thud of hammers hitting nails rang out.

Thick wooden planks prepared in advance were now being nailed shut by someone, blocking all sources of light and air. The San Miguel church was no longer a place of worship; it had turned into an airtight bunker completely isolated from the outside world. Panic began to creep in—first whispers, then the screaming of children.

But the villain gave them no time to scream. He began his feast. Remember the detail about the rat cages in the basement I mentioned earlier? Now it was the humans’ turn. From the vents close to the floor, cleverly camouflaged behind the pillar bases, a thin smoke began to pour in.

It didn’t billow like fire smoke but was sluggish, heavy, crawling close to the ground like invisible venomous snakes. At first, it blended into the thick incense smoke, so no one noticed. But just minutes later, its deadly nature was revealed. Children were the first victims. Because the toxic gas was heavier than air, it accumulated at the lower levels first. The babies playing on the floor suddenly clutched their throats, faces turning red then purple. They couldn’t cry aloud anymore. The cries were choked in windpipes swelling from chemical burns.

A mother screamed, “My child! Something is choking my child!” That scream was the spark that ignited ultimate chaos. Mrs. Esperanza, with her folk medicine experience, took a breath and immediately felt as if someone had poured acid into her lungs. She knew this smell. It was not the scent of God. It was the scent of the devil.

The smell of rotten eggs mixed with a metallic tang. Poison. They were releasing gas; cover your noses! She screamed, tearing the hem of her shirt to cover the faces of the children around her. But the warning came too late. The gas quickly rose; the entire cathedral turned into a chaotic painting of hell.

73 human beings crowded and trampled each other to find the little bit of clean air left up high. Candles sputtered out due to lack of oxygen; darkness began to swallow everything, leaving only the flickering light from the main altar where the imposter priest still stood motionless, coldly watching death spread. Why didn’t he run? Why did he stand there watching his parishioners writhe in pain? The answer lay in the crude gas mask made of vinegar-soaked leather he had secretly put on when the candles went out.

He stood there not to pray, but to keep watch. He wanted to ensure that no one—not a single witness—could survive to tell the story of the Franciscan treasure. The cruelty of man when dominated by greed is truly terrifying.

It turns a sacred place into a slaughterhouse, turns the shepherd into the butcher of the flock. In the suffocation, Don Patricio saw his beloved wife collapse, foam bubbling at her mouth. Rage flared up in him, stronger than the fear of death. He understood that praying at this moment was useless.

God might be high above, but here, in this stone box, only humans could save humans. He grabbed a heavy brass candlestick, screaming at the men who were still conscious, “Smash the windows! Smash them or we will rot in here!” The sound of metal hitting stone, glass breaking, coughing, and the groans of the dying created a macabre symphony. But friends, the worst was yet to come.

Because when the gas didn’t kill people fast enough as expected, the villain had prepared a Plan B—much bloodier. The door to the sacristy behind the altar creaked open, and from the darkness, shadows holding knives stepped out, ready to finish off those still gasping for air. The mousetrap didn’t just have poison; it also had hunters.

Dear friends, if the poison gas was the invisible hand of the Reaper, then what happened next was the incarnation of demons in flesh and blood. In that pale yellow poisonous fog, as the coughing and choking sounds were fading, a development beyond anyone’s imagination began to unfold.

Thomas’s plan—the man masquerading as the priest on the altar—hit a deadly snag. He was too confident in his half-baked chemistry knowledge. He thought the gas would kill everyone instantly, cleanly, and neatly. But no, the church space was too vast, the ceiling too high, and the gas spread slower than he calculated.

People were still alive; they were still thrashing, and most importantly, they could still see him. The fear of being exposed triggered the most primal brutality in Thomas. He couldn’t let anyone leave here alive to identify him. He signaled toward the darkness in the corner of the sanctuary.

From there, Macedonio Flores, the sullen gravedigger, stepped out. In his hand was not his familiar shovel, but a sharp butcher knife. The blade reflected the flickering candlelight, creating a cold streak cutting through the smoke. Thomas also pulled a dagger from beneath his vestments. Try to imagine the sheer terror of the parishioners at that moment.

They were writhing from lack of air, eyes stinging, lungs burning like fire, when suddenly they saw the revered priest and the gravedigger rushing into the crowd like mad beasts. They weren’t saving anyone; they were “cleaning up.” Their targets were those trying to crawl toward the doors, those still strong enough to call for help. Mrs. Catalina, hiding behind a large pillar, witnessed a scene that haunted her until her dying breath.

She saw Macedonio approach Mr. Anacleto Ramirez, a 73-year-old man clutching his chest and coughing violently. The man said nothing; he coldly swung his knife in a decisive strike. Deadly silence engulfed that moment, leaving only the wheezing breath of the Reaper. Why did they do that? Why massacre neighbors they had greeted just yesterday morning? The answer lies in criminal psychology.

When a person crosses the line of indirect killing with gas, they fall into a state of bloodthirsty panic. He kills not out of hatred, but out of fear. Every breathing person is a witness threatening his life and his treasure. Thomas rushed into the crowd, but he was clumsier and shakier than Macedonio.

He stabbed wildly; he attacked a woman shielding her child. That mother’s scream tore through the night, awakening the fiercest survival instinct in the remaining men in the room. It was in the most desperate moment, when the line between life and death was as thin as a thread, that our hero appeared—not Superman, not a god, but Don Patricio, the blacksmith with hands calloused by fire and hammer.

Don Patricio had also inhaled the poison; his head spun, his chest ached, but seeing that savage slaughter, a strange strength flared up within him—the strength of fury. He understood that the main door was impenetrable with those iron chains, but the windows were different.

The wooden planks nailed outside, no matter how thick, could not withstand the continuous impact of a blacksmith. He grabbed the brass candlestick weighing nearly 10 kg from the side altar. An object he once cherished for fear of scratching it now became a weapon, a key to life. He roared, his voice hoarse, “Break the window! Get the women and children out!” Bang! The first blow made the wooden frame shake.

Bang! The wooden bars began to crack. Bang! The sound of nails popping out was ear-piercing. Thomas, from the sanctuary, heard the noise. He spun around through the murky smoke and saw Don Patricio like a giant frantically attacking the only exit. Thomas panicked; he intended to rush over to stop him, but innate cowardice held him back.

He feared the blacksmith’s strength, and above all, he feared time was running out. Instead of stopping Patricio, Thomas turned back to his main goal: the treasure. While Patricio fought to open a way to life for everyone, Thomas fought to pry open the treasure hatch right at the foot of the altar. That image created a tragic contrast.

On one side, a superhuman effort to save lives; on the other, a despicable effort to steal gold. Finally, with a blow channeling all his remaining vitality, Don Patricio succeeded. The wooden plank snapped in two and fell outside. A blast of freezing wind from the valley rushed in. For those suffocating inside, that wind was no different from the breath of God. Moonlight flooded in, casting a stark white beam cutting through the murky yellow smoke.

It was the light from hell—or rather, the light illuminating the way out of this tomb. “Go! Climb out, quickly!” Patricio shouted, pushing the children up first. The narrow window frame was nearly 2 meters off the ground. The remaining men formed a human ladder. They lifted their wives and children, pushing them one by one through the narrow opening. The scene was chaotic but full of humanity.

Some were trampled, some fell, but no one fought brutally. In the moment of life and death, they yielded life to one another. Mrs. Catalina was pushed out near the end. When she looked back one last time, she saw a scene she would never forget. While everyone was scrambling to escape, up there, Thomas—the fake priest—didn’t care about the chaos.

He was frantically stuffing gold coins and holy objects into a large sack. He smashed the reliquary to take the gemstones. He even trampled on the bodies lying near the altar to reach for the golden cross. Gold, silver, jewels. That was all he saw. He had sold his soul to the devil. And now he was collecting the payment.

Macedonio saw the broken window and knew the “no witnesses” plan had failed completely. He wasn’t as stupid as Thomas. He threw away the bloody knife and slipped quickly into the darkness of the secret tunnel leading to the cemetery, abandoning his accomplice. When Don Patricio was pulled out, he collapsed on the grass filled with night dew, his lungs wheezing in pain.

Around him, 42 people lay scattered, coughing, vomiting, but they were alive. They looked toward the church, which now stood silent as a massive tomb; inside, 31 people lay dead forever. Mournful wails began to rise, shattering the silence of Christmas Eve. But the tragedy didn’t stop there. While the survivors were in shock, inside, Thomas realized he had been left behind.

The main door was still locked; the windows were surrounded by villagers outside. His only escape was the tunnel Macedonio had just fled through. Shouldering the heavy sack of gold, he limped toward the secret trapdoor behind the velvet curtain. But he didn’t know that destiny—or karma—was waiting for him at the end of that tunnel. He thought he had won; he had the gold.

But friends, the price for that gold was much higher than he imagined. And the truth about what he had done to his own uncle was about to be exposed to the light—a truth even more disgusting than the smell of poison gas lingering in the cathedral. Dear friends, when the dawn of December 25, 1847, shone down on the San Miguel valley, it brought no warmth, only illuminated a brutal and cold scene.

The survivors sat on the ground, dazed, with no tears left to cry. But while the villagers were drowning in grief, the wheels of justice—or rather, destiny—began to turn in an unexpected way. The arrival of Captain Ramon Solis, a seasoned veteran who had lost an arm in the war, completely changed the case.

Solis was not easily fooled when the local authorities and the diocese wanted to quickly close the case as an accidental fire to avoid a scandal. Solis shook his head. He looked at the chained doors, looked at the stab wounds on the victims’ bodies, and said a sentence that later went into the historical records: “Fire does not know how to lock doors, and smoke does not know how to hold a knife.”

Solis decided to break the seal to go down to the church basement, believed to be the origin of the fire. And what he found there made even a soldier who had faced death shudder. It was not a wine cellar or a storage room. It was a devil’s laboratory.

Imagine a damp basement, reeking of chemicals. On rough wooden tables were dozens of glass jars labeled sulfuric acid, brimstone… and more horribly, a system of clay pipes meticulously installed, running along the ceiling connecting directly to the vents on the church floor. This was undeniable proof of premeditation. The villain didn’t just want to kill; he wanted to kill everyone, cleanly, without wasting a single bullet. But the biggest question remained hanging.

Where was Father Monterubio? All theories at the time suggested the greedy priest had taken the remaining gold and fled far away during the chaotic night. Arrest warrants were issued on all roads leading to the port of Veracruz. But Captain Solis, with a hunter’s intuition, felt something was wrong. He was haunted by the testimony of a man named Fiden Romero.

This man swore that on the night of December 17, a week before Christmas, he had seen the gravedigger lurking in the cemetery at 2:00 AM. Why dig a grave at that hour? And why did the newly mounded grave bear the name of an old woman who had died the previous month? On the night of December 29, under flickering torchlight, Captain Solis ordered the exhumation of that suspicious grave.

The sound of shovels scraping earth in the silent night sounded like the Reaper’s countdown. When the coffin lid popped open, the smell of decomposition rose sharply. But what lay inside was not an old woman; it was a large man wearing blood-soaked nightclothes, his face beginning to decompose, but his characteristic beard remained intact. It was Father Ebbi Monterubio.

The whole cemetery gasped in horror, but the most valuable detail, the plot twist that overturned the entire case, lay in the results of the on-site autopsy by Dr. Mendoza. The fatal wound was at the back of the priest’s neck—a skull smashed by a blunt object. And more importantly, based on the level of decomposition, the doctor confirmed he had been dead for at least 7 days.

Do you realize the horror in this detail? If Father Monterubio had been dead since December 17, it meant he had been lying under this cold earth for a whole week before Christmas arrived. Then who was the person standing on the altar on the night of December 24? The person who consecrated the Eucharist? The person who blessed 73 people before releasing poison gas on them?

Who was it? All eyes turned to a single name: Thomas Aguirre. The truth was slowly pieced together, creating a picture even more terrifying than the initial theory. It wasn’t an uncle and nephew committing a crime together, but thieves among thieves. Thomas had discovered his uncle intended to eliminate him after seizing the treasure instead of fleeing.

Greed and hatred turned the alcoholic young man into a demon. He killed his uncle first, buried the body to hide the evidence, and then played the role of his uncle. Try to shudder at this thought. For a whole week, Thomas lived in the parsonage, wearing the dead man’s clothes, practicing his walk, practicing his uncle’s voice.

He shaved, used makeup, and exploited the dim light of the church to deceive an entire community. On Christmas Eve, as he stood up high looking down at the crowd below through a mask of holiness, he was not just a mass murderer; he was an actor performing the bloodiest play of his life.

He killed people not just to steal gold, but to silence witnesses to the fact that he had killed his uncle. A crime piled upon a crime. And the final piece of this sinful picture was Macedonio Flores, the gravedigger. He was the one who helped Thomas bury the priest and also the one who locked the doors and released the gas. When caught in a remote cave a few weeks later…

Next to the pile of stolen gold and silver, Macedonio was in a semi-delirious state. He laughed cacklingly while being handcuffed, muttering about whether the rats were all dead yet. From here, the veil of secrecy was completely lifted; there were no supernatural forces, only human ambition. But what was the price these villains had to pay, and what painful legacy did they leave for this land? We will come to the conclusion in the final part of the story. An ending not happy, but satisfying in the punishment of the law of karma.

The trial of Thomas Aguirre and Macedonio Flores took place in the spring of 1848. It was not just a criminal trial; it was a public psychological surgery before the entire Mexican population. Thousands flocked to Puebla, jostling just to see the faces of the two demons in human skin.

And Thomas’s attitude in court was what chilled people to the bone. He didn’t cry, didn’t beg for forgiveness. He was calm to the point of cruelty. When the Prosecutor asked why he could murder children, Thomas just shrugged and said a sentence that the press at the time called the confession of a devil:

“They were just obstacles. If the gas had done its job well, I wouldn’t have had to dirty my hands.” You see, to him, human life had no weight; it was lighter than gold. He didn’t regret killing people; he only regretted that the plan didn’t succeed completely.

The sentence for both was death, but perhaps death was too gentle compared to what they had caused. The law of karma found them before the executioner did. In the years awaiting execution, Thomas gradually fell into madness. The prison guards recounted that every night, exactly at midnight, Thomas would start screaming, clawing at the stone walls until his fingers bled.

He screamed that he smelled rotten eggs, the smell of poison gas flooding the cell; he saw figures with white eyes standing around his bed. In 1852, Thomas died in prison not by hanging, but from exhaustion due to fear. He died in a curled-up position, hands clutching his throat as if suffocating—a death exactly like his victims.

As for Macedonio, the gravedigger was also executed by firing squad, taking the secret of the remaining lost gold coins to his grave. Regarding the San Miguel Arcangel church, it was never restored. The Church decided the place had been too heavily defiled by blood and betrayal. In 1849, it was partially destroyed. The stones that once built the House of God became ruins. Weeds grew wildly, covering the traces of the crime.

Locals believed God had left that land on that fateful Christmas Eve. But amidst the ashes of the past, there remained sparks of humanity. Don Patricio Vasquez, the brave blacksmith, despite carrying permanent lung damage, lived another 20 years in everyone’s respect.

The sledgehammer he used to break the window that night was preserved by his descendants as a treasure, a proof that even in the most desperate circumstances, humans can choose to be heroes instead of victims. And Mrs. Catalina, the keeper of the village’s memories, left a haunting line in her diary: “Gold is never worth trading for souls.”

Because gold is cold, but blood is hot, and the greedy will forever freeze to death in their mountains of gold. The story of the bloody Christmas Eve of 1847 closes here. But the question it poses remains. Lingering and aching. We often fear ghosts, fear demons, fear the dark. But through this case, I realized the most terrifying thing does not lie under the bed or in the graveyard.

The most terrifying thing sometimes hides behind respectable faces, saintly smiles, and sweet promises. Greed, when nurtured by calculation and camouflaged by trust, is the cruelest demon. Closing the file on Christmas Eve 1847, what lingers most persistently in us is perhaps not just fear, but a deep contemplation on the mask of the human heart.

The tragedy at San Miguel de los Remedios is a grim reminder that evil sometimes does not take a hideous form but hides behind holy robes and the most respectable titles. In modern life, this lesson remains valuable. Trust is the most precious asset, but it needs to be placed in the right hands and accompanied by awareness.

Don’t let outward glamour, social status, or sweet promises blur your intuition. Greed can turn a human into a demon, but courage and love—like the fire in the heart of the blacksmith Patricio—are the eternal light that dispels darkness.

Live sincerely and kindly, but also be wise enough to protect yourself and your loved ones from invisible traps. Because after all, the only thing of real value is not gold or silver in a treasure chest, but peace of mind every night. What mystery topic do you want “Strange Files” to explore in the next video? An unsolved spiritual case or mysterious supernatural phenomena? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

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