Andrés Mendoza (serial killer)

Andrés Filomeno Mendoza Celis (born 29 November 1947) is a Mexican serial killer and butcher. He was captured in the municipality of Atizapán de Zaragoza, State of Mexico. Initially, he was accused of being likely responsible for at least 19 murders. However, it is believed that his real number of victims could be 30 or more. In June 2021, 3,787 bones were found inside his home.

In 2022, Mendoza was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. In June of the same year, it was reported that the number of skeletal remains found in his house increased to 4,600, which were presumed to belong to 19 people; 17 women, a child, and a man.

Biography
In 2015, Mendoza worked as president of the citizen participation council of his neighborhood during the administration of the policy and, at that time, municipal president, Ana María Balderas Trejo. He also worked for several years as a butcher, working in a slaughterhouse preparing meat for human consumption in Tlalnepantla. This was one of the reasons why he had knowledge on how to dissect and cut the bodies of his victims.

Psychology
It has been mentioned that Mendoza was inspired by the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, the same year in which it is reported that he committed his first murder against a woman. This was reported by Javier Tejado Dondé, a columnist for the Mexican newspaper El Universal and involved in a documentary series on the crimes of this man. However, psychologist Feggy Ostrosky Shejet rejected Tejado Dondé's version, declaring that was just the invention of some admirer. She affirmed this because she herself interviewed Mendoza and questioned him about his supposed inspiration for the Hannibal Lecter movie, to which he responded by saying that he did watch movies, but Mexican ones.

Arrest and investigation
On 15 May 2021, Mendoza was arrested in Atizapán de Zaragoza, State of Mexico, when he was found with the dismembered corpse of a woman initially identified as Reyna and her real name was Reyna González Amador. She had been reported missing the previous day. It was presumed that Amador was her sentimental partner, but this was denied, since she was married and it was her husband, Bruno Ángel Portillo, who would find her body after forcibly entering the home of Mendoza located on Margaritas Street in the Lomas de San Miguel neighborhood. In addition, INE credentials, clothing, shoes, makeup, and bags were found inside of several women, as well as cassette recordings committing the murders, and a notebook with a list of several names of women, these being his possible victims. He also kept skinned faces and hair. He buried or ate the women he murdered, having done these crimes for years.

Mendoza was taken to the Barrientos Prison in Tlalnepantla de Baz. According to some statements from his neighbors, the man could not bear the contempt and disinterest he received from young women, while others described him as "quiet, and he did not bother women". He was linked to the murders while imprisoned.

Modus operandi
According to the ministerial statement, Mendoza confessed that with the exception of Reyna, he met all his victims in bars located in Tlalnepantla, places where they worked and where he visited. He would then invite them to his house with the intention of having sexual relations. In almost all cases, they consumed alcoholic beverages and then Mendoza murdered them by stabbing them.