Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
In 1981, an American author named Tom Harris published a book called Red Dragon. In that book, he introduced the world to one of the most memorable characters ever created, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Nobody knew it at the time, but the idea for Dr. Lecter brewed in Harris's brain for almost two decades before he started writing. Red Dragon caught fire,
and Harris followed up with a sequel called "The Silence of the Lambs." History carried the story from there. Sir Anthony Hopkins brought the doctor to life and immortalized everyone's favorite cannibal on the big screen. Hopkins' performance went down in history, breathing new life into Harris' written work. But many wondered how Harris created such an iconic character.
It must take a great deal of creativity and a few psychopathic thoughts to turn out something as cunning, charming, and devious as Hannibal Lecter. The fandom got its answer in 2013 when Harris published a special 25th anniversary edition of Silence of the Lambs. The novel's forward contained a short story about a trip Harris took to Monterrey, Mexico in the 1960s. By pure luck,
he met a man that left a lasting impression. At the time, Harris referred to the man as Dr. Salazar. He didn't know the man's real name until he sought the help of a Mexican journalist named Diego Enrique Osorno. Piece by piece, source by source, the two writers uncovered the man behind Dr. Salazar and the inspiration for Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
The story begins in 1963, outside Nuevo Leon State Prison in Monterrey, Mexico. Part 1: A Man from Monterrey Tom Harris was a 23-year-old English major at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
While in school, he wrote for a local publication called Argosy Magazine, mainly covering police and crime-related stories. In 1963, Harris got a pretty exciting assignment. The paper sent him 500 miles south to Monterrey, Mexico, to interview an American locked up at Nuevo Leon Prison.
The American's name was Dykes Eskew Simmons, and he was awaiting execution for the murder of three young Mexican siblings, Marta, Hilda, and Juan Perez Villagomez. Simmons had been locked up since 1961, and the only information we have on his crimes are newspaper clippings from 1969, the year he eventually escaped from his Mexican jail.
In October 1959, Simmons left Texas for a vacation in Monterey, Mexico. He was a mentally ill man with a split lip who had a criminal history in Texas. He'd recently escaped a mental institution and needed to get away from Texas authorities. Not far from where he crossed the border, the Villa Gomez siblings were attacked by a lone American assailant. One of the girls, Hilda, didn't die immediately and identified Simmons as her attacker.
His vacation ended abruptly, and Mexican police charged him with the murders. In 1961, the courts sentenced him to death, making him the first American to ever receive the death penalty in Mexico. The story was interesting enough for Argosy to cover, and they sent an up-and-coming writer down to interview Simmons two years into his prison stay. But Simmons wasn't about to sit around waiting to die.
He tried to escape three times, once in 1960, again at the end of 1962, and again in 1969. During his 1962 escape, Simmons took two bullets to the leg. His injuries could have killed him if not for the help of a skilled prison doctor who patched him back to health. Harris arrived in 1963 ready for his interview with Simmons, but the bullet wounds stole the show.
and Harris had to know who this good doctor was before sitting down with Simmons. He asked to speak with the man, and the warden introduced him to Dr. Salazar. In the foreword to Silence of the Lambs, Harris described the doctor as a small, lithe man with dark red hair. He stood very still as they talked, and there was a certain elegance and gracefulness about his character, though the conversation took a rather unsettling turn.
Dr. Salazar knew Harris was there to interview Simmons, so he began their brief interview with an odd question. "Mr. Harris, how do you feel when you looked at Simmons?" Harris held his tongue, so Salazar followed up with a different question. "Do you have sunglasses with you, Mr. Harris?" Harris nodded. Then, Dr. Salazar suggested Harris not wear his glasses when he interviewed Simmons, because he might see his reflection in yours.
Salazar followed up with another question. "Tell me, do you think Simmons was bullied by other kids during recess because he's a man with a physical defect?" Salazar was talking about Simmons' lip and scarred face. Harris nodded. He assumed such bullying was typical. Salazar continued. "Did you see pictures of the victims? The two young girls and their little brother?"
Harris had seen the brutal images. He commented on how they were good looking kids from a good family with good educations. But then Harris asked his own question. "You're not saying they provoked him, are you?" Salazar answered back saying, "No, of course not." But childhood afflictions make later afflictions easily recreated. The two went back and forth for a few more minutes before the warden knocked on the door and said their time was up.
Strange, why wouldn't he want Harris talking to the prison doctor? Harris thanked Dr. Salazar and invited him to lunch and a drink if he ever traveled up to Waco. The doctor smiled saying, "Thank you, Mr. Harris. I certainly will when I travel again." Outside the meeting room, Harris asked the warden how long Salazar had been working as a prison doctor. The warden's answer shocked him. Dr. Salazar wasn't a doctor.
He was an inmate in jail for brutally murdering his lover, dismembering his body, and getting rid of the remains. According to the warden, Salazar was a skilled surgeon who could package his victims in a tiny box. He was insane, and there was no chance in hell he'd ever leave this place. He was also on death row. We don't know much about Harris's interview with Simmons, but we can assume his chat with Dr. Salazar kept him distracted.
He held the encounter close to his chest for almost 50 years before finally figuring out the secret behind Dr. Salazar's crimes and identity. Part 2: The Wolfman of Nuevo León Dr. Salazar's real name was Alfredo Bali Treviño. He was a skilled surgeon practicing in the Nuevo León area through the 1950s. On October 8th, 1959,
Dr. Trevino snapped and murdered his 20-year-old lover and professional partner, Jesus Castillo Rangel. As the story goes, Trevino and Rangel got into an argument. We can't say for sure what they fought about, but it was enough for Trevino to grab a scalpel and slit Rangel's throat. He bled the young doctor dry and expertly dismembered his corpse.
Trevino loaded the bits and pieces into a box and drove to a remote area known as Rancho La Noria. He buried the remains, but Mexican police found them a few days later. Dr. Trevino was rather candid about the killing when the police questioned him. He even bragged that he didn't need to cut through a single bone when dismembering Rangel. Trevino knew the human body up and down. He knew where to cut like an expert sushi chef filleting a tuna.
Mexican authorities eventually linked Treviño to several murdered hitchhikers in the same area, but they never proved those charges. The Mexican press still sensationalized Treviño's story, dubbing him "the Wolfman of Nuevo León," "the Monster of the Talleres," and "the Vampire Bali." He never cannibalized Rangel nor the other victims he was accused of killing. It was Treviño's personality that inspired Harris, not his actual crimes.
Trevino was the last Mexican sentenced to death in the country, but he never actually met that fate. Trevino's lawyers got the sentence commuted to 30 years. And sometime between 1980 and 1981, Trevino walked out a free man after spending 20 years behind bars. He went on to practice medicine in a tiny office in Monterey, treating poor people who couldn't afford better care. In 2009, Trevino passed away at 81 years old.
Thankfully, he sat down and spoke with a local newspaper in 2008, though he refused to discuss any details of his crime. In Trevino's own words, he didn't want to wake up his ghosts or relive his dark past. Trevino didn't live long enough to know he inspired the most famous fictional serial killer of all time.
Harris probably hoped to meet Trevino one final time before 2013, if only to thank the killer doctor for everything. Hannibal Lecter's inspiration may not have been a sadistic cannibal with a thirst for human flesh, but is that really what we remember Hannibal for? Or do we remember him as an eloquent psychopath who can slither his way under your skin with a couple of pointed questions? Part three, "The Prison Butterfly."
The butterfly effect is an interesting concept. While Trevino was the inspiration for Hannibal Lecter's personality, the fandom has several other players to thank for their favorite character. The first player, love him or hate him, is Dykes' Askew Simmons. So what happened to the man Harris was supposed to interview that day? And did he live long enough to know the impact his story had on the future? To better understand Simmons' story,
Let's discuss the concrete walls that held him prisoner, Nuevo Leon State Prison, also known as Pinal del Topo Chico. Topo Chico opened on October 3, 1943, as one of the final acts by the then governor of Nuevo Leon, General Bonifacio Salinas Leal. The state built the prison to house 600 inmates, but overcrowding became a major issue.
Those issues persisted until 2018, when the prison finally closed its doors for good. Monterrey neglected the jail for 75 years, and the inmates were running the asylum when it closed. But the prisoners weren't the only corrupt people in Topo Chico, at least according to Simmons. Simmons tried to escape from Topo Chico three times, but the first attempt wasn't his idea. As the story goes, the guards wanted an excuse to shoot him,
So they led him outside and pushed him towards the front gate. They basically dared him to run, but Simmons knew what would happen if he did. So he tried to fight his way back into the prison and caught a serious beating because of it. During his second attempt, Simmons bribed a prison guard to leave the door open for him. But when Simmons got to the door, it wouldn't budge. Instead, the guard took his money and shot Simmons in the leg.
That's when Dr. Trevino stepped in to help. And the story carries on from there. Simmons maintained his innocence the entire time behind bars, believing he was the fall guy for the murdered siblings. He saw himself as the forgotten American in Mexico and wanted to get back home to Texas. To his credit, his story held a little bit of water.
In 1959, Simmons crossed the Mexican border in an Oldsmobile, but Mexican police picked him up after a routine check. Hilda Villa Gomez identified him as her killer on her deathbed, but her story had a few inconsistencies. When the cops asked her if Simmons was the guy, Hilda said, "I am almost sure. May God forgive me if I have made a mistake," according to Simmons.
The only other person in the room that heard Hilda's remarks was the prosecutor. Mexican newspapers even ran a story about another American who confessed to the triple homicide. But US authorities removed that man from Mexico before the police could question him. Simmons was condemned to death in 1959, but had his sentence commuted to life in prison by 1968. Topo Chico was pretty lax when it came to conjugal visits.
Upwards of 400 women came to see their husbands and boyfriends in jail, and they all walked out the front gates around the same time. Simmons knew if he could fall in with the crowd, he might be able to escape.
In April 1969, Simmons bribed a friend to smuggle him a nun's habit and gown along with some makeup to darken his pale complexion. He bribed another guard to open his cell. Thankfully, he didn't get shot in the leg this time. When the bell rang to signal the end of visitation, Simmons mingled with a crowd of women and walked straight out the front door. He walked about 500 yards from Topo Chico, where a friend was waiting in his car.
Simmons hopped in the back seat and 90 minutes later, the two crossed the Texas border. From there, he flew out to Los Angeles with his lawyer, where he recanted his thrilling escape to the desert sun. Mexican authorities tell a different tale. They claim Simmons made up the nun story to cover for his brother, Carol. Carol worked as a firefighter in Fort Worth, Texas, and was Simmons' only visitor. Because it was raining on escape day,
the guards allowed Carroll to park inside the prison walls. That's when Simmons climbed into a hidden compartment under the back seat and Carroll drove off like nothing ever happened. The car smuggling story was backed up by Bethel Baker, who worked with Carroll as a Fort Worth firefighter in the 1960s.
In 2021, a film crew was making a documentary about the Stephenville Historical House Museum in Stephenville, Texas. There, they met 92-year-old Bethel Baker and learned of his involvement in Simmons' prison escape. Bethel helped Carroll modify a 1960 Ford Galaxy Starliner with a false backseat. From there, Carroll drove down to the prison, picked up Simmons, and drove home to Texas.
How Simmons escaped from jail doesn't really matter. Five months later, a couple driving through Fort Worth found his body on the side of the road. Someone beat him to death and dumped the body from a moving car. Simmons's death leaves us with several more questions than answers. Who was this other American that confessed to the Villa Gomez murders? Who killed Dykes Askew Simmons? And did Simmons actually kill those kids?
Or is it another story of corrupt police cover-ups and shady prison practices?