"Pineda was known for her extreme brutality such as dismembering bodies, removing hearts, and placing the hearts in front of 'Santa Muerte' altars and statutes," the FBI said in a news statement.

Santa Muerte (Saint of Death or Our Holy Lady of Death) is a Mexican folk saint whose devotion has significantly increased ...

Sporting gloves and a red ribbon to ward off evil, Ecuadoran police raiding a drug den apprehensively inspect an altar to Santa Muerte — a Mexican "death saint" adopted by local gangs as their ...

On the eighth day of her journey across the Sonoran desert in the summer of 2004, Jessica Maribel Morales collapsed. She was trying to make it from Mexico to the U.S. to find better economic ...

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: This is also a season when people invoke la Santa Muerte - or the Death Saint. ANDREW CHESNUT: She is the saint who never discriminates, because death accepts everybody.

The discovery in El Salvador of a shrine to Santa Muerte, a female deity associated with the criminal underworld, has revealed how the new religious movement has become popular among criminal groups ...

Officers responded to the shooting around 9:40 p.m. Friday in the 4000 block of Naco Perrin Boulevard. SAN ANTONIO – KSAT Investigates recently examined a lawsuit alleging religious ...

A Leader of Mexican Folk Saint Cult 'La Santa Muerte' Is Killed at an Altar to the Skeletal Figure MEXICO CITY (AP) — A local leader of the Mexican folk saint cult “La Santa Muerte” was ...

(Image above of a Santa Muerte altar found in a drug house raided by San Antonio, Texas, police.) In 2010, when I had my Beliefnet blog, I got a letter from a reader who was (and I guess still is ...

This is a glimpse of last year's festival dedicated to the Santa Muerte. Coatepec, Veracruz, is famous for being a coffee-growing town in the Sierra Veracruzana. Tourism has grown substantially in ...

Michelle Angelica Pineda, alias “La Chely,” is accused in gang-related mutilation killings were hearts were removed and offered to La Santa Muerte in Juárez, Mexico. She was arrested by an ...