The Priest Murders and the Cyanide Killer


Father Reynaldo Rivera

A string of priests died suspicious or outright violent deaths in the 1980s; three of them were in the Southwest and two in New Mexico. A John Doe committed suicide by cyanide pill in a Catholic church in Boise, Idaho during the same time period. Could these weird deaths be related?

Father Patrick Ryan

Father Patrick “Paddy” Ryan was a respected Catholic priest in Denver City, Texas, right on the New Mexico state line. So when he was found naked and brutally murdered in an Odessa hotel room with his hands bound behind his back, his face down to the ground, and a knife slash across his buttocks in December 21, 1981, there was quite a stir.

The room was completely destroyed, indicating a very violent brawl had occurred inside, but the neighbor who checked in at 9:00 pm had not heard a peep, suggesting that the murder had occurred before 9:00. The crime scene was horrific and bloody, and seemed to be sexually motivated, based on the fact the father was naked and bound and there was semen at the scene. There was ample evidence for DNA testing – cigarette butts, hair strands, blood, semen, etc. 

Father Ryan’s vehicle was not there; it had been parked in the Moose Lodge of Hobbs, a good ninety miles away, since December 22. It is not known how Father Ryan had gotten to the Sage and Sand Motel.

To add to the mystery, Father Ryan had checked into Room 126 of the Sage and Sand with an alias, fake address, and fake license plate number. It would take four days for his parishioners to report him missing and travel to Odessa to identify the John Doe at the morgue there.

Why would he do that if he was there innocently? The answer may lie in the fact that Father Ryan was a closeted gay man who liked to pick up hitchhikers and use the false name of John. After he died, other men would come forward and say that he had propositioned them for sex or even tried to have sex with them.

Father Reynaldo Rivera

Father Reynaldo Rivera, murdered and dumped off I25

Father Reynaldo Rivera of St. Francis in Santa Fe didn’t have any known secrets and didn’t appear to be a closeted homosexual or child molester. He spent his entire priesthood in NM, serving people and doing his best for his community. Many people loved him. But for no known reason, he was murdered in New Mexico in August of 1982. 

Someone called St. Francis one night and asked for last rites for his dying grandfather. The priest who answered was busy, so he said for the man to call back in fifteen minutes. The man did and this time he reached Father Reynaldo Rivera. This suggests that Rivera himself was not targeted specifically, but that any priest was desired by the killer.

Rivera listened as the man identified himself as Michael Carmello. Carmello said he needed last rites for his dying grandfather and he was waiting in a blue pickup truck at a rest stop near Waldo, NM, called the La Bajada rest stop. He would lead the priest to his home in Waldo from there. Where’s Waldo? It’s a ghost town in Santa Fe County, about 27 miles from Santa Fe. Father Rivera sped off to meet him and was never seen alive again. 

His body was found 3 days later and 3 miles from the La Bajada rest stop in a muddy field off of Interstate 25. He had been shot in the gut or chest (sources vary) and then tied up and strangled with wire. Some cops theorize he was killed with a coat hanger, much like Father Kerrigan, whom you’re about to read about. Robbery wasn’t a motive due to the fact that money left on his person, but his last rites kit had been stolen. The last rites kit may have been a souvenir taken by the killer. Father Ryan and possibly Father Anderson had also had souvenirs taken from them. Like Kerrigan, Rivera’s car was driven away from the scene, but unlike Kerrigan, Rivera’s body was left out in the open like the killer or killers wanted him to be found. 

His car was found far away, parked at a rest stop off of Interstate 40 near Grants. Someone had driven it until the tank ran out of gas. There was no blood present in it, though some sources say that there was evidence the car had been wiped clean and may have been used to transport the priest’s body to where it was uncovered off i25. There were no viable fingerprints due to the wiping, but a palm print was found in the car. That was how they managed to clear their first suspect, a recent parolee in Santa Fe. 

The investigation later revealed that the payphone at the La Bajada rest stop was broken. So the killer had actually called from another location. Then he had met Father Rivera at the prearranged place; there was even an eyewitness account of the blue truck idling at the rest stop. This murder was obviously well thought out.

The FBI profiler assigned to the case surmised that the motive for the murder was revenge. Retired Deputy Chief Gilbert Ulibarri believes that something bad had happened to the killer in the St Francis Cathedral and he was willing to hurt anyone from the church, not specifically Father Rivera. 

Another theory was “Satanic panic.” But like with most cases of Satanic panic, there is just no evidence of this. There was no ritualistic marking on the body or the crime scene. Nothing in the car suggested a satanic connection, either. 

There have been a few suspects. All of them have been ruled out by fingerprints, alibis, or other evidence. The case is now cold but still active, according to Ulibarri. 

Father Ben Carrier

Next, there was Father Ben Carrier. Father Ben was found murdered in Yuma, AZ in November 10, 1982, just a few months after Father Rivera and about a year after Father Ryan. He had been bound with his hands behind his back, face down, in a motel room. His cause of death was asphyxiation. 

The crime scene and death was very similar to Father Ryan’s. Plus, Father Ben was known to help others and had recently given a ride to two hitchhikers – just like Father Ryan often gave rides to hitchhikers. Yuma is over 784 miles from Hobbs but it is an easy shot on I10 and then I8. And it is in the Southwest, just like Hobbs, Odessa, Denver City, and Santa Fe. Unlike Father Ryan, though, he did not have a known history of homosexuality or allegations of abuse. 

Interestingly, no one knows why Father Ben was in Yuma. Apparently he was there visiting friends on his way to a work conference in El Centro, CA. But since he lived in San Diego, Yuma is pretty out of his way from El Centro.

When he checked into his motel room, the clerk noticed another young man in his truck with light hair. Later, Father Ben was seen at the pool with the young man from his truck and another young man with dark hair and a tattoo. Some reports also state that one of these men had a cane with a skull affixed to it. People surmise that these were two hitchhikers he had picked up. However, it seems to me that not many people bring their hitchhikers to their motel room and hang out with them by the pool. Maybe Father Ben had a secret side to him, just like Father Ryan. 

Father Ben seemed to be an upstanding guy on the surface. He taught biology, served people to the best of his ability, and received an award for Buddy Bishop aware for his stellar service in the theological field. He liked to help drug addicts recover and he liked to help prison inmates reintegrate in society. A lot of people adored him. And maybe he really was an awesome guy. If he had any faults, it seems to be that he was secretly gay and sexually active, despite being of the clergy. Being gay is not shameful and it is tragic how many people had to hide their true sexual orientation. In fact, Father Ben was fifty-four and the other priests in this list were also in their fifties. Not only is that yet another weird coincidence in a long string of coincidences in these cases, but it also explains why these men may have been so closeted. They were born in the 1930s and raised in an America that did not tolerate homosexuality; society still doesn’t today, but not as blatantly as then. Also, they were all in a religion that declares homosexuality a sin and they were expected to be abstinent. None of them were, it seems. 

However, it has been my personal experience that when someone seems perfect and beloved and really upstanding on the surface, they usually are not behind closed doors. Father Ben may not have just been a closeted homosexual; he may have been one of many Catholic priests known for abusing boys in the church. But this is not confirmed in any way and is merely conjecture. 

Father Ben was found by the housekeeper on November 10, 1982, two days after he had checked in. He was face-down on the bed with his hands tied behind his back (though with what ligature is unclear). It was never announced if he was naked or not. He had been asphyxiated. Not many details are available about the crime scene but it doesn’t sound like it was as bloody or messy as the crime scene at Father Ryan’s motel room. 

His truck was located abandoned in Las Vegas, Nevada, days later. His wallet had also been taken. The police did not find any worthwhile evidence in the truck apparently. It is possible that the killers stole his truck and his money to have a good time in Vegas. 

I wonder if Father Ben was engaging in auto-erotic asphyziation and bondage. When he was accidentally suffocated or strangled to death, the two young men involved (or someone else) panicked and took off with his truck. Robbery was not the original motive, but it made sense once he was dead to take advantage of the situation. 

However, the fact his truck and wallet were stolen and the truck turned up in Vegas makes it seem that this was a robbery gone wrong. It may even be unrelated to Father Ryan’s death because Father Ryan was never robbed. There could be a chance he was targeted by the same persons who killed Father Ryan, too. Maybe these young men were the same ones Father Ryan propositioned in the parking lot prior to his death?

The things I read made no mention of a souvenir being taken. Souvenirs were usually taken by the killers in the other priest deaths. This further disconnects it from the other cases in my mind. But if I had more details of the crime scene, maybe I could connect it to the Father Ryan case. The two cases do have many eerie similarities. 

Father John Patrick Kerrigan

Another notable priest death in the 1980s was Father John Patrick Kerrigan on July 20, 1984. Now the weird thing about Father Kerrigan is that he had been at his post in Ronan, MT, for only four days. He was never seen alive again after disappearing from a bakery in Montana. First his clothes and a bloody coat hanger were discovered near Flathead Lake; the coat hanger was believed to have been used to strangle or resteain him. His car was found outside Polson, MT, with no fingerprints but tons of blood all over it. There was a bloody shovel and a bloody pillowcase and a wallet with $1200 in the trunk. He was never found.

Father Kerrigan was on a list of priests accused of sexual assault. For a time, he had been sent to Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, NM, a place where priests with pedophilia and alcoholism were often sent to “reform.” He also skipped around posts a lot, a common maneuver for priests facing accusations that the Catholic church wanted to sweep under the rug. So while he was killed in Montana, he was still connected to the Southwest and he was a priest who met a violent, mysterious end in the 80s, suggesting a possible connection to the other priest murders. Investigators do think that his murder was way too similar to the death of Father Rivera, and thus maybe committed by the same person or persons. 

Father James Otis Anderson

Just like Father Kerrigan, Father James Anderson was a priest who disappeared from Montana. He was in Sulphur Springs, MT, when he mysteriously vanished in June of 1982. He was Episcopal, though, not Catholic.

The way he left his rectory, it looked he planned to return. There was a written sermon, his toothbrush and razor laid out by his sink, etc. But wherever he was going, he took a pistol, his address book, and his favorite afghan blanket. He was last seen on Highway 12. When he didn’t show up for services that night, suspicions were raised. Unfortunately, his children, his soon-to-be ex-wife, and his parish would never see him again and his body would never be located.

In October of 1982, a good four months after he was last seen, his Volkswagen was found hidden in some woods. The area was not visible to passersby, so it was well-disguised. Someone must have known the area to find such a good hiding spot. 

Not far from the car, on the edge of a ridge, was his clerical collar, cap, glasses, and prayer book. The items missing from his rectory were never found, though, possibly having been taken as a souvenir if he was killed.

Seven years after his disappearance, he was declared legally dead and his church collected on his life insurance policy. He had dropped his wife from the policy some months before filing for divorce from her. 

Now being embroiled in a divorce and a custody battle always raises suspicions toward the other spouse. There is a possibility that something to do with the divorce led to this. But police really don’t have any answers. They don’t even know for sure if the priest was killed – there was no evidence of blood or other signs of violence.

Could he have staged a scene to deliberately disappear? His ex-wife doesn’t believe so – she said he loved his kids too much to hurt them like that.

Could it be that he was kidnapped but never killed? Well, maybe, but why? Nobody ever asked for ransom or appeared to have a motive.

Could it be suicide? The absence of his gun and other beloved items, and the way his things were found on a scenic ridge with sweeping views, could suggest that. But then where did his body go? His wife doesn’t think he could have driven his car to the location it was found himself due to the fact he wasn’t a great driver. 

Interestingly, Father Anderson had once worked near White Sulphur Springs with Father Kerrigan and they were friends. Anderson disappeared about two years before Father Kerrigan did. 

A Connection?

Are the deaths and disappearances connected? Maybe so, maybe not. The cases definiitely share some similarities.

Father Rivera and Father Kerrigan were killed in manners that were pretty alike – their cars were driven from the scene where they were probably killed, no fingerprints were found, coat hangers were involved. These two priests did not appear to be involved with any hitchhikers.

Father Kerrigan and Father Anderson were friends and they lived in Montana. Their deaths may very well be connected.

Father Ryan and Father Ben both died in motel rooms in the Southwest. They were both facedown with their hands bound behind their backs after picking up hitchhikers, a little over a year apart. That seems like a pretty weird coincidence. 

Father Rivera and Father Ryan both had priest-related items stolen from them. Father Ryan was missing his silver chalice; Father Rivera was missing his last rites kit. This could suggest the killer took souvenirs to celebrate the crimes. 

The violence against all these priests does tend to take on a different perspective when you consider the recent allegations of abuse by Catholic priests and the long history of cover-ups by the Catholic church. Father Ryan and Father Kerrigan both had allegations of propositioning boys; Father Ben and Father Rivera did not, but that doesn’t mean they had no sexual abuse victims who never came forward.

It could also be a serial killer was targeting priests indiscriminately to avenge something horrible from his past. 

The Boise John Doe/Cyanide Killer

The Cyanide Killer is a John Doe who committed suicide via cyanide pill in the Sacred Heart Catholic church in Boise, ID. He died in 1982. He came in asking for confession but while waiting for the priest to confess him, he killed himself by swallowing the cyanide pill.

There was $1900 in cash and a note in his pocket, saying to use the cash to cover his funeral expenses. He signed the note with the name of a priests’ robe manufacturer, “Wm. Lm. Toomey.”

The fact he killed himself in a church and used the alias of a priests’ robe manufacturer raises suspicions of his connection with the Catholic church. He had a tan and wore Southwestern-style clothing and a belt buckle traced to a shop in Phoenix; this all tied him to the Southwest. All of this led to the suspicion that he might have been involved in the murders. 

The Reyos Conviction

Now the murders of Rivera, Kerrigan, and Ben are all considered unsolved. But Father Ryan’s murder did have a conviction: James Harry Reyos.

Reyos was a friend of Father Ryan’s. He had met Father Ryan while hitchhiking from Denver City, TX, to Hobbs, NM. He was trying to get a job in Hobbs, a major oil and natural gas producing area. Father Ryan introduced himself as John when he picked Reyos up and hid the fact he was a priest until later that night, after the two had been drinking together at a bar.

After a few weeks of spending time together and drinking as pals, they got drunk together in the rectory and Father Ryan forced Reyos to give him head. Reyos left feeling ashamed and used. Reyos was gay but he didn’t feel attracted to Father Ryan, and this was a sexual assault by a priest, which made him feel especially icky.

The next day, Reyos needed a ride to get his car, which was being held by a bail bondsman named Bostick because Reyos had been drunk driving without a license. Having no one else to ask, he requested Father Ryan take him. Father Ryan apologized for the previous night before taking Reyos to the car. Along the way, Father Ryan also picked up another hitchhiker while Reyos was still in the vehicle. This hitchhiker was described by Reyos as a middle-aged black man. After dropping off Reyos at the bail bondsman’s, the priest continued on and dropped the hitchhiker somewhere farther down the road. 

The father was found dead in the Sage and Sand Motel in Odessa about nine hours later. Odessa happens to be a good ninety miles from Hobbs. Since Father Ryan’s vehicle was still parked in Hobbs, someone else must have taken him to Odessa. 

Reyos was the first person interrogated after Father Ryan was found. Police suspected him because he had left his backpack and his childhood photo album in Father Ryan’s rectory. Reyos had been showing the childhood photos to Father Ryan the night Ryan assaulted him. Reyos was cleared and went on his merry way, until eleven months later, when he called the police drunk and turned himself in for Father Ryan’s murder.

Jordan Smith writes a wonderful article in the Austin Chronicle about how Reyos could not possibly have killed Father Ryan because of his activities that night. His activities that night are verified by receipts and traffic tickets that Reyos had meticulously saved, being that type of person. Here is a snippet of Reyos’s activities according to Smith: 

  1. He got a ride to the bail bondsman by Father Ryan with the other hitchhiker in the truck. He asked Father Ryan to wait, but Ryan did not, and he instead took off and dropped off the hitchhiker down the street. In the meantime, Reyos got his truck from the bail bondsman, which took about an hour. 
  2. Reyos drove to Tipp’s Bar and met up with a friend, Harold, who died before trial.
  3. They went to an auto parts store and bought items for Reyos’s truck, verified by receipt.
  4. Reyos dropped off Harold and went on to Albuqeurque to see his family. Along the way, he ran into the same middle-aged black man that Father Ryan had picked up earlier, so he picked him up. This man told him Father Ryan had dropped him off a few blocks from the bail bondsman and sped off in a hurry. 
  5. The pair bought gas in Artesia; Reyos has a time-stamped receipt for this.
  6. Next he went to Roswell, where he dropped the man off at a bus station.
  7. Apparently for old time’s sake, he then went to the ENMU-R campus, where he was an alumni. He drove around for a bit. He met a friend with the last name Myers, and they got drunk together, confirmed by the friend.
  8. Already drunk, he left to Bottomless Lakes State Park at 8:30 pm after saying bye to Myers. Then he drove around aimlessly for a bit and went toward Tatum, where he bought gas; again, he had a receipt. 
  9. He drove around drinking in the vicinity of Tatum and was issued a speeding ticket somewhere around there. This ticket helped prove where he was at that time.
  10. Somewhere near Tatum, he drove into a ditch and a passerby saw he was drunk and took him to Sambo’s Restaurant in Roswell. Here he sobered up a bit. 
  11. At 4 am, he had a wrecker tow and fix his truck for a flat tire. He called the wrecker from inside Sambo’s. After it was fixed, he fell asleep in his truck for about 3 hours. (This part of the story seems weird to me – considering Sambo’s filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 1981 and closed all restaurants except for their Santa Barbara, CA, location, and yet all this took place in December 1981.)
  12. Around 8 am, he bought beer at Allsup’s and then headed toward Albuqeurque. Only 30 miles out, he got another flat, so he spent most of the day in a repair shop as it was fixed.
  13. He finally left for Albuqerque at 7:00 pm. 

While this zigzag seems strange for a person on a mission to Albuquerque, one must keep in mind that Reyos was Native American and a closeted homosexual, which is forbidden in Native American culture. He had a lot of shame and trauma related to his sexuality. This fueled his alcoholism. He also saved time-stamped receipts and had the speeding ticket and repair receipts, all solid evidence that he was where he said he was all night.

On top of that, there was no physical evidence at the crime scene linking the murder to him. 

It just doesn’t seem possible that Reyos killed Father Ryan given this timeline of events. As someone who has traveled around eastern New Mexico, it is very desolate and the roads are long and the towns far apart. People drive fast on these narrow roads, but still not fast enough to cover all this ground and drive to the Sand and Sage Motel to commit a murder. Since he was in the Roswell area at the time of Father Ryan’s murder, and all of his activities were accounted for up until the early morning hours when he fell asleep in his truck, that means he would have had to drive about 207 miles to Odessa and then another 207 back in just 3 hours. Sorry, not possible.

So then why was he arrested? Well, false confessions are a nuisance to police, but they also give police a convenient way to wrap up a case and call it solved. Reyos made such a false confession during a desperate time of his life. He was living in a motel in Albuquerque about a year after Father Ryan’s murder and he was drunk and using Quaaludes.

Though he recanted right away, he was sent to a jury trial. The jury was put off by his race and his tales of alcoholism and sexual assault by a priest. Hence, he was sentenced to thirty-eight years, twenty of which he served.

In 1984, assistant Ector County DA Dennis Cadra noticed something fishy about Reyos’s conviction for Father Ryan’s murder. But it wasn’t until the early 1990s, when Reyos appealed his case, that Cadra began to do some digging. He convinced the governor of Texas at the time to review Reyos’s case and they determined it was physically impossible for Reyos to have killed Father Ryan. Plus, Reyos didn’t match any of the DNA found at the scene. But there still hasn’t been any justice done for him. He hasn’t been given a pardon.

Reyos now lives in Austin and is quiet and has no history of violence (beyond his murder charge). He is involved in AA and has upheld the conditions of his parole. This man has spent most of his life behind bars for a crime he could not have committed. 

But that still leaves the question of who did it. 

Possible Theories in Father Ryan’s Case

The unidentified black hitchhiker may be a person of interest, but it also seems unlikely that he caught a bus to Odessa in Roswell in the evening just to track down and kill Father Ryan. I have no idea what the bus schedule was in 1981, but now, the bus to Odessa from Roswell takes eleven hours and twenty minutes.

Nevertheless, I would love to find this hitchhiker and speak to him. I’m sure he may have had some information, at least about Father Ryan’s mental state and why he left so fast that morning. 

Some people think that the Cyanide Killer/Boise John Doe was responsible for this and other priest murders. There is little evidence to support this theory; it was based on a “gut feeling” by Boise investigator Frank Richardson, who had been itching to solve the eleven-year Boise John Doe suicide case.

When Odessa investigators and Frank Richardson put their heads together, they saw a possibility of a connection. They decided to ask Odessa police for the DNA evidence from Father Ryan’s crime scene so they could compare it against the Boise John Doe’s.

But guess what? There was no evidence to compare. The police had destroyed all the physical evidence from the Father Ryan crime scene in 1982, assuming that they had their man and they didn’t have to do anything else with the case. The result is that Father Ryan’s crime may never be solved now because of their gross negligence.  

Just because the Cyanide Killer killed himself in a church and had a likely Catholic connection, does not mean he’s a murderer. Maybe something entirely different drove him to suicide in a Catholic church. Maybe he had been guilty of sexual abuse – or he had been sexually abused in the church. Maybe the church was his safe place, the one place he felt better. Maybe he went there hoping he might be absolved of his sin of suicide.

Also, a few months after the Boise John Doe died, Father Kerrigan was murdered in Montana, not too terribly far from where the Cyanide Killer died. So if the Cyanide Killer was responsible for the murders of Father Ryan and Father Ben, he sure wasn’t for Father Kerrigan! 

It is also possible that this was a hate crime against a gay man, or a very violent rape. Father Ryan engaged in some risky activity – he picked up hitchhikers, he engaged in secret sexual trysts with total strangers, and he checked into motels with fake information. He would approach complete strangers in parking lots and proposition them for sex. In fact, he actually propositioned two men in Hobbs shortly before he was murdered. Have those men been cleared of the crime? 

Father Ben’s murder does appear quite similar to Father Ryan’s. Maybe Father Ben was engaging in the same type of activity and attracted the same killer. Maybe their particular killer wasn’t targeting priests at all, but instead gay men. There were quite a few serial killers active in the 80s and Arnold Mulholland was a serial killer of gay men in that period. 

I’m not sure all of the cases are connected. But there are a lot of weird connections and coincidences that seem to tie these crimes together. Like the Jemez Springs Connection….

The Jemez Springs Connection

During their reopening of the investigation, Richardson and Cadra looked into Father Ryan’s background and discovered that he had a very shady past, shrouded in mystery. Since he had come from Ireland, it is unclear what he did or where or when in the US. It is uncertain when he was posted in West Texas. 

However, his life fit a pattern of priests who had gone to the Paraclete in Jemez Springs. Many of them were stationed in West Texas, due to the demand for priests there. This meant that he may have been a Jemez Springs rehab client, and therefore he may have had a pretty dark past. This is somewhat bolstered by allegations from  young men from his parish, who claim that he propositioned them for sex.

Father Kerrigan was also an attendee in Jemez Springs.

Richardson sent a sketch of the Boise John Doe to the Jemez Springs facility, hoping to get a positive ID. That could have proved a link between the Cyanide Killer and a few of the priests who were murdered at least. But he never got a response. The facility is now defunct, taking its secrets of predatory priests to the grave.

The other priests don’t appear to be connected to Jemez Springs. That doesn’t mean they also weren’t guilty of the same offenses. Maybe they just didn’t get caught. Their victims may have gotten revenge for themselves. In the case of Father Rivera, he may have been a victim of someone’s revenge plot against the church itself, not a specific priest.  

Sources

https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/4-investigates-the-mysterious-murder-of-father-reynaldo-rivera/

https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Father_John_Kerrigan

http://sambosonline.com/sambos_newmexico.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo%27s

https://www.insidehook.com/article/crime/unholy-mystery-murdered-priests#:~:text=Reyos%2C%20a%20Native%20American%2C%20was%20convicted%20of%20murdering,to%20Hobbs%2C%20New%20Mexico%2C%20looking%20for%20a%20job.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2005-06-17/275319/

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2005-06-17/275319/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_Franciscan_priest_murders

https://factschology.com/mmm-podcast-articles/father-reynaldo-rivera-murder-1982