‘I Believe in Juan Soldado’ : Soldier Executed in 1938 Revered as Tijuana Miracle Worker

The supplicant approaches on her knees, hands folded in prayer, nearing the shrine of the soldier who, she says, will bring her miracles. As she inches her way through the cemetery walkway, her mother places narrow strips of tattered carpet on the hard cement path, easing the way.

“He helped my other daughter in San Antonio, Tex., become legal,” explains her mother, Sara Mora del Melgosa, a resident of the Mexican interior state of Michoacan who says she visits the shrine each year. “I believe in Juan Soldado.”

Died 50 Years Ago

Juan Soldado--literally, John Soldier--is the sobriquet of an infantryman, Juan Castillo Morales, dead and buried 50 years, who is revered as a friend, miracle worker and unauthorized patron saint of bawdy Tijuana, despite vociferous disavowals by the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.

Castillo, who was executed by a military firing squad for his alleged role in the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl, is widely viewed here as an innocent victim of a frame-up by his general--who is believed to have been the real culprit. In a culture where so many view themselves as victims of injustice, the story of Juan Castillo has struck a responsive chord for half a century.

In particular, Castillo is seen as a protector of undocumented immigrants in the United States, whose loved ones often stop here to request that Juanito, as he is alluded to endearingly, assist their far-flung family members. Migrants frequently stop by at Castillo’s shrine in a city cemetery three blocks south of the international boundary before proceeding on their often-treacherous journey to the north. Others residing in the United States frequently give thanks.

Indeed, Castillo’s shrine, constructed above his plot, is adorned with copies of amnesty documents, green cards and other U.S. immigration documents--acquired, many believe, through the heavenly graces of Castillo.

“We give thanks to God, who, through the intercession of the soul of Juan Soldado, granted the immigration of our two children, Ernesto and Carmen,” wrote Jose and Ana Diaz, who left color snapshots of their offspring along with their handwritten letter at the shrine.

‘Returned My Sight’

Others offer gratitude for a variety of services rendered, from restoring health to reuniting lost loved ones to the birth of children. “I give thanks to God, to the Virgin, and to Juan Soldado, for having returned my sight,” wrote a Guadalajara woman.

“Juan Soldado was innocent,” proclaims Jose Resendez, a grizzled, 72-year-old vendor who, from his yellow wooden cart near the cemetery gates, hawks flowers, ceramic figures and small black-and-white photographs said to be likenesses of the cherubic-appearing infantryman, some in gilded frames and others embossed on crucifixes and key chains.

The depth of reverence was particularly evident Wednesday, El Dia de Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead)--known as All Souls’ Day among English-speaking Catholics--a time when hundreds made the pilgrimage to Panteon No. 1, the city cemetery near where Castillo was executed at the age of 24 and where his remains were interred.

The unofficial sanctification of Juan Soldado represents an urban and borderlands twist on the legends that are ubiquitous throughout Latin America, where organized religion, folk beliefs and superstition often mesh in jarring fashion.

Many communities boast saints and miracle workers who are unrecognized by the Vatican but revered by local residents as readily accessible spirits and intermediaries with the hereafter. Images of such figures, some renowned for their drinking exploits and otherwise less-than-savory behavior, are routinely hoisted during processions from the Andes to the Sierra Madre.

“Communicating with Juan Soldado is much easier than communicating directly with God,” noted Lourdes Becker, a Chula Vista photographer who researched the case for an exhibition last year at San Diego’s Balboa Park.

Then a Border Outpost

Little seems to be known about the life of Castillo beyond the fact that he apparently was born in the northern state of Jalisco, and during 1938 was a young soldier serving at a military barracks in Tijuana, then a border outpost of 15,000 inhabitants.

It was a tense time throughout post-revolutionary Mexico: President Lazaro Cardenas had nationalized the oil companies and outlawed casino gambling, the latter action resulting in the shutdown of Tijuana’s Agua Caliente casino, one-time playground of the Hollywood set.

On Feb. 15 or 16, according to various accounts, the bludgeoned body of 8-year-old Olga Consuelo Camacho, who lived near the military barracks, was discovered near the base. An oft-repeated account here is that the corpse was found when Castillo, at the behest of his general, went to collect the remains for burial. He was immediately arrested.

Some older residents still remember the mob outcry here at such a heinous crime.

“They wanted to lynch Juan Soldado,” recalled Maria de Jesus Orozco, a lively and alert 84-year-old great-grandmother who lives near the cemetery and still recalls the commotion.

Justice was swift. Castillo was court-martialed and sentenced to die. A firing squad ended his life, according to popular accounts, on the morning of Feb. 17, 1938.

“They gave him a few seconds to run, then they shot him down,” recalled De Jesus, who said she was one of a large crowd that witnessed the execution. “At first he refused to run, imploring, ‘I want to speak to my general! I want to speak to my general!’ But the commander of the battalion told him . . . that running was his only chance.”

Some say he went quietly. Some say he died cursing his executioners.

Either way, Castillo the person was gone. But the larger-than-life persona of Juan Soldado had been born.

Stain Reportedly Returned

Afterward, sympathizers gave him a proper burial in a cemetery adjacent to the spot where he was shot, cleansing the blood from his execution site. Soon, however, the crimson stain had returned and, according to legend, could never be removed--apparently helping to spawn the belief in the former infantryman’s miraculous powers.

Today, inside the shrine at his grave, the heady, funereal aroma of old flowers and votive candles is almost overwhelming. Baby clothing, family photographs, handwritten letters, crowns of flowers and thank-you notes bedeck the simple one-room structure. Pilgrims place donations in a locked metal box. (The cemetery crew chief says he does not know what becomes of the donated funds, as do church officials.)

Atop the shrine’s tin roof, some worshipers have left the remains of crutches, plaster casts and at least one artificial limb; all were presumably cast aside after prayers to Juan Soldado. A simple ceramic bust of a uniformed Castillo sits atop the structure like a chimney, rising alongside a wrought-iron cross. Volunteers care for the site.

A few hundred yards from the shrine is a small brick enclosure, also a revered, flower-laden spot, at the site where Castillo is believed to have fallen. At the head of a stone monument, a white military police helmet, an allusion to the victim’s military service, sits atop a cross, flanked by flowers. There is no longer any sign of blood, but fetid water from a faulty sewage connection keeps the spot moist.

“You saved me from the prison that was awaiting me,” one Salvador M. Gonzalez wrote in a plaque dated 1950. “May God allow you to enter His sainted kingdom for making this miracle for me.”