12 Tijuana Sect Members Found Dead of Poisoning

Twelve people, including three children, were found dead Thursday inside a house after consuming poisoned food or drink in what authorities described as a religious ceremony gone awry.

Five others, including a 5-month-old girl, were taken to a clinic, where they were reported to be in comas and listed in critical condition.

Authorities said the victims were all members of a religious sect headed by a charismatic Tijuana resident, who was among those in a coma late Thursday. The sect leader was identified as Federico Padres Mejia.

Authorities said the most likely cause of the deaths was an industrial-strength alcohol believed to be inside a fruit punch that participants had shared during a night-long religious ceremony.

Initial reports suggested the people might have died in a mass suicide rite, because the bodies were found in a circular pattern, or that they were murdered.

But Tijuana police later discounted those theories. They said it appeared the group was engaged in a ceremony Wednesday night that required them to consume an alcohol-based drink. Police speculated that an industrial-strength alcohol was mistakenly substituted, and authorities believe those in the ceremony unknowingly drank the deadly concoction.

“We believe we’ve ruled out both suicide and homicide,” said Jose Nunez de Caceres, a commander of the Baja California state police in Tijuana.

Mexican television showed film of the bodies, which appeared to be gathered in the front room of a small house in a poor barrio known as El Florido, on the city’s southeastern outskirts.

Neighbors said the religious sect had been in the single-story concrete house for about five months.

Baja California state judicial police were shown on television trying to calm distraught relatives who gathered on the dirt street in front of the home.

There were unconfirmed reports that neighbors had heard the small religious sect chanting in the house for three consecutive nights before Wednesday night’s ceremony.

One neighbor, Noeimi Gomez, 19, who lives across the road from the house, said she was awakened about 2 a.m. Thursday morning by sect members knocking hard on the walls of the home.

“He (the sect leader) and the others never bothered anybody,” Gomez said. “He sometimes said some odd things but that seemed to be his way.”