'Holy death' reigns over drug dealer dens

Web Posted: 05/31/2008 11:32 PM CDT

By Lynn Brezosky
Express-News

LAREDO — When Webb County sheriff's deputies started photographing the eerie, sometimes blood-soaked shrines to shrouded skeletal figurines found at the homes and stash houses of big-time drug dealers, it was with the sense they were glimpsing into the psyche of a subculture.

That was a few years ago. Now, the elaborate displays of homage to the Santa Muerte, or holy death, seem more kitschy than creepy. The defiant faith that sinister-looking statues could summon netherworld power, which emerged as something associated with cartel kingpins tucked inside gated estates, has gone mainstream for the Mexican border's criminal element.

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