Every story requires something to inspire the writer. For Thomas Harris, the author of The Silence of the Lambs, the inspiration would come from Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño, a man that he met in a Mexican prison entirely by chance who became the inspiration for Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
An Auspicious Encounter
Dykes Askew Simmons was a crane operator from Texas. He is normally referenced as having a rap sheet for petty crime, though there appears to be at least one instance of grand theft auto so I’m a little skeptical about the definition of “petty.” There doesn’t seem to be any history of violent crime, but Simmons did find himself in Wichita Falls Mental Hospital for his crimes.
Simmons didn’t much care for being locked up in a mental hospital, so in 1959 he decided to take an unauthorized vacation to Mexico. Unfortunately, not far from where he crossed the border, a lone man attacked three young siblings: Hilda, Martha, and Manuel Pérez Villagómez. Two of them died immediately, but one of the girls survived for 17 days, long enough to identify Simmons as her attacker.
Was he actually guilty of the murders? We can’t know for sure. Yes, the dying girl identified him as the killer, but she identified lots of people as the killer, including her doctor. But once the finger was pointed at Simmons, he was convicted and sentenced to death.
This was a major story that caught the attention of the media across the United States, and it was a political disaster for both countries. Simmons was the first American citizen to be condemned to death in Mexico, and on shaky evidence no less. The United States government didn’t want to appear like it was unable to protect its citizens abroad, but the Mexican government didn’t want to appear as though they were caving to the American government.
A compromise was reached whereby if Simmons petitioned to have his sentence commuted, he would be released and allowed to go back to the United States. But he refused. Doing so would have likely required an admission of guilt, and Simmons remained adamant that he had never killed anyone. Besides, he was still wanted in Texas for escaping from the mental hospital, so any government orchestrated release would likely see him just being moved from one prison to another.
He decided that he would just stay in Topo Chico prison in Monterrey and await his execution.
That was his official plan at least, but Simmons didn’t much care for being locked up in Mexican prison either. In 1963 he attempted to escape from Topo Chico, but instead of finding his way back to Texas all he found was the sudden pain of having his legs pierced by a pair of bullets from the guards.
Frankly, I find this escape attempt to be a bit rude, even if he was innocent. Thanks to his case being a bit of an international incident, he had already agreed to conduct an interview with a 23 year old journalist that would be traveling to Mexico to meet him at the prison just a couple days later; it would have been impolite to stand him up.
The reporter was a man named Thomas Harris who wrote for Argosy, the first and longest running pulp magazine. If you don’t recognize his name and didn’t figure it out from the title of this episode, Harris was the man who would go on to write Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs.
Harris was still going to have his opportunity to interview Simmons, but first he requested to speak with Dr. Salazar, the man that had saved Simmons’s life. Harris described him as a “small, lithe man with dark red hair,” saying that “there was a certain elegance” about him. While he may have been referring to the doctor’s demeanor, this was something that would have been notable immediately upon meeting the man.
Despite working in a prison, Dr. Salazar dressed extremely well. He wore fine, light coloured suits, probably all custom made as he was from an upper class family. He also usually wore dark sunglasses, and of course his gold Rolex watch. Wearing your Rolex in prison is a baller move and potentially asking for trouble, but when the inmates know that you can control whether they live or die they’ll probably have the sense to leave it well enough alone.
However, what struck Harris most was the line of questioning that Dr. Salazar wanted to engage in. He seemed extremely curious about Simmons’ psychology. He first asked Harris if he had sunglasses with him, which he did, then warned Harris not to wear them when he interviewed Simmons, otherwise he might see his own reflection in them.
You see, Simmons had a cleft lip and several scars on his forehead, and Dr. Salazar felt that this deformity and the effect it had on his life may have been the source of Simmons’ psychological troubles.
Harris would later recall a part of their conversation thusly:
Dr. Salazar: “But tell me, do you think Simmons was bullied by other kids during recess because he’s a man with a physical defect?”
Harris: “Probably, that’s common.”
Dr. Salazar: “Yes, it is common. Did you see pictures of the victims, the two young girls and their little brother?”
Harris: “Yes.”
Dr. Salazar: “Would you say they were attractive kids?”
Harris: “They were good looking kids from a good family… with a good education, I’ve been told. But, you’re not saying they provoked him, are you?”
Dr. Salazar: “No, of course not. But childhood afflictions make later afflictions easily recreated.”
Their conversation about the psychology and motive behind Simmons’ actions continued for a few minutes before the prison director knocked on the doctor’s office door to let Harris know that his time was up. Harris thanked Dr. Salazar for his time and invited him to join him for lunch or a drink if he ever traveled to Texas.
As they left the office to go interview Simmons, Harris asked the prison director how long Dr. Salazar had been working there. The director just looked at him and said, “Hombre, don’t you know who that is? The doctor is a murderer. He’ll never leave this place; he’s insane.”
Harris was more than a little confused as he had seen other patients walking to Dr. Salazar’s office. Not only did the doctor treat inmates, he also treated people from the local community. When asked, the director simply explained to him that he was a good doctor, and that “with poor people he doesn’t act insane.”
It wouldn’t be until almost 50 years later that Harris learned that the man’s name was not actually Dr. Salazar. It was the nickname he was given within the prison, one of his many nicknames alongside The Werewolf of Nuevo Leon, The Vampire Ballí, and the much less creative Killer Doctor.
As the 25th anniversary of the 1988 release of the novel Silence of the Lambs approached, Harris decided he wanted to include a foreword to tell the story of the doctor he met in Mexico who inspired him to create Hannibal Lecter. Since he only had the fake name he was given half a century earlier (and didn’t even know it was fake), tracking down the real doctor proved to be a little bit difficult. He finally was able to identify him as Alfredo Ballí Treviño, but the real doctor had died just years earlier in 2009.
Alfredo may have been a physician rather than a psychiatrist, but it was his elegant nature and interest in the psychology of other patients that inspired Harris. Even though their conversation was brief, the eerie nature of this small doctor who stood almost motionless while interrogating him about the minds of other killers made a lasting impression.
The Fate of Dykes Askew Simmons
But before we get to Alfredo’s story, perhaps you’d like to know what happened to Simmons. Well despite being shot during his previous escape attempt, he still didn’t much care for being locked up in Mexican prison. He attempted to escape again in 1969, only this time he succeeded.
There are a couple different stories for how this happened, one of which involves him dressing up as a nun. The more realistic story is that he bribed a guard to get out of his cell when his brother was visiting and he hid in a custom built hidden compartment in his brother’s car while they drove out of the prison through the guard checkpoints. After 10 years sitting on death row, Simmons was finally a free man.
Once it was discovered that he escaped back to Texas, Mexican authorities chose to just leave it alone rather than attempt to fight the U.S. for extradition. Simmons’ escape had neatly cleaned up the political debacle that originally ensued by an American being sentenced to death in Mexico. If we are to believe that he was in fact innocent, it was the best possible outcome for everyone.
But if we are to believe that he really did kill those children, then the best possible outcome for everyone would come five months later when Simmons’ body was found beaten to death in Fort Worth, Texas. Much like his original arrest in Mexico and his escape back to America, this made nationwide news. His death was deemed “suspicious,” and within days a “burly, blond ex-convict” was charged with his murder.
It’s hard to know how to feel about Simmons’ case. Sure he had a history of criminal activity, but there’s a big difference between stealing a car for money and murdering three children for no discernible reason. We’ll never know for certain the full story of what happened involving Simmons, but fortunately the good doctor had the courtesy to remove any moral ambiguity by confessing to his crime.
The Murder of Jesús Castillo Rangel
There isn’t a lot of information available about the early life of Alfredo, though he doesn’t seem to have the same sort of tragic and abusive upbringing that we expect from our killers. What we know is that he came from a well off family, and he and his siblings were pushed by their father to study hard so they could succeed. But just how sternly their father pushed them is impossible to determine. Nothing indicates that Alfredo was the victim of abuse or domestic violence, but this was also Mexico in the 1930s and 1940s where corporal punishment was extremely common.
His father is described as being strict and always carrying a gun around, traits that Alfredo would adopt as well. So while there’s a good chance he experienced more than some gentle coaxing and words of encouragement, it’s likely nothing that would have been considered excessive by the societal standards of the day.
All of this encouragement, in whatever form it came, worked and Alfredo became a medical doctor, as did two of his brothers. By 1959, at the age of 28, he was already a successful doctor. However he engaged in a certain practice that, while technically decriminalized in Mexico back in 1871, was still seen as unforgivable in the 1950s. Alfredo may not have been a cannibal like Dr.
Lecter, but he still loved swallowing man-meat. At the very least that’s how all the papers at the time reported it, but there remains a lot of uncertainty and conflicting reports when it comes to the motive behind the murder.
On October 8, 1959, 20 year old medical student Jesús Castillo Rangel went to Alfredo’s office to see him in between patients. They had allegedly been seeing one another romantically, but Jesús wasn’t just dropping by for some afternoon delight. There are three different possible catalysts for what happened next, and there’s no way to determine which is the truth since Alfredo refused to ever talk about it.
The most widely reported version is that Jesús and Alfredo had been involved in a relationship, but Jesús came to the office that day to break things off because he was insistent on marrying a woman. It’s certainly the most scandalous option, but it’s hard to say whether or not it’s the most likely.
Both of the other explanations involve money. The less sinister of these is that Alfredo had lent Jesús a large sum of money, but Jesús was having difficulty paying it back which finally erupted into a fight. The alternative was that Jesús came to blackmail Alfredo, due to their sexual relationship. Even though publicly revealing this would have damaged Jesús’s reputation as well, it would have been far worse for Alfredo.
He was already an established and respected doctor who would have been seen as taking advantage of his position of power over the much younger medical student.
All three of these scenarios were reported as fact by various news outlets and all seem to be based on hearsay, so I guess you can just pick whichever one you think is most believable. Once the argument erupted between the two, Alfredo used the old rag soaked in ether trick to subdue Jesús before injecting him with sodium pentothal to make sure he wouldn’t wake up. He then dragged his victim to the office’s bathroom and placed the body in the bathtub.
He slit Jesús’s throat with a scalpel and completely exsanguinated the body before slicing it into pieces. The body was disassembled to the point that it could be fit into a “surprisingly small box.” Alfredo placed the box in his car and went to visit Francisco Villareal, who occasionally worked for him and was allegedly also his lover.
They transferred the box to Francisco’s car then went to visit his aunt, Guadalupe Villareal, who owned a nearby ranch. Alfredo borrowed a shovel from Guadalupe and he and Francisco buried what, as far as Francisco knew, was a box of unimportant medical waste. Because I guess burying medical waste on an isolated patch of your aunt’s ranch was normal practice back in the 1950s.
The next morning, a shepherd working for Guadalupe stumbled upon a strange area of stones and disturbed ground after following a cow that wandered off from the group. He contacted the police who in turn found the body. It didn’t take long for Alfredo to be identified as the chief suspect, especially since he didn’t even have the courtesy to return the shovel.
Homicide detectives went to Alfredo’s office pretending to be patients. Once they revealed their identities and tried to arrest him, he offered them two cars, his office, and the pharmacy owned by his father. Mexican police have a reputation for being rather amenable to bribes, and that was a pretty nice offer. But it wasn’t enough.
Once in custody, Alfredo didn’t try to contest the charges against him. Instead, he went the opposite route and bragged about what an amazing job he did. I mean, he didn’t do a good job trying to get away with the crime, but the crime itself was spectacular. Alfredo boasted about his ability to dismember Jesús’s body with such skill that his scalpel never once touched a bone. And the tiny box he was able to fit the entire body in? How could the police not be impressed?
Trial and Imprisonment
Despite a speedy arrest and full confession, Alfredo wouldn’t be sentenced until May of 1961, about 18 months later. Where he was during that period of time isn’t entirely clear, but it surprisingly seems that he wasn’t in a jail cell as he took a wife in between his arrest and his sentencing. This was the first of two women he would marry. Some people use this as proof that Jesús had not been his boyfriend, which it definitely isn’t.
As for the charges against Alfredo, he had been accused of clandestine burial, usurpation of the profession, and qualified homicide. When I first read that, I assumed qualified homicide was some sort of lesser form of murder that involved mitigating circumstances or something, a mistake I keep making whenever I see some sort of adjective in front of homicide.
Under Mexican law, qualified homicide is the intentional killing of a person over whom the killer had an advantage. “Advantage” in this context is pretty broad and includes things like having a weapon, lulling someone into a false sense of security before stabbing them in the back, manipulating them through some sort of imbalance in power such as the teacher/student dynamic these two had, and it even includes just being physically stronger than the victim.
By charging him with qualified homicide, Alfredo was eligible for the death penalty. He became the last person to be condemned to death under Mexican law, even though a ban on capital punishment wasn’t actually instated for more than four decades following this sentence.
Once he was in prison, Alfredo quickly gained a positive reputation. The police may not have been impressed by the skill with which he dismembered his former colleague and possibly lover, but the other violent criminals at Topo Chico certainly were. The fact that he offered free medical services to the other inmates, up to and including minor surgeries, certainly helped as well.
There were a few developments while Alfredo was in prison. The first was that he began using the name Dr. Salazar. I can’t find any back story on where this came from, nor whether he adopted the nickname himself or was given it by his fellow inmates. My best guess based on what I’ve read is that the name was likely given to him as an homage to Emiliano Zapata Salazar, a Mexican revolutionary from the early 1900s.
Salazar became a bit of a folk hero, and he was a champion of the impoverished working class who were being increasingly repressed by wealthy landowners. Similarly, Alfredo was well loved and respected by the poorer citizens of the area. He was well known for providing his medical services to the poor and elderly free of charge, something that began before he was in prison and continued until he stopped practicing medicine. It is just my speculation, but I figured the name had to come from somewhere.
The next big development was all those dead bodies they found. Technically they found the bodies before Alfredo was in jail, but they wanted to connect him to the murders. A series of victims had been found along the side of state highways, and the murders are described as being similar in nature to the murder of Jesús, but with no explanation of how. It was speculated that he had preyed on hitchhikers or other lone travelers, people he thought nobody would ever miss.
Of course, no connection between Alfredo and these murders was ever made. If he had already been accustomed to tossing bodies on the side of the road, I can’t imagine he’d have buried Jesús’s body somewhere that it would so easily be found and traced back to him. And unless these bodies were dismembered and packed into surprisingly small boxes, it doesn’t sound like his M.O.
I’m going to assume they were not disposed of in such a manner, otherwise it would be pretty easy to connect Alfredo to them. After all, he had gleefully bragged about being able to dismember the bodies without ever touching a bone with his blade; his handiwork would have been pretty identifiable.
It’s a good thing for Alfredo that, despite the accusations, no evidence could ever tie him to these murders. One because he probably had nothing to do with them, and two because further convictions would likely have prevented the final big development in Alfredo’s prison story: his lawyers got his death sentence commuted.
Release and Later Life
In 1980, after serving about 20 years in prison, Alfredo was released. He went back to practicing medicine, not that he ever really stopped. Except this time instead of doing it in a prison, he was back in his old office, treating patients in the same room where he had killed his former friend and possibly lover. Which is not at all creepy.
Alfredo’s first wife had passed away while he was in prison, so when he was released he wound up marrying another woman. The couple had multiple children together, though she died just five years after he got out of prison.
He lived a quiet life after this, offering free medical care to the poor and elderly as he had always done. In December of 2008, he agreed to an interview with a Monterrey newspaper. Although he was happy to discuss what his time in prison was like, he refused to discuss the murder. He was also now practicing medicine from the confines of a wheelchair after having suffered a spinal injury.
By this point, Alfredo said he couldn’t even remember how long he had been a doctor (but it was over 50 years). He intended to continue helping people and hoped to regain his ability to walk again. In the interview, he also discussed some of the difficulties he had faced since prison. Not from the community, but from his own depression.
Though things had improved, he admitted to still becoming overwhelmed by the unbearable weight of what he had done. As he stated towards the end of the interview, “I payed what I had to pay. Now I’m just waiting for the divine punishment.” He wouldn’t have to wait long for that divine punishment, as just a few short months after the interview Alfredo died of prostate cancer at the age of 77.
The Hannibal Lecter Connection
Because he died in 2009, before Thomas Harris had tried to uncover the identity of the mysterious Dr. Salazar that he had once met, it’s normally reported that Alfredo died without ever knowing he was the inspiration for Hannibal Lecter. However, this is not actually the case.
According to a family friend, when Alfredo first heard that the reporter who had interviewed him all those years ago had written a book, he didn’t really pay it any mind. But when the movie Silence of the Lambs came out, he and his family immediately recognized that Hannibal was inspired by him. His family began to tease him by calling him “Hannibal” and “Doctor Lecter,” which he took great amusement in.
Conclusion
Despite being the inspiration for the character and personality of Hannibal Lecter, Alfredo Ballí Treviño really doesn’t seem like the sort of cold, murderous psychopath that Lecter was. In fact, while it feels really weird for me to say this given my thoroughly documented pro-murder stance, I think it’s actually good that he didn’t receive the death penalty.
Though his crime was absolutely horrific and his pride in the quality of his craftsmanship seemed to imply a serious level of psychopathy, it was an isolated incident and quite likely a crime of passion. He spent his 20 year sentence using his medical expertise to help people, and once he was released from prison he continued to do the same.
And most importantly, he seemed to genuinely feel crushing and inescapable guilt over what he had done. Obviously the best case scenario would be for him to have not murdered Jesús, but he was able to bring some good into the world following his crime that would never have happened if he had received the sort of swift execution I usually root for.
It’s easy to fear that someone who is released from prison will just become a repeat offender. Even if the person wasn’t already fundamentally broken in some way that incarceration alone wouldn’t fix, prison can cause people to lose their identity, their sanity, or their humanity.
But Alfredo remained true to who he was. He was a brilliant, curious doctor that provided free care to those who needed it most. The only things he seemed to lose in prison were pride in his murderous act and his Rolex watch. You see, when Alfredo wasn’t wearing his watch, he kept it stashed in a sock along with a wad of cash.
You might think that somebody discovered this and stole it, but he actually just threw the sock away by accident. But if that’s the worst thing that happened to him during 20 years in prison, I’d say he made out pretty well.
Key Takeaways
- Thomas Harris met Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño in 1963 while interviewing a prisoner in Topo Chico prison in Monterrey, Mexico.
- Ballí Treviño, known as ‘Dr. Salazar’ in prison, inspired Hannibal Lecter’s elegant demeanor and psychological curiosity.
- Ballí Treviño murdered medical student Jesús Castillo Rangel in 1959, dismembering his body and fitting it into a small box.
- He became the last person sentenced to death in Mexico, though his sentence was later commuted after about 20 years in prison.
- After his 1980 release, he returned to practicing medicine and providing free care to the poor until his death in 2009.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was the real-life inspiration for Dr. Hannibal Lecter?
Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño, a Mexican doctor and murderer whom Thomas Harris met in Topo Chico prison in 1963.
How did Thomas Harris come to meet Alfredo Ballí Treviño?
Harris traveled to Mexico in 1963 to interview Dykes Askew Simmons, an American prisoner on death row at Topo Chico prison. Before interviewing Simmons, Harris was introduced to ‘Dr. Salazar’—the prison nickname for Alfredo Ballí Treviño—who had treated Simmons after a failed escape attempt.
What was Alfredo Ballí Treviño convicted of?
He was convicted of qualified homicide for the 1959 murder of Jesús Castillo Rangel, a 20-year-old medical student. He was also charged with clandestine burial and usurpation of the profession.
How did Alfredo Ballí Treviño murder Jesús Castillo Rangel?
He subdued Jesús with ether-soaked rag, injected him with sodium pentothal, slit his throat with a scalpel, exsanguinated the body, and dismembered it so thoroughly that it fit into a surprisingly small box.
What was significant about Alfredo Ballí Treviño’s death sentence?
He became the last person to be condemned to death under Mexican law, even though capital punishment wasn’t officially banned for more than four decades after his sentence.
How long did Alfredo Ballí Treviño spend in prison, and what happened after his release?
He served about 20 years in prison before his death sentence was commuted in 1980. After release, he returned to practicing medicine in the same office where he committed the murder, continued providing free care to the poor and elderly, remarried, and had multiple children.
Did Alfredo Ballí Treviño know he inspired Hannibal Lecter?
Yes. According to a family friend, when ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ movie came out, he and his family immediately recognized the connection. His family teased him by calling him ‘Hannibal’ and ‘Doctor Lecter,’ which he found amusing.
What were some of Alfredo Ballí Treviño’s prison nicknames?
He was known as Dr. Salazar (his primary prison nickname), The Werewolf of Nuevo Leon, The Vampire Ballí, and the Killer Doctor.
What aspects of Alfredo Ballí Treviño specifically inspired Thomas Harris’s creation of Hannibal Lecter?
His elegant appearance (fine light-colored suits, dark sunglasses, gold Rolex), his small and lithe physical presence, his upper-class background, and particularly his intense curiosity about the psychology of other killers—standing almost motionless while interrogating Harris about Simmons’s motives.
What happened to Dykes Askew Simmons after his interview with Thomas Harris?
Simmons escaped from Topo Chico prison in 1969 after about 10 years on death row, likely by bribing a guard and hiding in a hidden compartment in his brother’s car. He returned to Texas, but his body was found beaten to death in Fort Worth five months later.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: Alfredo Ballí Treviño - The Real Story Behind the Silence of the Lambs
- Hero image source by Larry D. Moore / openverse, by.
