Alfonso Esparza Oteo, Limoncito

While watching a documentary about the magnicide of Alvaro Obregón, I was completely intrigued about Mother Conchita or Concepción Acevedo de la Llata, the convicted and supposed mastermind of Obregón's death in 1928.

According to the "oficial" history, they both plotted the murder of Obregón. Toral a young, impressionable cartoonist working part-time for the Excélsior News was totally devoted to religious work. Mother Conchita became his confidant and spiritual guide while volunteering at the church.

Toral saw Obregón's laws against Christianity as a threatening issue amidst the Cristero Rebellion and after two fellow friends were shot unjustly by a firing squad, he traded his pencil for a gun. He infiltrated himself into "La Bombilla" Restaurant, where Obregón was having lunch and with the excuse to show Toral's drawings about him (below), got close to Obregón who held them with his only hand. Limoncito, Obregón's favourite song (above) was playing. That's when Toral supposedly made several shots to his head first and further down his body at close range. 

Toral was captured by the obregonistas soldiers, whose torture for a full confession after a short imprisonment, according to his drawings, was really hard to withstand. During his confession, Mother Conchita's name was mentioned and she was brought to face along Toral, a closed trial.

Lord, if you are with me, does it matter men condemn me?
José de León Toral

Toral was swiftly condemned and finally shot by a firing squad in 1929.

Mother Conchita was sentenced to a 20-year imprisonment to the Islas Marías.

The interview below was made in 1970 and though I'm trying to look for her published books, what was written about her makes her a very enigmatic figure. Deeply convinced she was on this world for a reason when she was younger her fervour was completely committed to becoming a saint.

After 13 years in jail, she left her vows and married another cristero dissident also incarcerated at the Islas Marías, Carlos Castro Balda. In the video she says she married out of necessity, because her husband told her she needed someone to support and take care of her while she was in jail. To this she replied, "Alright, I'm gonna marry you, but I don't love you".

IMÁGENES DE LA MEMORIA: ENTREVISTA A LA MADRE CONCHITA 

from Fotográfica Fundación Televisa on Vimeo.

Two facts stand out to me.

The first is Toral's heart taken out of his body and registered by a camera. In one of Toral son's remarks about his trial stated, "The way I recall it, my father declared: 'I wish that you could open my heart and see the truth in it, of everything I said; I always acted alone".

Whether his heart was intended to be either a memento by one of his brothers or for autopsy reasons, there are some testimonies by the his grandsons that Toral's body (and all his organs for that matter) were buried in the same place. But some other testimonies also indicate his heart was kept in alcohol as a family relic.

I want to call this a poetic act. Was his father interested in keeping the tangible organ to grasp such an intangible ideal as the truth of an incomprehensible act of one of his kin?

Fact number two. I know there are other versions around Obregón's murder. Confabulations after these events are not rare, and certainly not in Mexico. Yet I keep thinking that though Mother Conchita was always surrounded by dissidents, her words and actions around them are either very naive or they just simply sinfully overlooked, almost as an accomplice to the defense of the free church.

"Were there 6 assasins of General Obregón
or did Toral use 6 guns?"

I know this is a long circle to come back to something that has interested me for more than two years. Steven Avery or Ayotzinapa, no system in the world seems to recognise a faulty process in the application of law, on a magnicide or genocide. Trial simulacra, versions of truth and implausible statements make this intentional confusing and fuzzy barrier to get to some kind of truth. Did Mother Conchita and Toral were the two sole agents of something so large? Wow. A woman and a nun considered to be the intellectual murderer of a Mexican president (a General by the way), circa 1930 and most important: successful in plotting one! Was she used, framed or coerced for this purpose? I really don't know. But I think these matters were not considered under this light before. That is, by the creation of an "official story", they also generated a powerful notion of what one woman can be able to achieve. Is it a coincidence she lived in Alvaro Obregón street after her incarceration for 30 years and this fact never bothered her?

Is justice of this and the last century in Mexico just highlights of improbability that point towards the most likely motives and actors of real events? Just like Toral's sketches, leaving spaces of mistrust from the people towards the government in between, truth without ever reaching point A to point B?