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| “ | Foreign bastards. My bulls defined San Fermín! My family no deserve this! | „ |
| ~ Xavi |
| “ | There was blood everywhere. I hurt him...but I couldn’t stop. | „ |
| ~ Simon |
Xavi and Simon Alonso are the main antagonists of the Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders episode “El Toro Bravo”. The Alonsos are a father-son duo of killers targeting tourists with reckless disregard for the Running of the Bulls, as a projected campaign of rage against what led to them losing their family’s place in bullfighting history.
Xavi is portrayed by Gerry Del Sol, and Simon was portrayed by Juan Javier Cardenas.
Biography[]
The Alonsos were from a respected and prestigious line of fighting bull breeders, passing down their family properties of a ranch, a ring, and a heard near Pamplona. Their legacy was tarnished in 2013, when animal activist from Australia and America released their bulls, leading to two people, including an activist, being killed and all the family’s bulls being butchered shortly after. As a factory fire killed 100 people the next day, the family ensured it got the most attention so they didn’t face repercussions, but the family was privately shamed nevertheless, Xavi left the city with Delores, who died in 2014, and Simon stayed in the Old Quarter to work at a photography shop. Xavi, recruiting Simon as an accomplice, started targeting Australian and American tourists to take his rage out on them he felt for the animal activists, and to make a statement about the history of bullfighting in Spain.
Over a six day cycle during the Running of the Bulls, starting on July 7, 2015, Xavi held Australian tourists Harry Smith, Martin Brown, and Sam Jones captive, each in separate, drawn-out, two-day unlawful captivity nightmares, using a cattle prod to kidnap them. They all violated the rules of the holiday in fashions involving the bulls somehow, such as Harry taking a selfie and Martin hitting a bull with a roll of newspaper, so Xavi wanted to “punish” them, and he did so by binding and gagging them in an electrically-wired bullpen and torturing them with cattle prods and banderilla impaling stakes. Xavi would use a puntilla to cut off the men’s ears like a killed bull would suffer, and Simon would leave their ears at landmarks and important buildings around the city, including near city hall, the day the men were to be killed, a reference to iconic folk hero Don Quixote. After two days of violence and pain, Xavi would drag the men to the ring and cut their spines with the puntilla to kill them, before Simon threw the men’s butchered remains into a meat grinder and fed them to the remaining bulls on the farm. The men’s bones were the only part of them they couldn’t grind, so they were collected and kept for six months until they could be thrown into a ditch just off a nearby highway. The cycle would repeat for the next two days until all three men were murdered and their ears were scattered across the city as a fear campaign against tourists.
Xavi wasn’t satisfied after that and wanted to target Americans as well the next year. Simon, by this point, was riddled with guilt and confided in the crimes to Padre Consolmagno in confession to unburden himself of some pain and regret. Exactly one year after the first kidnapping-murder cycle, when Xavi sees an American tourist named Clint Smith peeing in a church fountain, he’s kidnapped next. This time, Xavi orders Simon to kill him to prove his devotion. Clint’s ears are left at a 1978 Pamplona riot memorial, not coincidentally near the San Francis Xavier Cathedral, house of worship of Padre Consolmango, who found Clint’s ears and went to the police. Simon again confessed to Padre Consolmango, refusing to accept forgiveness and absolution. It’s implied he’s sending messages to Padre Consolmango because Simon wants to be caught to stop himself. At the photography shop, Simon hears Chicago animal activist Tony Downs openly hating the advertised glorification of the Running, so the father and son kidnap him too, and Simon agin carries out the murder. Tony’s ears are found inside the San Fermín Cathedral. When Agent Jack Garrett speak to Padre Consolmagno, he gives up Simon as the accomplice and agrees to help police pass his photo around at the Old Quarter to find him. By this point, Xavi and Simon kidnapped Japanese-American man Robert Tanida. Simon, however, comes outside of his shop and runs when he sees the authorities, until he’s tackled and arrested. Simon is interrogated in Spanish, but he emotionally blubbers about the deaths of the bulls and how Xavi made him be afraid of failing his family. The agents are arranged to leave when it’s assumed all men are dead.
However, they realize the rage of the killings had to be thought up by a mastermind Simon was too remorseful to be, leading to Xavi when the family history was discovered and it’s revealed he was still paying his properties’ mortgage. Xavi is near killing Robert that night in the ring despite his pleas to be released, but the agents and police stop him. Garrett tries to stop Xavi, telling him the bulls and his family did deserve better, but murder wasn’t right either. Xavi would hear none of it and made a move to stab Robert, resulting in Garrett shooting him dead. Simon is later incarcerated, or institutionalized considering the police fear he was mentally ill.
Trivia[]
- The Alonzo’s were inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Miguel Ángel Muñoz Blas, a Spanish murderer of American tourist Denise Pikka Thiem, who walked down the Way of Saint James before she was killed by Blas, a mentally ill, solitary farmer who tried to cover up his crimes with farming machinery.
- John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, a.k.a. “The D.C. Snipers”, an adult-teenager duo of serial killers of random people in America, Malvo later reaching out to a priest during the spree that led to the duo’s arrests. Muhammad and Malvo were also previously profiled as just being one killer instead of two.
- Robert Pickton, a.k.a. “The Pig Farm Killer”, a Canadian serial killer of women in prostitution, who were fed to his pigs on his family farm after they were murdered, the disappearances going unnoticed for a significant amount of time.
