PAPER: A Forensic Analysis of the González Valenzuela Sisters Who Defied Several Female Criminology Norms in Succumbing to an Environment of Extreme Patriarchal Violence

Family Background and Early Development

Delfina and María de Jesús González Valenzuela were born in the early 20th century in El Salto de Juanacatlán, Jalisco, Mexico, into a family environment defined by instability and authoritarian control (Zea, 2024). Born to Isidro Torres, a police officer described as strictly religious and violently abusive, and Bernardina Valenzuela, the sisters navigated a childhood marred by poverty and fear. The patriarch’s brutality was a defining feature of their early developmental years; reports indicate that Isidro once beat Delfina so severely that she was nearly paralyzed, an event that likely contributed to the normalization of violence within the family unit (O'Dolan, 2025). This severe physical discipline and the rigid suppression of their autonomy created a volatile domestic atmosphere where power was equated with physical dominance.

The socioeconomic hardship of the post-revolutionary era in Mexico further shaped their trajectory. The family eventually changed their surname from Torres to González, allegedly to evade repercussions or social stigma after the father abandoned the family or was forced into a fugitive life (True Crime Guys, 2021). This disruption severed the family's primary source of legitimate income and social standing, pushing the remaining women toward survivalist strategies (Bailón Vásquez, 2025). The loss of the paternal figure, while removing the immediate threat of his violence, left a power vacuum that the eldest sister, Delfina, began to fill, adopting the authoritarian and aggressive traits previously modeled by her father.

By their teenage years, the sisters’ exposure to the criminal periphery began to solidify. They inherited or established a small cantina, which served as their entry point into the illicit economy (O'Dolan, 2025). This environment exposed them to the exploitation of vice for profit, transitioning them from victims of familial abuse to active participants in a predatory underground economy. Their early involvement in the sale of alcohol and the management of a rough clientele desensitized them to antisocial behaviors, laying the groundwork for the organized exploitation that would characterize their adult lives (True Crime Guys, 2021).

Criminal Progression and Serial Murders

The sisters’ criminal enterprise expanded significantly when they moved operations to the state of Guanajuato and established brothels, most notably the "Guadalajara de Noche" in Lagos de Moreno and later "Rancho El Ángel" in San Francisco del Rincón (The Brothel Killers, 2022). Operating under the public guise of legitimate business owners, they utilized deception to recruit victims. Young women from impoverished rural backgrounds were lured with promises of domestic work or waitressing jobs, only to be forced into sexual slavery upon arrival (Bailón Vásquez, 2025). This method of procuring victims relies on the manipulation of trust, a characteristic often observed in female offenders who target vulnerable populations within their reach (Bjelajac, 2024).

Once inside the brothels, the victims were subjected to a regime of absolute control and dehumanization. The sisters, along with their accomplices, utilized starvation, beatings, and forced drug addiction to break the wills of the women (Time Magazine, 2021). This escalation from exploitation to torture demonstrates a profound shift toward sadism. The violence was instrumental, designed to maintain order and maximize profit, but it also became expressive, serving the sisters' need for domination (O'Dolan, 2025). Unwanted pregnancies were terminated through forced abortions, and babies born at the ranch were often killed or neglected until death, further illustrating the sisters' complete disregard for human life (The Brothel Killers, 2022).

The violence culminated in serial murder as the sisters began to eliminate anyone who threatened their operation. Victims who became too ill to work, those who attempted to escape, or those who lost their "appeal" were murdered and buried clandestinely on the property (Zea, 2024). The murders were brutal, involving bludgeoning, starvation, and in some cases, live burial. This brutality challenges the traditional profiling analogy that suggests female serial killers prefer "quiet" or subtle methods like poisoning; instead, the González Valenzuela sisters exhibited the "hands-on" violence and sadism typically associated with male serial offenders (Bjelajac, 2024).

The sisters’ reign of terror collapsed in January 1964, when a victim named Catalina Ortega managed to escape and alert the authorities (Zea, 2024). The subsequent police raid on Rancho El Ángel uncovered the horrific conditions: emaciated survivors, the remains of numerous victims (estimates range from 91 to over 150), and evidence of systematic torture (Time Magazine, 2021). The media dubbed them "Las Poquianchis," and the discovery shocked the nation, revealing the depth of corruption that had allowed the ring to operate for years, as local authorities had been bribed to ignore the brothels' activities (Bailón Vásquez, 2025).

Following their arrest, Delfina and María de Jesús, along with their sister María Luisa, were tried and convicted. They received the maximum sentence available under Mexican law at the time: 40 years in prison (True Crime Guys, 2021). The legal proceedings highlighted not only their personal depravity but also the systemic failures that enabled them. Their lives ended in custody; Delfina died in 1968 after a bucket of cement allegedly fell on her head—though rumors of murder by other inmates persist—and María de Jesús died years later, reportedly by suicide (The Brothel Killers, 2022). Their case remains one of the most gruesome examples of human trafficking and serial murder in North American history.

Criminological Theoretical Analysis

Masculine Traits and Social Learning

The extreme violence exhibited by the González Valenzuela sisters can be analyzed through the lens of masculine trait adoption and social learning. Research indicates that while female serial killers are a minority, those who do kill often display traits traditionally associated with masculinity, such as lack of emotions, aggression, control, dominance, and manipulation (Polk, 2025). The sisters were raised in a patriarchal environment where their father used violence to maintain order; Social Learning Theory suggests they imitated this "masculine" script of aggression to survive and eventually thrive in the criminal underworld (O'Dolan, 2025).

Polk (2025) argues that masculine traits, particularly aggression and control, are notably linked to the motives and methods of female serial killers. By rejecting the passive female gender role and adopting the role of the aggressor, the sisters were able to dominate their victims and run a violent criminal enterprise. Their behavior supports the Trauma Control Model, where early exposure to trauma (parental abuse) leads to a need for control, manifesting as violent tendencies toward those viewed as weak or dependent (Polk, 2025).

General Strain and Patriarchal Power

General Strain Theory (GST) and feminist criminology offer insight into the sisters' motivations within a restrictive social structure. The sisters operated in a post-revolutionary Mexico where economic opportunities for women were scarce, creating a strain between their financial aspirations and legitimate means (Bailón Vásquez, 2025). To overcome this, they engaged in "innovation" through vice. Gardner (2025) notes that violent female figures, often explored in the "Femgore" subgenre, disrupt notions of the male gaze but ultimately highlight the inescapability of patriarchal power and cycles of violence.

The sisters' violence can be seen as a reaction to a system "not built for women," where they exercised temporary and destructive power to navigate their environment (Gardner, 2025). They commodified other women to gain status in a male-dominated society, effectively becoming agents of the very patriarchal violence that oppressed them (Time Magazine, 2021). Their crimes emphasize the complexities of representing violent women who operate within systems of misogyny, using violence not just for profit, but as a misguided tool for autonomy (Gardner, 2025).

Psychopathy and Profiling Analogies

Forensic profiling often distinguishes between male and female killers, noting that men are typically driven by sexual sadism and dominance, while women are motivated by financial gain and use "quiet" methods like poisoning (Bjelajac, 2024). However, the González Valenzuela sisters defy this binary. While they had a clear financial motive (prostitution revenue), they also exhibited the "sadistic tendencies," "body mutilation," and "torture" typically reserved for the male profile (Bjelajac, 2024).

Bjelajac (2024) explains that serial killers are characterized by cold-bloodedness, brutality, manipulativeness, and a desire for dominance. The sisters' "ritualization" of violence—starving victims and disposing of bodies in mass graves—mirrors the obsessive fantasies and need for control seen in male offenders (The Brothel Killers, 2022). Their case serves as a critical anomaly in profiling, proving that female offenders are capable of the same "hands-on" brutality and instrumental aggression as their male counterparts when driven by severe psychopathy and opportunity (Bjelajac, 2024).

Conclusion

The case of the González Valenzuela sisters stands as a definitive challenge to conventional criminological understandings of female offenders. While history often categorizes female serial killers as "quiet" or "caretaker" predators, "Las Poquianchis" defied these profiles through their use of traits traditionally coded as masculine, such as overt aggression, torture, and domination (Polk, 2025). Their crimes were not only a manifestation of severe individual psychopathology but also a "destructive" adaptation to a patriarchal society, where they exploited systemic misogyny to victimize the vulnerable (Gardner, 2025). As forensic traumatology evolves, this case underscores the critical need for gender-specific profiling that moves beyond stereotypes to address the "complex realities of violence" (Polk, 2025). By analyzing their trajectory from victims of familial abuse to perpetrators of mass atrocity, we are forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that extreme sadism and instrumental violence are human capabilities that transcend gender lines (Bjelajac, 2024).

REFERENCES

Bailón Vásquez, F. (2025). Prostitución, lenocinio y crimen: diferentes miradas en torno al caso de las "Poquianchis". UNAM.

Bjelajac, Ž. (2024). Analogy of profiling male and female serial killers. International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE), 12(3), 681–692. 

Gardner, E. (2025). "We’re all just playing into stories created before our time": Fictional female serial killers, femgore, and the illusion of power. Critique, 1–12. 

O'Dolan, B. (2025). Serial killers sisters: Las Poquianchis. Amazon Digital Services LLC.

Polk, A. (2025). Masculine traits in female serial killers: A qualitative analysis. ScholarWorks. 

The Brothel Killers. (2022, October 10). The Gonzalez sisters and hell's whorehouse [Video]. YouTube.

Time Magazine. (2021). Mexico: Sisters of shame. Time Archive.

True Crime Guys. (2021, June 8). Sinister sisters: Las Poquianchis [Audio podcast]. Apple Podcasts.

Zea, F. (2024, November 4). ¿Quiénes fueron "Las Poquianchis"? [Video]. YouTube.