The cartel¶
The cartel is the Mexican drug-smuggling organization that the Radford Sheriff's Department names as the official explanation for the heroin and violence of the Radford killings. The task force never meets a member, and the "cartel" is never shown on screen.
| Type | Organization (alleged; never seen) |
| Aliases | Mexican cartel |
| Affiliation | None established |
| Status | Still being hunted by the sheriff's office in Radford Horrors 02 |
| First appearance | Radford Horror 07 (as speculation); Radford Horror 08 (as the official theory) |
Overview¶
In the first Radford arc the cartel is a theory rather than a presence. The team finds a heroin connection to the missing girl Amanda Lucky: a briefcase of slightly cut heroin and cash hidden in the Lawson cabin of her boyfriend Dean Lawson (Radford Horror 07). When the team tests a sample on the charter pilot Freak, he snorts it, says "I love Mexican heroin," and recognizes it as the same stuff a young man once sold him at a party. Shown a description of Dean, Freak says Dean told him he got it from "a bunch of Mexicans." Kurt remarks that the team "might get Dean Lawson murdered by a cartel or something" (Radford Horror 07).
The official theory¶
After the church fight, the sheriff visits the team in the hospital and lays out the police theory. Wilbur Whateley is a serial killer who faked his brother's departure, and the body in the hidden basement is probably Abelforth. The sheriff says heroin found in the old-town church is how drugs have been reaching Radford, and suggests Wilbur was "in bed with the cartel," which would explain the shootout and the heroin used to sedate his victims. The kidnapping case is closed on Wilbur and the cartel, though the sheriff says his office will keep looking for "the cartel people." Ezra and Dante play along, Dante adding that cartel hitmen can be vicious (Radford Horror 08).
Before leaving town, the team tips the sheriff off to Dean Lawson, citing the heroin and drug money at his place while keeping the seized drugs and cash. Dean's parents report that he has not answered his phone, and Dante wonders aloud whether Dean was the man beaten up by the cartel near the church; the sheriff says Dean may have "got on the wrong side of the cartel" (Radford Horror 08).
The cartel story also serves as a convenient explanation for the unidentified cleanup crew that scrubbed the church. No character establishes a link, and the only heroin trade the team traces runs through Dean.
Return in The Radford Horrors¶
Months later, Sheriff Molly Underhill recaps the first case for the new agents. She says "some kind of cartel people" were at the church as well as the Whateley boy, and that the dead and the injured looked like the victims of an ambush. She suspects the cartel may be back, running a cover operation behind the torture of the missing agents' suspects. She gives them the local case file, which differs from the internal FBI file: the town saw nothing of the aliens or the moth. Daniel Webster is skeptical of the vague "it was the cartel" explanation and of the church's convenient fire. Andre confirms that the file has a heroin connection to the Mexican cartel through Dean (Radford Horrors 02).
Trivia¶
- Heroin becomes a running gag in the first arc: the players use it as a bribe, a would-be sedative and a bonding tool (Radford Horror 07).