Wedlock in the Cell Block

From the tiers of Cell Block D in Mexico's Federal District Penitentiary one morning last week, 250 of the country's toughest thugs and cutthroats gawked like sentimental sidewalk watchers at the ceremony in their prison courtyard. Pretty Maria de Jesus Torres Martinez, 28, had come there to be married to a frog-faced murderer named Jose Ortiz Munoz, called El Sapo (The Bullfrog) by his fellow inmates. Demure in a green frock and red shoes, Maria de Jesus mooned over El Sapo, natty in a clean striped uniform, as he listened with rapt attention to the district judge.

First Fight. Love had mellowed El Sapo, a man who could stand some mellowing. By his own count, he had killed more than 100 men in his 45 years. As a boy of nine in a northern village where his army-officer father was stationed, he began his life work by stabbing a schoolmate with the sharp point of a compass. Released from prison at 15, he joined the army, and was working in a road gang when an officer kicked him for not saluting. El Sapo killed the man with a dagger and was sentenced to be shot, but got a reduced sentence and was later pardoned. After that, he committed murder as casually as lesser malefactors pick pockets.

Twice during his career, El Sapo was able to kill to his heart's content, quite legally. He was an army private during General Saturnino Cedillo's rebellion of 1938. "I killed Cedillistas on sight," he remembers with satisfaction. Later, when Sinarquistas (local Fascists) rioted in Leon, he had the pleasure of working the rioters over with a machine gun. "Blood ran that day!" he recalls proudly.

Through the years, El Sapo's friends had predicted that some day he would go too far. In Mexico City, in 1946, he and Congressman Jose Torrero got into a pistol duel, with the usual result--El Sapo killed his adversary. An unsympathetic judge gave El Sapo 18 years in the Black Palace of Lecumberri, as the district pen is called. After a period of inactivity, he killed an annoying cell mate two years ago, did a stretch in solitary confinement.

When he emerged, public opinion in Cell Block D had hardened against him; last December a fellow prisoner sidled up and slit El Sapo's belly open with a homemade shiv. It was a near thing, and for weeks El Sapo lay in the prison hospital with nothing to do but think. Finally he sent for the warden and made a momentous announcement: "General, I want to go straight. I am not going to kill anyone any more." Cell Block D, on the whole, was glad to hear it.

First Sight. Soon after that, Maria de Jesus came into El Sapo's life. She was a housemaid, serving two years in the women's section for jewel theft, and had heard of El Sapo's fame from the other girls. It was love at first sight. After she was paroled she came back every visiting day, and El Sapo soon popped the question.

Their desire to get married threw Mexican bureaucracy into a mild flutter; there seemed to be no precedents for or against it. Finally the warden gave his consent, and the judge agreed to perform the ceremony. Ending it last week, he read the traditional civil marriage declaration: "Both should study the mutual correction of their defects so that their children will find them a good example and a model of behavior." Then Maria gave El Sapo a kiss that left his face smeared with lipstick, and they went off to enjoy the warden's wedding present--a two-day honeymoon in El Sapo's cell.

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