Rogue ‘beauty treatments’ claim victims from Salinas to Miami.

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As bizarre a notion as injecting one’s body with cooking oil might be, Aguirre-Castillo’s death was not an anomaly. Stories abound about people dying or becoming severely disfigured from the same kinds of underground beauty treatments.

“People are injecting just about anything these days,” Wells says.

The most common is industrial-grade silicone: caulking. As in the same kind of gummy, sticky substance used to seal a shower, to set a toilet, to seal up seams on siding or baseboards—the kind of over-the-counter product found in any home-improvement store.

Wells has had to perform complete mastectomies on women who had their breasts injected with industrial-grade silicone. “One man came in and had been injected in his penis with the same kind of thing. There wasn’t much we could do for him, either,” Wells says.

The deaths and maimings are multiplying.

In July of 2005, Patricio Gonzalez of San Diego died after receiving illicit silicone injections. A warrant remains outstanding for the arrest of Sammia “Angelica” Gonzalez, the woman suspected of administering the lethal injection to Gonzalez and at least nine others.

Similar cases exist in Houston, New York, and Georgia.

As widespread as the practice of rogue beauty treatments has become in recent years, South Florida has become a virtual hot spot for the back-alley procedures. Those in search of fixing a little of this or that go to so-called “pumping parties” and are injected with substances that boggle the mind: brake fluid, Super Glue, paraffin, saline, oil, or peanut butter, diluted so the material goes through the syringe more easily.

In 2003, two Florida juries convicted Mark Hawkins and Donnie Hendricks for their roles in the death of Vera Lawrence, a transgendered woman who wanted to enhance her buttocks. Hawkins and Hendricks each injected 12,000 cubic centimeters of industrial-grade silicone into each one of Lawrence’s buttocks, killing her.

Jeremy Middleton testified at the trials of Hawkins and Hendricks, saying he couldn’t walk or talk after the procedures he received, procedures that often cost $1,000 per injection. “I was injected with bad silicone,” Middleton testified. “It was supposed to be used for furniture.”

Cory Williams also testified about injections by Hawkins and Hendricks. Williams was injected in his hips. “It hurts the first few times,” he says, “but in your mind, you want to be beautiful.”

Hawkins—who was convicted of murder, the unlicensed practice of medicine and negligence—was sentenced to 30 years in prison for Lawrence’s death. Hendricks was sentenced to five years for his role in the murder.

In 1998, responding to the desperate need to weed out so-called black-market doctors, the Florida Department of Health opened an Unlicensed Activity Office. The only one of its kind nationwide, the unit exclusively investigates unlicensed practitioners who make a business out of injecting illicit substances into others. Since its inception, the department has investigated more than 4,000 cases. In Miami-Dade County alone, nearly 500 people have been arrested for such practices.

Even the Hollywood It-Crowd is in on the dangerous practice.

In late 2004, Diane Richie, the now-ex-wife of music legend Lionel Richie, was taken into federal custody for her role in the administration of illegal anti-wrinkle injections. Richie’s boyfriend, Daniel Tomas Fuente Serrano, was accused of using the Richies’ Beverly Hills home for what were dubbed “Hollywood House Parties.” At the time of the parties, the Richies were still a couple.

A Richie employee told investigators that 20 to 40 people went to the Richie estate to get injections from Serrano, also known as “Dr. Daniel.” While Serrano was licensed to practice medicine in Argentina, he was not recognized as a physician by the Unitied States. At some point after the parties, Serrano became a registered nurse in California.

Lionel Richie told investigators he believed Serrano was a doctor. Richie went on to explain that he, too, had received injections at the parties, often paying hundreds of dollars per shot.

According to court documents, the wrinkle-filler injections Serrano was delivering left one woman with a lump on her lip, while another developed holes in her face from the injections.

Diane Richie was later charged with aiding and abetting.