Ricardo the Redeemer

Ricardo the Redeemer is a savior of all mankind who lived from 1926 to 1959.

Ricardo was the son of Mariella Salinas, a poor fourteen-year-old girl who lived in El Caracol, Tamaulipas, Mexico in 1926. At that time, she was betrothed to Roberto Mateos, a sixteen-year-old carpentry apprentice. In early 1926, she discovered that she was miraculously pregnant, though she was still a virgin. In late September of that year, however, a man known as El Lloron – "the Crying Man," so named because of four black teardrop tattooed on his face – came to El Caracol and slaughtered the residents of the town, including Roberto. Mariella managed to escape the massacre and fled north, crossing the border into the United States.

At the same time, three separate people from three separate parts of the country began experiencing prophetic dreams. Harry Granger was a journalist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Kenneth Fuchs was an obstetrician from Chicago, Illinois; and Susan Dean was a police officer from Los Angeles. The three dreamed of the Sunshine Motel in Harlingen, Texas, and each felt an overwhelming compulsion to visit the Motel immediately. In the next days, the three converged in Harlingen, and discovered the pregnant Mariella.

Granger, Fuchs, and Dean took out a room at the Sunshine and took in Mariella, caring for her until she gave birth to a son in October of 1926. Mariella died in childbirth, but named her child Ricardo before she passed. Granger, Fuchs, and Dean chose to remain in Harlingen and raise the boy jointly themselves.

In late 1959, Ricardo was framed for murder by INS agent Judith Dodds, who blackmailed one of Ricardo's own confidants in order to plant the evidence. Ricardo was arrested, but on the night before what would have been a perfunctory sham trial arranged by Dodds was set to begin, Ricardo was stabbed to death by a fellow prisoner, a man with four black teardrops tattooed on his face.

Evidence
The first recorded mention of Ricardo appeared in 1977 in a letter by Lawrence Fuchs (son of Kenneth, also known as Lawrence the Long-Winded) to the Ricardan congregation in Philadelphia. Ricardo was later mentioned in six subsequent letters by Lawrence, written in 1978 (to the Ricardans in Chicago), 1979 (to the Ricardans in Los Angeles), 1980 (to the Ricardans in Toronto), 1981 (again to the Ricardans in Los Angeles), 1982 (to Govenor Dolph Briscoe), and 1983 (to the Ricardans in Raleigh).

The first written account of Ricardo's life appeared in 1991 by an unknown author, followed by another in 1996 by a second unknown author, followed by another in 2001 by a third unknown author, and followed by a fourth in 2006 by a fourth unknown author. All four narrative accounts were written by individuals claiming to have been close personal associates of Ricardo during his lifetime, though the four accounts contain noticeable inconsistencies. Additioanlly, these authors wrote nothing else by which the accuracy of their writing may be judged.

Concept
The story of Ricardo the Redeemer is designed as a criticism of the purported evidence offered to support the claim that Jesus Christ was an actual history figure. The time-frame of the Ricardo evidence is modeled on the time-frame for the Jesus evidence – that is: the first mention appearing almost two decades after his alleged death – and the content of the Ricardo story is designed to mimic the content of the Jesus story – that is: drawing elements from other existing stories of the time.

Ricardo's story, for example, borrows elements from Harry Potter ("Harry Granger" being a combination of the names of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger), The Dark Tower ("Susan Dean" being a combination of the names of Susan Delgado and Eddie Dean), Day Break (the character of "El Lloron"), and The Lost Room (the Sunshine Motel).

Just as with the Jesus myth, there is no contemporaneous record of Ricardo's existence or adventures.