Over the next four years, three more of Larson's former altar boys would end their lives. Two of them, Gilbert Rodriguez and Paul Tafolla, were first cousins who grew up together in Newton, a railroad town where they were raised by Gilbert's parents. Just a year apart in age, the boys bonded like brothers. Gilbert, a quiet kid, was the family peacemaker. Paul was more social, becoming the first Mexican boy to be named homecoming king at Newton High School.
Gilbert earned a bachelor's degree in political science at Wichita State University and graduated from Conception Seminary College in Missouri, where, his mother said, his enthusiasm for life as a priest withered. Paul was a graduate of Emporia State University, where he received a degree in rehabilitative services. He married twice.
When they were children, Gilbert once told his brother Robert, himself a victim of Larson's abuse, that Larson forced Gilbert and Paul to perform oral sex on him.
''Their unhappiness started right at that time,'' Rachel Rodriguez said. ''It was just like having a puzzle and having a missing piece. But now I see. The puzzle fits.''
Gilbert Rodriguez walked to a stand of trees on the edge of a grain field in his hometown on Sept. 9, 1998, and shot himself to death with a shotgun. Seventeen months later, Paul Tafolla died of a drug overdose in a Topeka hotel room.
Both men, former altar boys at St. Mary's Church in Newton, were 31 years old.
