The Real Hannibal Lectre :

Thomas Harris has given few interviews, and did not explain where he got inspiration for Hannibal Lecter until mid-2013. Harris revealed that the character was inspired by a real-life doctor and murderer he met while visiting a prison in the city of Monterrey during a trip to Mexico in the 1960s when he was a 23-year-old reporter.

The doctor was serving a life sentence for murdering a young man, supposedly a "close friend", mutilating his body into several body parts and putting them in a very small box. Harris, who would only refer to the surgeon by the fake name "Dr. Salazar", described him as a "small lithe pale man with dark red hair". He added: "There was certain intelligence and elegance about him."

Although he referred to him as "Dr. Salazar," the information provided matched a very peculiar case covered by the Mexican media in the early 1960's about a medical intern who was the last person in Mexico to be sentenced with the death penalty.

Harris had gone to Mexico (Nuevo Leon State Prison, at Monterrey) to interview Dykes Askew Simmons, a US citizen and a former mental patient on death row for murdering three young people in the country, but he ended up also speaking to "Salazar", who saved Simmons' life after a guard shot him during an escape bid. "Salazar" revealed his dark side as he began discussing Simmons' disfigured face, tormented upbringing and how attractive his victims had been.

Several reporters and investigators have traced the records and whereabouts of the Mexican prison doctor in later years and discovered that "Salazar" was in reality Alfredo Ballí Treviño, a physician from an upper-class Monterrey family who was found guilty of murdering a close friend (and lover), sentimental partner, Jesús Castillo Rangel and mutilating his body; he was also suspected of killing and dismembering several hitchhikers in the city outskirts during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Harris also incorporated some of these details into Jame Gumb's Buffalo Bill (character) development as a killer. Ballí was initially condemned to death, but his sentence was later commuted to 20 years at the Topo Chico Penitentiary in Nuevo León and he was released in 1981. After his release, Ballí continued working as a physician in an austere office until his death by natural causes in February 2009 at the age of 81.

More into the Real Hannibal

Ballí Treviño was born in Méndez, Tamaulipas on October 2, 1931. He was the second of five kids, and his parents always encouraged all their children to study and become successful. That's why Alfredo and two of his brother went to med school.
Alfredo had a very strict character, just like his father, and they both liked to carry a gun around. Although he wasn't allowed a weapon in prison, Alfredo's attitude and the nature of the crime that brought him to jail, helped him win the respect of other inmates.

It was also beneficial for his time in jail, the fact that he offered medical services to the other prisoners and even performed minor surgeries.

"He helped many people in jail and he became so good that, with time, he was even allowed to go out at nights to see patients," said an unidentified source to Mexico's newspaper Reforma.The source added that he never lost his sense of style. He wore light colored ensembles, suits, white shoes, dark shades (because he was sensitive to light) and a golden Rolex President that he carried around everywhere and no one dared to touch. However, he lost the watch when he threw away a sock where he kept it, along with money.

"I went and came back from hell, and ended up losing in in a sock," he always lamented.Many remember Ballí Treviño as a very reserved man, and some think that he might have killed more than one person. However, no evidence was found.

Although the crime he committed was catalogued as a "crime of passion" because his victim, Jesús Castillo Rangel was allegedly his boyfriend, he married Dolores Montiel before going to jail, but she died while he was still imprisoned. As a free man, he remarried a woman named Cristina, who died five years after Ballí Treviño was released. He had children and grandchildren. His first born had his same name and died from cancer in 2010.Alfredo Jr.'s son, also carried the same name and died in a car accident a while after.

Although many judged the doctor after he was released from jail, he continued to practice medicine at the same place he had killed his victim. His patients were mostly senior citizens, whom he didn't charge or suggested a symbolic contribution.

A local man confirmed that he had worked from a small clinic where he cared for poor people and two men said they had received treatment from Balli Trevino, who they described as a 'good person' who never charged them for treatment.
A year before his death, Balli Trevino gave an interview to a local newspaper - on the condition his crime would not be discussed.
He said: 'If you want we can talk about anything you’d like, except for that. I don’t want to relive my dark past. I don’t want to wake up my ghosts, it’s very hard,' he said.
'I don’t remember how many years I’ve been a doctor. Now I take care of the... the elderly like me.'

Hannibal VS Alfredo Balli Trevino

A family friend who requested anonnimity revealed that when it was known that Harris was publishing a novel, Ballí didn't give much importance to it. However, when the movie "The Silence of the Lambs" came out, he figured out he had been the inspiration behind Hannibal Lecter, and his family started making fun of him and calling him "Hannibal" or "Doctor Lecter."

According to that friend, Ballí Treviño thought it was "funny" they called him that.