'The Walking Dead' Deleted Scene Reveals What Happened to Season 1's Vatos Gang

Even though it's been seven years since The Walking Dead's first season, fans haven't forgotten about a particular group of survivors who never appeared again: the Vatos. In Episode 4, titled "Vatos," Rick Grimes encountered this gang hiding out in the middle of Atlanta.

Rick's first encounter with the Vatos didn't go over so well, due to the gang taking Glenn hostage — but Rick and the Vatos' leader, Guillermo, came to an agreement that saw Glenn freed in exchange for some of Rick's guns. The two groups parted ways and never met again... at least, that's what we initially thought.

The Vatos' Fate Addressed in Deleted Scene

In the deleted scene from Season 2, originally released as a DVD extra in 2012 but newly making the rounds on social media, we learned that Rick's group did return to the Vatos' facility after the venture to the CDC didn't work out. Having left the CDC with nowhere to go, Rick felt that the Vatos would provide his group with a temporary sanctuary — but that wasn't the case either. They arrived to find the Vatos' home full of dead bodies.

After investigating the scene, Daryl determined that the Vatos were attacked and had their supplies scavenged. Whoever invaded their community put a bullet in most of them and left the rest to be devoured by walkers. It's unclear who committed the atrocious act and the scene doesn't provide us with any answers.

Who killed the Vatos?

Whoever massacred the Vatos had no problem killing all of the elderly people residing in the facility — or anyone else, for that matter. It was most likely a coordinated attack, if the entire Vatos gang was slaughtered in their home. That said, the only potential candidates who reside in Atlanta are the cops that Beth encountered in Season 5.

We know Dawn's police force was in Grady Memorial Hospital, so they could have seen the Vatos as a threat and eliminated them. The Vatos had a sense of order going on in their community, and Dawn's group of corrupt cops were enforcing their own brand of justice on the streets of Atlanta. Seeing as how Dawn's police force might have viewed the Vatos as a threat to the law they were enforcing, taking the Vatos out of the picture seems plausible. We can't say with certainty that Dawn massacred the Vatos gang, but it seems logical with her crew being the only other major group of survivors in Atlanta.

Most of us thought the Vatos would survive after Rick left them in good hands, but now we know that they were murdered, possibly by Dawn and her corrupt cops — or perhaps, as some fans believe, by the Governor?

The Walking Dead Season 8 premiered in October 2017. Fear the Walking Dead returns on June 4, 2017.