Once he was in custody, the police had difficulty gaining any explanation out of Lopez. He refused to say a word and ignored their threats. Eventually, they were forced to try another tactic and asked a local priest to talk to him. The priest pretended to be a fellow prisoner and struck up a conversation with him. It did not take long for Lopez to start confessing all, and as his tales of murder came thick and fast, the priest found himself unable to listen any more. He asked to be taken off the job, and reported what he had been told to the police. Lopez was confronted with this evidence and began to confess his crimes to the authorities for the first time.
At first, the police found it hard to credit what Lopez was telling them. It seemed that Lopez had murdered 100 girls in Colombia, over 100 in Ecuador and many more than that in Peru. He expressed a particular liking for girls from Ecuador, whom he described as more innocent and trusting than girls from Colombia. He also remarked that he liked to murder his victims in full daylight, as it was so much more enjoyable to watch the fear in their faces and see the life leave their eyes as he strangled them to death.
The ‘Monster of the Andes’
Initially, Lopez’s interrogators doubted his story, and wondered whether he had lost his mind. It seemed to them that this account, telling of literally hundreds of murders, was far-fetched and possibly the ravings of a madman. However, apparently preferring to boast about his victims than to be seen as a liar, Lopez claimed that he could lead police to the places where he had buried the girls. He was placed in leg irons, then allowed to lead the police to a site outside Ambato, where the remains of fifty-three girls were uncovered. He then led them to other sites in the area, but most of these were empty: in many cases, the bodies had been eaten by animals, and some had been washed away by flooding. However, despite the lack of corpses in these sites, the first grave had yielded more than enough evidence to convict Lopez, and the authorities were now convinced beyond all doubt that Pedro Lopez was indeed ‘the monster of the Andes’.
Lopez went on to make more detailed confessions, and eventually it emerged that he had committed a total of 110 murders in Ecuador alone. He was charged with these murders, brought to trial and convicted. Not surprisingly, he was given a sentence of life imprisonment. At the end of 1998 he was deported to Colombia, where he continues to serve out his sentence to this day. In a recent interview, Lopez described himself as ‘the man of the century’ and said he was due to be released shortly ‘for good behaviour’. Hopefully, this is just wishful thinking on his part.
Luis Alfredo Gavarito
One of the most prolific serial killers in the world is Luis Alfredo Gavarito, a Colombian street trader, who is thought to have murdered over 140 adolescents ranging between the ages of six and sixteen. When he confessed, it emerged that he had made a record of his victims in a notebook that he carried with him as he went on his killing sprees. His victims were mostly street urchins who gathered at his market stall, where he would give them money and food before luring them off to be tortured, murdered and mutilated in hideous ways, including decapitation. His campaign of terror lasted for seven years before he was caught trying to rape a young boy. He was arrested and brought to trial, but received a relatively short sentence in return for co-operating with the authorities. Today, the issue of his possible release in the near future is the subject of much controversy, both within Colombia and internationally.
Rape and torture
Gavarito was born on January 25, 1957, in the town of Genova, Quindio, which is located in Colombia’s western coffee-growing region. He was the oldest of seven boys, and later told the police that from a young age, his father had sexually abused him. In addition, his father had physically abused him, regularly beating him and his brothers. He also alleged that not only his father, but also two male neighbours, had repeatedly raped and beaten him while he was growing up, so that his childhood had been one of misery and neglect, from his earliest years.
After only five years at school, Gavarito was sent out to work. Finding that he was not wanted at home, he left aged sixteen, and began his working life as a store clerk. Little more is known of his early adult life, except that at a young age he became a serious alcoholic and received medical treatment for depression. He was also, at various times, diagnosed by doctors as having suicidal tendencies.
Eventually, this intensely troubled young man found steady work as a market stallholder, selling religious icons and prayer cards. He began to befriend homeless children living on the streets of Colombia’s cities and towns, gaining the nicknames ‘Goofy’, ‘El Loco’ (The Madman), and ‘The Priest’. He told the children various stories to gain their confidence, such as that he was a monk, or a disabled person. He also gained entrance to schools by saying that he was selling the religious material on his stall in order to make charitable donations to foundations for the elderly and for children’s education. This was an unlikely story, but apparently he was believed and allowed into schools on several occasions.
Dismembered corpses
In 1992, he killed his first child victim, and after that began to move around the country, covering his tracks as he went. He visited many provinces of Colombia, killing children in each, and also spent time in Ecuador, where he is thought to have committed more murders. He would offer children food and soft drinks as well as gifts and small amounts of money, and gain their trust before luring them off for a walk. When the children grew tired, he would rape and torture them, afterwards cutting their throats. But that was not the end of it: he often dismembered the children’s corpses after murdering them. Later, he told police that he always committed these horrific crimes after he had been drinking heavily.
In this way, between 1992 and 1998, Gavarito murdered over 140 children, mostly in Pereira, the capital city of the western state of Risaralda. The police estimate of his murders is actually 172 children, but since some of the corpses were never recovered, Gavarito was only found guilty of 140 of the them.
Black magic ritual
In 1997, the decomposing bodies of thirty-six boys were discovered in the city of Pereira, prompting an investigation. Up until this time, such was the disorganisation of the Colombian police and government, that no one had realised a serial killer was on the loose in the country. The children were homeless, or from very poor homes, and so in most cases their disappearance was not registered; neither were their relatives taken seriously when they reported the children missing.
The boys’ bodies were found in two mass graves, many of them with parts removed and showing signs of torture. The first grave was discovered when a boy walking through a patch of wasteland saw a human skull in the bushes. The second came to light less than a week later, when walkers came upon body parts in a river bed beneath a city highway. After that, more bodies were discovered in over sixty towns in the country.
Investigators claimed that the bodies may have been evidence of a black magic ritual. There were also rumours that organ trafficking may have been behind the crimes. Another theory was that the murders were a political act: that an individual or group was conducting a campaign of murder against street children as a form of social cleansing. There was much speculation in the press, and a nationwide manhunt was launched to find the killer or killers. As it turned out, of course, there was no organised campaign behind the murders; it was simply the work of one deranged individual, a serial killer who had been on the loose for many years but whose existence had never been noticed.
Capture and conviction
Gavarito was finally arrested as he tried to lure a small boy to his death. In retrospect, it appears that he had been crying out to be caught, but no one had previously bothered enough about the fate of the street children to pursue him. Gavarito promptly confessed to the murder of many boys over the preceding seven years. He was arrested and taken into custody, where, during a four-hour confession, he produced a notepad and showed police the gruesome tally of his killings. For each murder, he had written a line across the page
. The evidence was so compelling that, when he came to trial, he was immediately convicted. He should have received a life sentence; however, because of Colombian law restrictions, his sentence had to be reduced to thirty years; and because he led authorities to the graves of his victims, he also received a further limitation, which reduced the sentence to twenty-two years.
Not surprisingly, this leniency for such a dangerous and prolific killer provoked an outcry in Colombia, and was also widely criticised in the press by foreign commentators. Some argued that Gavarito should have received the death sentence or life imprisonment, but currently, neither of these punishments is available in Colombia, so this was not possible.
In 2006, Gavarito was interviewed on television. The TV host who interviewed him mentioned that Gavarito was now a reformed character who had a desire to help abused children, and was considering a political career when he got out of prison. The interviewer also commented that, due to good behaviour in prison, Gavarito might be eligible for early release. As a response, concerned Colombians began to petition to have the law changed: in cases like this, it seemed essential to bring in life sentences to keep killers in prison, out of harm’s way. However, to date, the situation has not changed, and it may be that Gavarito will be released early, much to the anxiety of the Colombian public.
To date, there are still many child murder cases being investigated in Colombia that may or may not be the work of Luis Gavarito. It is thought that continued investigation of these cases may be the only way to detain this terrifying child killer further, and keep him in prison when the time comes for his release.
Anatoly Onoprienko
Anatoly Onoprienko, nicknamed ‘The Beast’, is the Ukraine’s worst serial killer. He killed at least fifty-two victims in a killing spree that lasted for six years, between 1989 and 1995. He was finally picked up by police, carrying a hunting rifle that he had used to commit murder and, when taken into custody, told police that ‘inner voices’ had told him to kill.
He was born in 1959 in the town of Zhytomyr in the Ukraine. Little is known of his early life, except that his mother died when he was four, and his father put him in an orphanage. As a young adult, he spent time in psychiatric hospitals and was diagnosed as schizophrenic. According to one account, his doctors knew that he was a potential killer, but nothing was done about the situation – with horrifying results, as it turned out.
Killing spree
Onoprienko’s hideous catalogue of crimes came to light when the police received a call from Pyotr Onoprienko, Anatoly’s cousin. Pyotr had discovered a large stash of weapons hidden in his house, which belonged to Anatoly. When Pyotr confronted Anatoly, his cousin began to threaten him, saying that he would ‘take care’ of his family over the Easter period. Afraid of what might happen, Pyotr alerted the police, and a task force was assembled to pay a visit to Anatoly’s apartment, where he lived with a hairdresser called Anna and her two children. Luckily for her, she was out at church with her children when the police arrived, and when Anatoly opened the door, thinking it was his girlfriend, the officers were able to arrest him immediately. A sharp-eyed detective, Officer Kryukov, noticed that in the living room was a stolen stereo, matching the description of goods taken after the murder of a local family. When he checked the serial numbers, they matched. In addition, a large stash of items taken from another murder scene was found in the apartment. It was clear that the police were dealing with the murderer.
Realising that his cover had been blown, Onoprienko made a dash for freedom, but was subdued and taken to the police station. At first, he remained silent, but then began to recount the story of how his father had put him in an orphanage, but kept his older brother at home. He had felt that his father could easily have taken care of him, but did not. He then admitted stealing the shotgun police had found in his possession, and went on to confess that he had used it to commit murder. It emerged that his first murder had been committed in 1989. Along with a friend, Sergei Rogozin, he had begun to break into houses, and one night the owners of one of the houses had discovered them. To protect their identity, they had murdered the entire family, including eight children.
Inner voices
After that, Onoprienko had developed a taste for killing, and went on the rampage on his own. He killed five people sleeping in a car one night, including an eleven-year-old boy, and afterwards burned their bodies. He then broke into the home of another family, shooting the couple and their two children with a sawn-off shotgun. This time, he took some of their jewellery with him, before torching the place. By now he was hearing voices telling him to kill, and went on to murder a family of four, once again burning down the house after he had done so. He then began to kill indiscriminately, murdering travellers along the highway, including a sailor, a taxi driver and a cook. He described how the murders felt to him like a game, like a form of hunting, and how he had tried and failed to rid himself of the compulsion to kill.
His next victims were five members of a family in Bratkovichi, including a six-year-old boy. Once again, he burned the house down, and as he was leaving, shot two potential witnesses. Two weeks later, he killed a nurse and her two young sons and a visitor to his house. A month after that, he broke into another home and shot the father and son, beating the wife and daughter to death with a hammer. He told the amazing story of how the girl had witnessed the scene and had refused to give up her parents’ belongings to him, so he smashed her head in and left her dead.
The killings continued, and he shot a couple, then hacked their two daughters to death with an axe. A witness was also shot and butchered. Onoprienko spoke of how he had ‘loved’ the children, but had been compelled to kill them by his inner voice. The final murders took place on March 22, 1996, when Onoprienko shot a family of four, once more setting their home on fire. When speaking of his motivation, Onoprienko described how he felt that he needed to do the killings to see how much he could tolerate, to find out if he could ‘live with’ his crimes. It was as if, in his madness, he was trying to discover the limits of his anger – and was unable to do so.
‘I’m a robot’
After extensive interviews, psychiatrists declared that Onoprienko was fit to stand trial, and court proceedings began in November 1998. Onoprienko was brought to court in an iron cage, and was shouted and spat at by onlookers. He refused to make a statement, and when asked his nationality, said ‘none’. He later told the court that he had been ordered to commit the murders by the devil and that he was ‘a beast of Satan’. Not surprisingly, after only three hours, the jury decided to give him a verdict of guilty, and he was sentenced to death by shooting. After receiving his sentence, Onoprienko said that he was glad he was going to die. ‘I’ve robbed and killed,’ he said, ‘but I’m a robot. I don't feel anything, I’ve been close to death so many times that it’s even interesting for me now to venture into the afterworld, to see what is there, after this death.’
However, even though the defendant was condemned to death, the ruling was difficult for the authorities to follow up, because the Ukraine had committed itself to abolishing capital punishment as part of its obligation to becoming a Council of Europe member. Even so, many commentators argued that Onoprienko was a special case, and that his situation was exceptional. Later, Onoprienko gave an interview in which he said, ‘Death for me is nothing. Naturally, I would prefer the death penalty. I have absolutely no interest in relations with people. I have betrayed them.’
He went on to describe how, when he was in his early twenties, he had shot a deer with a rifle when hunting in the woods. He told the interviewer how, on that occasion, he had felt very upset that he had killed the animal. However, since then, he had never felt any remorse whatsoever for killing any animal or human being. For this reason, he believed that if he was let out of jail, he would continue to kill, and his rampage would be worse than ever before. Onoprienko finished the interview by announcing that if ever he was freed he would find the president of the Ukraine and hang
him from a tree by his testicles. Not surprisingly, given this threat and the others that he had made during the interview, the authorities were in no hurry to release him. Today, he lives on death row, and the police are still investigating a number of other murders that took place between 1989 and 1995.
Death of an innocent suspect
There has been a great deal of criticism about the authorities’ handling of the Onoprienko case. Firstly because it took so long for the culprit of so many murders to be found, despite the fact that whole families had been killed and their belongings stolen, so that whoever was to blame would have had a mass of evidence to show for the killings. Also, the killer did not cover his tracks very carefully, often leaving weapons at the scene of the crime. The murders, in their indiscriminate savagery, were clearly the work of a deranged man, not a careful housebreaker. Secondly, in March 1996, the authorities detained a twenty-six-year-old man named Yury Mozola, believing him to be a possible suspect for the murders. As it later transpired, Mozola was brutally tortured over a period of three days, but because he was innocent, he refused to confess to the crimes. Tragically, he died as a result of the torture. Only a few days later, Onoprienko was arrested, and it became clear that the police had got the wrong man. Mozola had died for no reason, other than that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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