Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Luis Alfredo Gavarito

  1. #1
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515

    Luis Alfredo Gavarito




    On October 30, 1999, Colombian announced that Luis Alfredo Gavarito confessed to raping, torturing and killing 140 children in a five-year killing spree. "Luis Alfredo Garavito has admitted the murder of about 140 children of which we have so far found 114 skeleton," chief prosecutor Alfonso Gomez told a news conference.

    Drawing a battered notebook from his pocket, Garavito showed the interrogating judge and psychologist his tally of the killings he claimed during a four-hour confession. Across the pages were 140 lines, each symbolizing one murdered youngster.

    The mutilated corpses of the mostly male victims aged between eight and 16 years old have been discovered near more than 60 towns in at least 11 of Colombia's 32 provinces. "The bodies were beheaded and bore signs of having been tied up and mutilated," Gomez said.

    The nationwide murder investigation was triggered after 36 decomposing corpses were found near the city of Pereira in 1997. At the time investigators said the children may have been murdered in a black magic ritual.

    Authorities also considered social cleansing, organ trafficking and pedophilic mayhem as reasons behind the butchery.

    After an 18-month investigation, Garavito was arrested in the eastern plains city of Villavicencio in Aprilon charges of attempting to rape a child.

    Born in Colombia's western coffee-growing region, Gavarito was the oldest of seven children. He was repeatedly beaten by his father and raped by two male neighbors.

    Garavito was also a heavy alcoholic, and was treated for depression and suicidal tendencies. He said he committed most of the murders after heavy drinking.

    Garavito had just five years of schooling and left home at 16, working first as a store clerk, then as a street vendor who sold religious icons and prayer cards. Prosecutors said Garavito found most of his victims on the streets, gaining their confidence by giving them soft drinks and money.

    Garavito apparently committed his first murder in 1992. Authorities were unaware of the alleged serial killer until 25 bodies were found in the western city of Pereira. The victims -- mostly boys between eight and 16 -- were found with their throats slit.

    Some showed signs of torture and rape.

    The victims were mostly poor. Many of them were children of street vendors or homeless kids. Garavito -- who was known as "Goofy", "El Loco" and "The Priest" -- passed himself off as "a street vendor, monk, indigent, disabled person or a representative of fictitious foundations for the elderly and children's education, in that way gaining entrance to schools as a speaker," Gomez said.

    Garavito moved around the country frequently after the killings began in 1994, and also spent time in Ecuador, where investigations are trying to determine whether he might be linked to child slayings there too.

    The most killings took place in the western state of Risaralda, and its capital, Pereira.

    Forty-one bodies have been found in Pereira and another 27 have turned up in neighboring Valle de Cauca.

    Previously authorities charged one Pedro Pablo Ramirez with 29 of the slayings. It is unclear whether Ramirez and Garavito are the same person, or if Ramirez was released or is still in custody.

    On December 31, 1998, Colombian police arrested Ramirez in connection with the murder of 29 children. The childrens' bodies - many missing body parts and showing signs of torture - were found in two separate mass graves. The first grave, found on 12 November, was discovered when a boy walking through an overgrown lot saw a skull in the bushes. Authorities who dug up the lot, found several incomplete skeletons and 13 skulls.

    The second discovery was made less than a week later in a river-bed below a city highway. Investigators have linked Ramirez -- who had previously been in prison for sex crimes -- to at least three killings in Pereira and
    possibly three others in the nearby town of Armenia.

    Source

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Inside mind of 'world's worst serial killer' dubbed 'The Beast' who butchered 400 kids

    EXCLUSIVE. WARNING - DISTRESSING DETAILS Posing as a street vendor, charity worker or priest, Luis Garavito tortured, mutilated and sexually abused his victims before slashing their throats, even decapitating some while they were alive. Now Dr Mark Benecke gives an insight into his mind.

    For years, the "world's worst serial killer" raped and butchered hundreds of children - leaving clusters of bodies from town to town - without anyone connecting the dots.

    But when police found a mass grave containing the bones of 36 boys - initially thought to be the work of a satanic cult - it began a trail that would lead them to a paedophile chillingly known as "La Bestia" - ["The Beast"], who may have murdered close to 400 kids.

    Posing as a street vendor, charity worker or priest, Luis Garavito tortured, mutilated and sexually abused his victims before slashing their throats, even decapitating some while they were alive, and leaving many in sickening positions with their severed genitals.

    Locked away after being sentenced to a record 1,853 years behind bars in Colombia, the psychopath readily described his vile crimes in gory detail to Dr Mark Benecke, the only forensic scientist he has ever agreed to speak to.

    Dr Benecke quizzed the monster at a prison in July 2002 and again three years later to get into his head and find out what drove him to kill again and again.

    It became clear how the drifter was able to lure poor and vulnerable children, including orphaned and homeless boys, to their deaths in towns across the South American country.

    To the average person who didn't know his background, he could come across as friendly and sincere. But to the German expert, who once analysed the skulls of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, Garavito was "typical psychopath" putting on a show.

    Dr Benecke, from Cologne, told Mirror Online: "He is one of the most friendly and soft spoken persons I have ever met. [He was] very manipulative towards me in a friendly way.

    "He is a typical serial killer who acts out his fantasies. He is a typical paedophile - soft, mild-mannered and friendly to kids and others.

    "Garavito told me that he even pitied a kid he killed because the kid had told him of [being abused], and Garavito could relate to that due to him being sexually abused as a child all the time."

    Despite apparently feeling sorry for the boy, Garavito went ahead and tortured him to death.

    It was one of countless horrific stories to emerge when the child sex predator confessed to raping and murdering more than 300 kids between 1992 and 1999, when he was in his 30s and 40s.

    Police suspect he has killed close to 400 people in his lifetime. Most of his victims were aged between six and 16.

    Garavito, now 63, gave gruesome descriptions of his crimes and drew maps to lead police to the places where he buried or dumped corpses.

    Colombian newspapers called him "The Beast" and dubbed him the "world's worst serial killer". He was also called Tribilin, the name for the Disney character Goofy.

    His sentence totalled more than 1,800 years, but there are fears he could be freed as early as 2021 if leukaemia doesn't kill him first.

    Many of the murders played out the same way. Garavito would stalk town centres and lure his victims with offers of paid work, cash, sweets or illicit drugs as he posed as everything from a beggar to a priest.

    He carried out the murders in hidden away spots, including hillsides and wooden areas on the outskirts of towns, and used the same location over and over before skipping town.

    In some cases, the unsuspecting child would see the decomposing bodies of earlier victims as Garavito led them to the location. But by then, it was too late to escape.

    The highly organised, ruthless and prolific killer would tie up his victims and begin torturing them while downing bottles of cheap booze.

    When he was finished sexually abusing them he would usually slash their throats with a knife he carried around with him and leave their bodies in the open.

    He decapitated and dismembered some of the children. Many were found with their severed genitals placed in their mouths.

    Garavito was able to get away with his crimes by moving from town to town, changing his appearance and using fake names or stolen identities.

    His offending was helped by the fact that the authorities did not catch on sooner that a serial killer was at work.

    The police did not take some cases seriously because of the victims' disadvantaged backgrounds, there were organisational problems, forces didn't have funding for DNA testing and regular fingerprinting did not take place.

    There were several missed opportunities to bring his killing spree to an end. One was in June 1996 when a missing boy was found decapitated and slaughtered in the town of Boyaca.

    The victim's mum found out her son had been in a shop with a stranger who was buying sweets for children.

    When Garavito was questioned by police, he admitted buying sweets for the children, but insisted he then left alone. Four days after he was let go, he killed a 13-year-old boy in nearby Pereira.

    The authorities didn't begin to connect the dots until the mass grave was found in Pereira, a coffee-growing city in the foothills of the Andes, in November 1997.

    Skulls and bones belonging to 36 boys were unearthed, although they were initially thought to have been killed by a satanic cult. A nationwide task force was set up to investigating the deaths and explore other cases for similarities.

    As the murders continued, there was a major breakthrough in February 1998 after three boys, aged between 11 and 13, were found dead on a hill outside the town of Genova.

    They were friends who worked in the streets selling chewing gum and fruit to support their poor families.

    At the bloody scene, detectives found a knife and a piece of paper with an address written on it. It turned out to be the home of Garavito's girlfriend.

    A bag containing pictures of Garavito's victims, which had been kept as "trophies", and notes that described dates and details of the killings were found during searches of the girlfriend's flat and a friend's home.

    But the police were unable to track down Garavito and he claimed more victims. In November 1998, the skulls and bones of 13 children were found in Pereira and a week later a mass grave containing the remains of 12 more victims.

    He was finally captured in April 1999 after a rough sleeper stopped him from attempting to rape a 12-year-old boy in Villavicencio, but the police didn't know they had their man at the time because he wasn't carrying ID and gave them a different name.

    Later, when he was confronted with overwhelming evidence proving he was the serial killer Luis Garavito, he confessed and asked God and mankind for forgiveness.

    He admitted killing 140 children across 11 provinces and drew maps to direct police to their remains. But over time he told police he had murdered more than 300 children.

    In December 1999, Garavito was sentenced to more than 1,800 years in prison, but under Colombian law the most he can serve is 40 years. The country does not have the death penalty.

    He could be released next year - after serving 22 years - because he confessed and helped police find the victims' bodies.

    According to Colombian media, the killer has been diagnosed with terminal leukaemia.

    He is kept in solitary confinement 24/7 due to fears he would be murdered by fellow inmates.

    Garavito only accepts food and drink from a few guards that he trusts because he fears being poisoned, and he rarely agrees to leave his cell. It is said he spends his time making earrings and necklaces, and is relaxed and chatty with guards.

    What drove him to kill?
    In addition to Garavito, Dr Benecke questioned the killer's sister, investigators and social workers to find out how he became such a monster.

    Garavito was physically and sexually abused and neglected when he was a child, having been raped twice by different men.

    The Colombian's alcoholic father forced his seven children to work instead of attending school, forbid Luis from having a girlfriend and threw him out of the house several times after they rowed.

    There were genetic factors and he might have been exposed to harmful substances when he was in his mother's womb, affecting his brain, the expert said.

    Garavito left the family home in his mid teens but struggled to hold down a job and became an alcoholic. In his 20s he sought help for depression and told of having suicidal thoughts.

    Dr Benecke, who was based in Bogota when the killer was caught, described Garavito as a "crystalline psychopath", and a "sadist and paedophile" who acts only to benefit himself.

    He added: "This all mixes and resulted here in an antisocial narcissist, a psychopath.

    "Terrible childhoods are not always present in serial killers, but here, it added weight to it.

    "Basically, psychopathic people do not know a better way to feel a true, deep bond to others except by living out their fantasies with the victims. It is the maddest type of bonding imaginable."

    Garavito demonstrated homicidal urges and showed no sign of remorse even though he claimed he wanted to understand the cause of his actions and would never kill again if he was freed.

    He chided Dr Benecke for not bringing him an expensive gift.

    Dr Benecke said: "We always drank coffee. He switched the coffee mugs - his and mine - that were brought by staff at our first meetings.

    "I thought it was kind of a friendly cultural gesture or something. I asked him. He had switched the cups because he thought he might be poisoned.

    "He did not think I might then be poisoned. That is typical for a psychopath.

    "Also, he cried seeing a photo of two persons he liked but the very second the coffee came he stopped crying. His tears were not convincing.

    "He said he would never kill again and even drew a map of all the places where he put the victims, and the bodies were actually found there.

    "That was no cooperation but just a quite clever game to get attention and get all sentences merged into one, and it worked."

    The expert added: "He is a mild-mannered, friendly, soft spoken man and, like many psychopathic persons, very honest and open if he wants to or if you do not judge them.

    "I learned very much from him, especially about the abduction of kids in broad daylight in the middle of a town, which helped me understand many cases afterward.

    "He is the essence of what crime fighting is about - how could he, being the psychopath he is, have become a member of society? Is that possible for an antisocial, narcissistic paedophile violent offender or not?"

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-...erial-22290578
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #3
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Edited:

    Worst serial killer in modern history becomes eligible for parole this year

    The Unilad Team

    The worst serial killer in modern history becomes eligible for parole this year.

    Columbian serial killer, Luis Garavito, who raped, tortured, mutilated and killed over 190 boys and young men is up for parole this year after serving three fifths of his sentence.

    The murderer also called La Bestia meaning 'The Beast' has the highest number of victims among serial killers in the world.

    Garavito originally confessed to murdering 140 boys - since proven to be 193 victims in total - between six and sixteen years old, from 1992 to 1999. He is suspected of murdering over 300 victims.

    He mostly raped and tortured street children.

    https://www.unilad.com/news/crime/tr...00908-20230817
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #4
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Oct 12

    Colombian serial killer who confessed to murdering more than 190 children dies in hospital

    AP

    A prolific Colombian serial killer who confessed to murdering more than 190 children during the 1990s died Thursday in a hospital, prison authorities said. He was 66.

    Luis Alfredo Garavito, nicknamed “The Beast,” confessed to having murdered children between the ages of 8 and 16 — mostly from low-income families – whom he kidnapped and abused by posing as a monk, a homeless person or a street vendor.

    The National Penitentiary and Prison Institute said that Garavito died in a hospital in Valledupar, in northern Colombia, where he remained imprisoned. The cause of death was not immediately revealed.

    Garavito was born in 1957 in the Colombian department of Quindío, and as an adult he traveled to 11 departments around the country where he abused and killed minors. The authorities began to follow his trail when they noticed similarities in the cases of disappearances of minors in Pereira, Armenia and Tunja.

    Garavito was arrested in April 1999 on an attempted rape charge, but when an investigating judge asked him if he was the killer of 114 children whose bodies were found in 59 Colombian towns beginning in 1994, Garavito admitted the crimes and begged to be forgiven. Then he confessed to more murders, amounting to more than 190.

    That same year, Garavito apologized to the families of the victims in a court hearing: “I want to ask for forgiveness for everything I did and I am going to confess. Yes, I killed them and not only those, I killed others.”

    In recent years, Garavito’s release from prison was considered imminent, after serving three-fifths of his sentence. In 2021, then-president Iván Duque (2018-2022) rejected the possibility of him regaining his freedom and assured that during his government he would have to “stay in prison.”

    https://apnews.com/article/colombian...ecdebc51d71074
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •