Pedro López (serial killer)

Dimitris Stamatios | December 12, 2022

Summary

Pedro Alonso López (Venadillo, Tolima, Colombia, October 8, 1948-disappeared September 22, 1999), also known as the Monster of the Andes, is a Colombian serial killer who, after his capture in 1980, confessed to the murder of more than 300 girls and young women in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. However, the authorities only confirmed responsibility for 110 victims.

The number of murders cannot be established with certainty, as many of the bodies were never found, and the violence took place in isolated regions, which is why there are no reliable figures. However, in his confession to investigators, he admitted to killing at least 110 girls in Ecuador, 100 in Colombia and “many more than 100” in Peru. And he helped locate a field in Ambato, Ecuador, where 53 bodies were found, and four more in other places, although at other points he indicated no human remains were found. If his version is to be believed, Pedro Alonso Lopez is the male serial killer who has committed the most murders.

His whereabouts are unknown.

Pedro Alonso López was born in 1948 in the municipality of Venadillo, Tolima, and when he was six months old his mother moved to Santa Isabel, in the midst of the “La Violencia”, a period of undeclared civil war that caused nearly 200,000 deaths.

He was the seventh child of thirteen children born to a prostitute, Benilda López de Castañeda, and had an unhappy childhood due to the violence of the environment, the excessive control of his mother and the absence of a father figure. His father, Megdardo Reyes, was murdered six months before his birth.

They lived in a single room with curtains separating them, so he and his siblings could hear their mother”s interactions with customers. In 1957 at the age of 9 he was caught by his mother trying to have sex with his younger sister and was banished from the house. He wandered destitute as a street dweller in Bogotá and was sexually abused. At the age of 12 he was adopted by an American family. But a new sexual assault by a teacher made him run away again and return to the streets.

In 1969 at the age of 21 he was imprisoned for theft and in prison he was abused by 4 prisoners; he decided not to be a victim again and murdered them days later. As it was declared self-defense, only 2 years were added to his sentence.

Upon his release from prison in 1978, Pedro traveled extensively throughout Peru, during which time, he later admitted, he had begun to violently attack and murder at least 100 girls and young women from local tribes throughout the region. He claimed to look for those who “had the most innocent look” and approach them during the day, because he thought they would be suspicious at night. It was impossible to verify these allegations, but what is known is that he was captured by a group of Ayacuchans in south-central Peru while attempting to kidnap a girl as young as 9 years old.

The Ayacuchanos stripped him of his clothes and belongings, held him and buried him alive in the sand. However, he had luck on his side, because an American missionary intervened and convinced his captors that the murder was ungodly and that they should hand Pedro over to the authorities. They considered this possibility and handed over their prisoner to the Peruvian authorities. The judicial and police authorities did not want to waste time investigating the complaint from the small tribes and the Peruvian government deported Pedro to Ecuador.

On his return to Ecuador, Pedro began to travel around the region, even stopping frequently in Colombia. Authorities soon began to notice an increase in cases of missing persons, most notably young girls, but they quickly concluded that it was occurring due to the growing demand for sex slaves and trafficking of women.

In April 1980, a flood inundated Ambato (Ecuador) and caused authorities to take back to the missing persons case file when raging waters unearthed the remains of four girls. While it was difficult for specialists to determine the causes of the deaths, they concluded that the bodies of the girls they had found had been deliberately hidden by someone trying to keep them from being discovered.

Days after the flood, a local woman, Carvina Poveda, was on her way to shop at a local supermarket with her 12-year-old daughter Marie when an unknown man attempted to abduct the girl. Carvina called for help to stop the man as he tried to flee the supermarket with her daughter in his arms. Local shopkeepers quickly came to her aid, apprehended the man before he could escape and held him until the authorities arrived. Pedro was very calm when police arrived on the scene. When they returned to the main police station with their suspect, their first conclusion was that they had a madman in custody.

Once at the main office of the police station, Pedro refused to cooperate with the authorities and remained silent throughout the interrogation questions. Investigators soon realized that they would have to employ a different strategy to get their suspect to talk. One of the officers soon suggested that they call in a priest, Father Cordoba Gudino, whom he met in prison and held conversations in a cell with Pedro. The design of the police strategy was for Father Gudino to gain the suspect”s trust and acknowledge his crimes. Instantly, Pedro began to talk, and by the next day, he had revealed such repulsive acts of violence that Father Gudino could hear no more and asked to be removed from the cell.

In any case, nothing more was ever known about the statements and investigations into these murders. What is known is that in 1980 Pedro Alonso López was found guilty of the crime of multiple murder and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

When asked what he did with these victims, he explained that he first raped his victim, and then strangled her while staring into her eyes. He wanted to touch the deepest pleasure and deepest sexual arousal before her life withered away.

“It”s part of the profile,” FBI criminal investigator Robert Ressler once said. “Multiple murderers very often are due to obsessions of some gender related to their mothers. A hate relationship, in popular parlance. These mothers will usually not be candidates for mother of the year. The common thread seems to be the sexual element, mothers who have many sexual partners and the son is aware of this. Of course, the children of prostitutes are the most likely prototypes if exposed to this type of behavior, aggressive and disengaged on the part of the mother.”

Also read, biographies – William Jennings Bryan

Release and whereabouts

He was imprisoned in Ecuador until 1994 and was handed over to the Colombian authorities for extradition, where he was confined in a psychiatric hospital. Years later, in 1998, he was declared healthy and released. According to a documentary on the BIO channel of the A&E network, a search, location and capture request has been issued to Interpol since 2002.

He was last seen on September 22, 1999, when he went to the National Registry Office in Bogotá to claim his new citizenship card.

At the moment his current whereabouts are unknown, although during his detention a group of victims” parents reportedly said they would “take justice into their own hands” if Alonso López was released again. It is presumed that he was illegally executed.

In any case, the Monster of the Andes has never been heard from again. His mother is sure that he is still alive because, according to her, whenever someone close to her has died, his spirit has “revealed” itself to her, something that has not happened with Pedro.

Interpol has been looking for him since 2002 for all the murders committed, he also has an arrest warrant. In 2012 in the city of Tunja, capital of the Department of Boyacá, the murder of the girl Andrea Marcela García Buitrago occurred and in 2013 the television program Crónicas RCN said that the Monster of the Andes was a possible suspect, due to the characteristics of the crime that resemble those of the murder of Flor Alba Sánchez, his first victim.

Sources

1. Pedro Alonso López
2. Pedro López (serial killer)
3. a b c d Pedro Alonso López ”El Monstruo de los Andes”
4. Hermosillo, Francisco Hernández | El Sol de. «Pedro Alonso López: Asesinos seriales que impactaron al mundo». El Sol de Hermosillo | Noticias Locales, Policiacas, sobre México, Sonora y el Mundo (en inglés). Consultado el 10 de abril de 2021.
5. Clarín.com (6 de septiembre de 2020). «El ”monstruo de los Andes” está en libertad: asesinó a 300 menores en Colombia, Ecuador y Perú». www.clarin.com. Consultado el 10 de abril de 2021.
6. UN, Agencia de Noticias (27 de junio de 2013). «Colombia no está preparada para enfrentar los monstruos». Caracol Radio. Consultado el 10 de abril de 2021.
7. ^ a b Lista di biografie di serial killer, su Occhirossi.it. URL consultato il 21 marzo 2022 (archiviato dall”url originale il 16 maggio 2021).
8. ^ a b c d Articolo su Pedro Lopez, su editinternational.com. URL consultato il 4 maggio 2012 (archiviato dall”url originale il 10 luglio 2011).
9. ^ Articoli su Pedro Lopez
10. ^ a b “Who is Pedro Lopez?”. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 21 October 2007. Retrieved 25 August 2013.
11. ^ Boar, Roger; Blundell, Nigel (1983). The World”s Most Infamous Murders. London: Octopus. pp. 116–118. ISBN 0-600-57008-8.
12. ^ a b Pearson, Nick (5 December 2018). “World”s second worst serial killer walked free from prison”. Nine News. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
13. ^ Ramon, Carlina; Inde, Maria Masabanda; Jácome, Carlos; Brennan, Pat (2004). The Monster of the Andes. A&E Television Networks. ISBN 0-7670-7897-7.
14. ^ “Why Did They Free Pedro López, the Monster of the Andes?”. Criminal. vocal.media. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
15. A&E Biography documentary on YouTube