Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
have you ever heard of luis garavito , the deadliest serial killer set to regain his freedom in 2023.
the notorious serial killer who terrorized colombia, well he’s about to be a free man,
why? lets found out.
this is luis garavito, but before we dive into why he’s being released on parole we need to find out
who he is, what he did his motives and his victims
and the punishment he was given .
born on 25 th january 1957,luis alfredo garavito cubillos
was commonly known as bestia or the beast.
and for a good reason.his name sends chills down the spine of many.
but it wasn’t like that in the beginning.
when the small town of Génova, Quindío colombia witnessed his birth .
garavito was the second child of seven children and the eldest son of manuel antonio garavito and rosa delia cubillos.he grew up with three brothers and three sisters. but unfortunately his childhood was far from ideal.
Garavito claimed that his father was abusive, unfaithful and very strict. his mother was also allegedly violent towards him and showed him little to know affection or care as a child.
the family relocated to Ceilán, Valle del Cauca in the north of the department before Garavito entered primary school
due to the ongoing conflict in colombia at the time.
nevertheless he still managed to attend Simón Bolívar School in Ceilán .his teachers described garavito as cherful ,eager and collaborative in school . however with time he lost his passion,became shy and reserved
it didn´t take long before bullies targeted him ,his passion for learning was also challenged by his inability to comprehend the subject taught garavito were classes and that only added to the ridicule he received .his classmates called him garabato which means squiggle.
the constant bullying ridicule and abusive environment at home only made him more widhrawn and he often lashed out with with violance taunting ,the teachers didn’t help either they failed to stop the other students from bullying him and taunting him.
garavito grew up to resent his father and school., he eventually left school in fifth grade in 1968 after his father insisted he started making money for the family. that is when garavito case grew from bad to worse.
the abuse garavito suffered as a child likely played a singificant role in his development as a serial killer.according to psychologists many serial killers have a histtory of abuse,neglect or trauma in their early lives , such experiences can cause deep- seated emotional scars. and sense of powerfulessness that some individuals seek to adress trhough acts of violence.
There is no exuse for garavitos crimes,after all we all have control how we react to terrible situaitons.
however it does explain his horrible crimes , garavitos terrible childhood did not just explain why he acted the way he did.they laid the groundwork for a life filled with crime and depravity .
in the late fall of 1980 garavito started sexually assulting and torturing miners
the miners were aged from 6 to 16 years.
in fact ,garavito was estimated to have molested and tortured at least 200 miners.but it was not only sexual depravity that garavito committed
He also murdered and mutilated miners. garavito terrorized colombia from 1992 to 1999.
7 years of crime that brought misery and left many heartbrokenand traumatized
he was arrested and detained on the 22th of april 1999 for the attempted rape of a minormany of garavitos victims were children , poor neighborhoods who were left unattended by their families unable to support them.
he often put on disguises so that people could trust him with children in typical case of wolf in sheep´s clothing,the beast would dress up like a monk to avoid suspicion.
CHILDHOOD.
The events that would eventually shape garavitos life began just before be became an adolescent ,having left school because of a bad memory, garavito started making money to support the family.still ,he wasn’t free his father’s abusive rules.
on of thesee rules was that he wasn’t allowed to have a girlfriend or even friends.
in 1969 he was the victim of cruel physical and sexual abuse by the owner of a local drugstore
who was also their neighbor and a friend of garavitos father.
the molestation occured whenever garavitos father visited the store for garavitos vaccinations during these incidents of molestation the neighbor was said to have bound garavito to a bed before sexually , assulting him .burning him with a candle cutting him with a razor blace and biting his genitals and buttocks on several occassions.
garavito confessed that he killed and dissected two birds in frustration after the first incident of the abuse which made him feel remorse and shame shortly afterward
garavito began asking his younger sibling that they sleep naked in their common bed with him,soon after the episode with the birds.
he admits to removing his younger siblings clothes and sexually fondling them as they slept on many occasions .garavito also claimed he sexually abused a six -year -old boy .
during this period garavito became increasingly withdrawn aggressive and ready to exact vengeance on the world
in 1971 the family relocated to Trujillo this relocation was supposed to be a good thing a positive turning point in the life of garavito,because the relocation meant that the family left the pedophile drugstore owner
another neighboring family friend showed heterosexual pornography,garavito responded with disgust which must have pissed the neighbor off because he beat him into an undergrowth and molested him.
The next year ,the 15 -year -old garavito aggressively and repeatedly atteempted to initiate sexual relations with women ,however his moves towards them were always rejected.
dejected he started following various family members in no time garavito excessed alcoholicd drinks and developed an addiction
in 1972 he was temporarly evicted after his mother caught him trying to molest a five year old boy.a similar situation occured the next year. he attempted to molest a six -year -old boy at a train station in Bogotá
the boy raised the alarm and garavito was arrested, this case got to garavitos father who was infuriated but for a different reason ,garavito father gave him a stern talking to for molesting a boy rather than a girl .
A crime scene photo of one of the bodies of one of Garavito’s victims.YouTube
eventually he was evicted from the house of homosexual behavior, while studying marketing garavito worked as an assistant at a compensation fund and later for a store chain
notwithstanding his new success, he began to have disputes with hisbosses clients. and co-workers eventually leading to physical altercations naturallly led to him being sacked .
garavito worked as a streret vendor ,selling religious icons and as a migrant worker after losing his job he developed mainly platonic connections with multiple women.
througgh his adulthood he raised many of the children of the women he befriended as if they were his own ,he was said to be a loving boyfriend when sober .
over time garavito developed psychotic paranoid and depressive symptoms and began compulsively molesting both male and female children but he seemed more drawn to boys ,he expressed a desire to start a family due to depression and suicidal thoughts related to his lack of achievement.
Garavito gradually developed an alcohol addiction and began joining alcoholics anonymous group meetings in 1978.
garavito also became a pentecostal and worked as a store clerk where he met Luz mary his first girlfriend.
ADULTHOOD AND ON-SET OF KILLINGS
In following months ,garavito drifted away from his family but maintained a close relationship with his older sister Esther, still esther avoided him because of his alcoholism
garavito was also annoyed at his younger siblings for supporting their father whom he thought had favored them as a child.
Garavito later relocated to the town of Armenia, where he found work at a local bakery ,things didn’t go as garavito planned at the bakery ,his employment were terminated when he allegedly provoked a fight with his co-workers.
after this he attempted to commit suicide but failed ,this led him to seek psychiatric care at the San Juan de Dios hospital where he was constantly hospitalized throughout the spring of 1980.
FILE – Members of the Fiscalia gather one of the skeletons of some of the children killed by Luis Alfredo Garavito in October of 1998, in Pereira 320 Kms. to the west of Bogota, Colombia. ( JJ BONILLA/AFP via Getty Images)
Garavito felt that his life was not worth living and wanted to die , although it was obvious he had psychosis and bulimia, he was primarily treated for his diagnosed depression and was giving antipsychotic medication .
Forensic investigators carry bags containing the remains of some 36 boys (Image: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Garavito wanted to be honest with his psychiatrist during one of his therapy sessions and indicated that he was interested in having kids before missinterpreting this phrase to mean that he wanted to start a family.
garavito hid his pedophilia or sexual impotance with female partners from the psychiatrist out of fear of the consequences.
Investigators collect the remains of Luis Garavito’s victims.
in 1980 ,garavito found work at an armenian supermarket,where he was given a 2-hours lunch break on thursdays and sundays afternoons,te work served him well
and he soon a brief relationship with claudia . a single mother and beautician.garavito later admitted that claudia was the first whose company he enjoyed.however he couldn’t keep up with her spending habits.the couple didn’t engage in intercourse.
during his lunch breaks garavito bound and molested youngsters in the nearby Quimbaya and Calarcá communities to sate his sexual cravings.
during this time ,garavito constant desire to molest children he met at work heightened ,he began carrying razor blades, candles, and lighters in autumn of 1980 . to aid in the torture of his victims, garavito wasn’t called a beast for nothing.he extracted a tooth in order to bite children more effectively.that´s how cruel he was.
after each crime he would write the name of the molested child in a blue notebook and pray for them while pacing his room fervently beating his chest while naked in a ritualized fashion .
garavito understood that his actions were horrible so he began reading the bible everynight hoping to find an explanation for his deviant in the book of psalms but there was no explanation in sight.
regardless garavito developed a dytonh interest in tarot readings esoteric studies and satanism
he often visited palm readers and other occult practitioners ,however it didn’t take him long before he realized they also knew vert little about the occult.
In 1993 the burning by candles and bites are not enough anymore, so he began to cut the belly of the children while they were still alive, enjoying seeing their intestines coming out.
suffering from bouts of depressons and guilt as a result of his crimes garavito had nightmares about his victims, he would oftne wake up in tears before breaking out in hysterical laughter as he remember the pleasure he got from their pain.
Garavito became drawn to Hitler after he read his book MEIN KAMPF. he discovered that he and Hitler experienced similar events early in their lives ,this admiration soon turned into idolization
with Hitlers mass Graves for the holocaust
and statements that he liked the concentration camps .
in January of 1984 garavito was admitted to psychiatric care again after he suffered a mental breakdown,he was referred to psychotherapy for his depression and was described antis psychotic medication .
On the 28th of february 1984 garavito obtained a leave perment and fled to Pereira
he didn´t waste time molesting,burning and biting two children in the sector of Getsemani before leaving their photographs with his older sister.
KILLINGS
garavito looked up to r Campo Elías Delgado.the notorious colombian spree killer .
december 1986
delgado murdered his mother and several others in a bogota resturant ,the whole nation watched in horror as the news was broadcast
but garavito watched in admiration he was impressed by the national attention the murderer received and thenhe decided to follow in delgado’s footsteps as he and others watched it on television in a bar.
from then ongaravito imagined what it would be like to get a machine gun and annihilitate his father and family before committing suicide.
for garavito committing suicide after the massmurder of his family would be an ideal way for him to die.
Graciela zabaleta lived close to the mental health centers where garavito was receiving treatment at that time and before long they started going out together .garavito casually suggested that she be his permanent companion after introducing himself.
Graciela Zabaleta, aged 53, and whom had enjoyed free union with Garavito until late 1998, when he began losing control with his violent tendencies and spiraling into alcoholism.
zabaleta was qucik to accept garavitos request to live with her in return for supplying food and handling the household’s bills.
garavito was mostly absent but he was protective and fatherly figure to the family regardless zabaleta was worried about garavitos alcohol addiction ,whitch frequently resulted in scandalous and antisocial behavior.
Garavito’s friends Jairo Toro and Ancizar Valencia became aware of their friend’s improper behavior after seing him drunk in company of various pubescent youths of humble appearance .depite this they did not confront garavito.
most of his male and female acquaintances were unaware of his sexual problems.garavito started keeping evidence of his atrocities in black cloth briefcases at the apartments of several females in 1988.
Garavito was estimated to have molested and tortured at least 200 miners between 1980 and 1992, during this period he spent 5 years under psychiatric care and attempted suicide several times
as expected reports of child molestation increased dramatically wherever garavito lived .
throughout this period garavito would torture and molest kids.but his actions soon expended to murdering not only kids but adults .
Garavito stated to gave gone into a psychotic state while using a ouija board
there the devil sked him if he wanted to serve him and ordered him to start killing.
On the 1st of October 1992
Garavito attempted his first murder by looking for a young boy selling sweets and cigars to passes by.
garavito was inebriated when he lured the youth to the Melia Hotel sector in Bolivar, Colombia,but his plan didn’t work.
He was interrupted and manhandled by the local police one of them smashed his head with a revolver while garavito was still bleeding,they stole his watch, a ring, and 100.000 pesos before releasing him from the police station .
on the 4th of october 1992
the beast murdered juan carlos
(the faces of the beast)
after the murder garavito began using various disguises to avoid detection and arrest .
locals refer to him as goofy a caring man that was kind and gave gifts to Trujillo children .they even went to great lengths to preserve documents for garavito .
garavito kept clothes ,tickets, identity cards and receipts from his victims in a black suitcase which he left with his sister esther before to handing it to luz mary.
additionally he gathered their severed toes before discarding them out of concern that the scent would attract the scent dog squad of the colombian national police.
THE KILLINGS CONTINUE .
garavito drifted trhough western colombia as a homeless drifter towards the end of his criminal career , he dreaded murdering miners he believed were far too easy to entice.
he devised plans to commit a mass murder in whitch he would kidnap many adults and murder them while attracting the attention of jounalists,possibly dying in the ensuing shootout.
he was aware that his crimes were truly antrocious,the beast within him snapped when he saw a young boy named juan carlos walking near a market he followed the boy buying rope and a knife along the way and offering work in exchange for money
unfortunately this was all a ruse to lure the boy to a remote location where garavito could fulfill his twisted desires .he brutally murdered the boy,after severely injuring him .
garavito was only getting started ,he went on a killing spree,killing more children ,mostly poor and vulnerable boys.
he began cutting into their bellies and collecting there amputated toes ,he lured a group of school children into a wooded area.
he murdered them before moving to other parts of colombia to continue his spree. there atrocities were truly horrifying
june of 1996
garavito begged to luz mary for a place to stay in return for food and financial help after he complained to her about losing his momentary job as an air freshnesss-seller shet ook garavito in – briefly with reluctance weary of his alcohism and temper .
garavito then suffered a hard fall in Bogotá Guacamaya’s neighborhood breaking his leg in august of 1996.in pain he temporarly lived with a man before begging his girlfriend luz mary to let him stay at her house again.
garavito resorted to begging on the streets for the 2 months he lived her ,owing to his inability to walk without crutches wearing a neck brace ore wearing a cast . garavito supported the family by paying for meals and other necessities such as bringing a television
however he remained hostile and fought with his girlfriend’s 15 year old son over wanting to watch the local news.luz mary told garavito to leave after he was abusive and mean to her son.destroying a gold chain she had gifted him after being told he was no longer welcome.
garavito showed up the next day threatening cursing and grabbing luz mary´s throat forcing and her family to flee to a neighbor’s house.
garavito left an apology note after several hours asking for her forgiveness and mentioning his damage to their houshold.
locals dubbed garavito conflict because he was frequently seen drunk and drifting from town to town as he overstayed his welcome
often due to domestic disputes with co -workers, abuse of his girlfriends as well his general failure to act normally.
despite living with two seperate women in Pereira when he was arrested his unpredictable behavior reportedly prevented him from developing meaningful relationships.
victims
La bestia (” the beast”) victims are to numerous to mention because hey were from poor housholds, nobody cared about them and they could not be identified.
one of his most talked about victims is juan carlos his first murder victim
who set the stage for garavito’s continous murder spree of children.primarily poor boys and colleting their amputated toes .
garavito attempted to lure a young boy from a bus in early 1994
but discovered a massgrave and let the child go.
however ,the child injured and cut,garavito after he was distracted by the mass graves foul odor garavito overpowered and murdered the boy .
another one of his victims was 13-year -old Jaime Andrés González who he murdered on the 4th of february 1994 after being ejected from a bar.
after burying his knife he went into a brief psychosis after seeing a crucifix in the area before returning to his hotel room to chant scripture.
garavitos victims were mostly men but he also molested and murdered women . he confessed to 172 murders and 28 more.five of whom were adult victms.
garavito murdered adult victims to eliminate potential witnesses, garavito continued to murder children throughout colombia until his final victim.
mauricio monedero mejiain 1993 as garavito murder spree continued .colombian struggled to make sense of the crimes ,they knew a serial killer was on the loose but hey had little information to work with
because most of the victims were poor children from rural areas , it was difficult to find witnesses or suspects.
Garavito meanwhile continued to elude capture he moved from city to city to avoid suspicion often posing as a street vendor or traveling salesman , he would aproach young boys on the streets and offer them mony or work before luring them to a remote location and committing a atrocities. however as the number of victims increased the police began to close in on garavito
in 1999
garavito was apprehended in Villavicencio colombia after a victim managed to flee and alert the authorities .
garavito confessed to the murders of 147 children during his trial , making him one of the most profilic serial killers in history
garavito in court ,crying after his sentence
he was sentenced to 1,853 year in prison but many colombians feel that the sentence was adequate ,however they could do nothing because there was no death penalty or life imprisonment iunder colombian law.
in fact garavito sentence was later reduced to a maximum of 60 years
(The beast Luis Garavito died, the abhorrent criminal who murdered almost 200 children in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela)
as one of the most notorious serial killers in history Luis Alfredo Garavito cubillos was active in colombia and crossed international borders to commit heinous crimes
in the summer of 1998 he committed two murders in ecuador ,leaving behind bereaved families and a shocked nation.
Abel Gustavo Loor Vélez a 14 ,year old , shoe shiner
and paper boy with his entire life ahead of him was one of the victims Jimmy Leonardo Palacios Anchundia a 12 year old boy from a lowincome family. vanished without a trace in Chone, Ecuador.
it’s worth noting that that both boys came from low-income families,making them more vulnerable to people like Garavito.the killer took advantage of their precarious situation and lured them into his trap where they were never seen again
garavito ability to move undertected in foreign lands demonstrates his devious ruthlessness he knew how to blend in with the crowd and disappear.
Leaving a trail of destruction and terror in his way. the Ecuadorian authorities quickly responded to the heinous crimes and began planning an operation to apprehend garavito .
he was able to elude them however by fleeing to an all-girls’ school in Santo Domingo, Ecuador where he believed he could hide from the long arm of the law.
but his arrogance and recklessness nearly caught up wih him and he was almost apprehended when police searched the property ,they discovered the bodies of two victims one of whom was a young girls who´d been sexually assaulted, tortured and murdered in a similar to garavito.
garavito thick colombian accent gave him away and he was soon spotted begging for money in july and august of that year by locals ,he was a foreign drifter who had no qualms about destroying families and taking innocent lives.
his evil deeds were not limited to colombia or Ecuador as he admitted to killings in Venzuella it´s terrufying to think about how many people garavito claimed as victims during his reign of terror and how many families were left to mourn their loved ones.
SURVIVORS
Allthough garavito story is filled with horror there is some good news ,some kids survived.
take the case of William Trujillo Mora one of garavitos early victims from the late 70s ,he managed to flee despite being tortured and molested by garavito.
garavito grabbed william who was only 9 years old and took him to an abandoned structure.he then sexually abused and tortured william for 12 hours ,as garavito passed out from drinking , william was able to flee ,given the degree of the torment he underwent it´s a miracle that william was able to escape.
for another of his survivors, let me take you back to 1988.,when he committed one of h is many crimes in Quindío’s Calarcá Alto del Río district.
garavito sexually attacked an unidentified victim in an isolated spot .this location became notorious when multiple bodies were discovered within 20 m radius of one another after an earthquake it’s unsettling to imagine how many lives were lost in that area
due to this one monster similarly garavito contacted 1o years old carlos alberto in the Circasia neighborhood of Quindío in the early 1990s.
In exchange for work garavito offered carlos gifts and money as they arrived at the remote location.garavito placed a knife into carlo´s throat and began to bind ,rape, and torment him .
garavito asked carlos if he loved it and carlos said “yeas” out of fear garavito went to say see you next week,that´s how i like it that you also like it.
Brand Ferney Bernal Álvarez was a 16 year old boy who worked in therooster fighting industry with his father in the 1990s
garavito took brand to a remote location and sexually assaulted him and tortured him in numerous ways . alvarez was able to escape from his bonds and run from garavito , still it’s heartbreaking to considerh how many other youngsters were not so fortunate
INVESTIGTIONS AND ARREST
In crime few have committed atrocities so heinous that they seem unfathomable to the average person, one such individual is of course luis garavito.
his reign of terror lasted for several years yet his arrest was not exactly because of his many crimes but because he attempted to molest John Iván Sabogal.
garavito threatened and grabbed sabogal in his typical manner ,took him to a remote place and went ahead to taunt and molest him but sabogal struggled with him .
luckily a 16 year old boy was close enough and started shouting obscenities and trowing stones at garavito garvito pursued the 16 year old and the boys fled
they later contacted the police and the search for garavito began.even when he was finally caught, the case against him was for the attempted molestation of sabogal.
garavito managed to evade the authorities for years, thanks in part to his unassuming appearance he did not fit the serial killer stereotype standing at only 5’5 and having a noticeable limp .
however it was his eyesight that ultimately led to his capture. he had a rare eye conditionand his glasses were designed for that condition .garavito used poor eyesight to avoid suspicion but it ultimately led to his capture.
while in prison for attempted sexual assault his glasses,choes , underwear and bottles of brandy were found by investigators at a crime scene.
mandatory eye exams for all prisoners were carried out to determine who had that rare eye condition.and that was how garavito was caught.this move by authorities also helped to reduce his chances of lying about his eyesight in the future.
officers took DNA evidence from garavitos bed and living area , while he left the cell. the results were conclusive the DNA found on the victims matched that found in garavitos cell .
( luis alfredo garavito cryes after sentence)
faced with this irrefutable evidence garavito eventually confessed to murdering 147 children of the 172 counts he was indicted on 138 of them garavitoreceived the longest prison term in colombian historty .
1,853 years and 9 days in 2001 but under colombian law incarceration limited to 40 years .
garavito sente4nce was reduced to 22 years because he assisted investigators in identifying the victims’s bodies .he is suppposed to be eligible for parole whenhe has served 3 fifths of his sentence
this means he is eligible for release in 2023 , garavito remains optimistic, having expressed the colombian senator Carlos Moreno de Caro .his intention to enter colombian congress enter the ministry as pentecostal pastor and marry a womcan contradicting his self-avowed homosexuality.
garavito has serious eye cancer that has left him weak and weary,necessitating regular blood transfusions, a great natural punishment if you believe in that sort of thing.
He spent most of his time at Valledupar medical section , producing handcuffs ,earings and necklaces, its a tragic ending to a very messy situation
and the citizens of colombia certainly thought so too .
On the 28th of october 1999 sent shock wawes throughout colombia and the rest of the world . he admitted to sexually asssaulting,brutalizing, multilating and murdering 147 minors mostly young men and boys in western colombia.
garavito gained access to these vunerable children by using disguises often posing as a monk or a priest giving him the nickname elura in colombian media.which reflects this aspect of his modus operandi.
He his known to have killed at least 193 children.
between his victims in Ecuador and colombia making him the most aggressive serial killer of modern times in the end his crimes and his sentence speak for themselves.
and he was given an 835e prison sentence for the murder of 189 people in 2000.
with many speculating that his actual victim count could be much higher
Garavitos case a stark reminder of the horrors of himans can commit .
2023 parole
garavito is imprisoned in a maximum security prison in Valledupar colombia’s El cesar region where he is serving his sentence, for his saftey he lives apart from the other convicts because it is believe that the other prisoners would kill him immediately .
the imprisoned beast only consumes foods and liquids brought to him by individual he knows. the corrctional officers characterize him as laid -back upbeat and courteous he´s even training to be a politician and when he´s released he plans to launch a career in activism assisting mistreated children.
no joke, he made a public plea for his release in 2021 stating that he had been a model inmate and is living in fear of being murdered by other detainees.
the national prison institute petitioned a judge to give him temporary release due to his ecemplary behavior in jail .la bestia is still imprisoned for the time but not for long.
Garavito died at a hospital in Valledupar on 12 October 2023, at the age of 66.
the 66-year-old convict succumbed to terminal cancer
Known as “The Beast” or “The Monster of Genova,” after his native town, Garavito died at the age of 66 in a clinic from “multiple conditions,” the INPEC penitentiary authority said in a statement.
Journalist Guillermo Prieto “Pirry” La Rotta interviewed Garavito for a show which was broadcast on 11 June 2006. Pirry mentioned that, during the interview, Garavito tried to minimize his actions and expressed intent to start a political career in order to help abused children. Pirry also described Garavito’s conditions in prison and commented that due to good behaviour, he could have probably applied for early release within three years
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