Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Pedro Rodrigues Filho: The Real Life Dexter Who Hunted Criminals

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

For eight seasons, the TV show Dexter showed the fictional life of a crime solving forensics expert who just so happened to have been a serial killer who killed serial killers. This got me wondering, has there ever been a real life Dexter? A killer, or even a criminal, who targeted other criminals? Well, there sort of has been. Learn the story of the real life Dexter on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For eight seasons, the TV show Dexter showed the fictional life of a crime-solving forensics expert, who just so happened to have been a serial killer who killed serial killers. This got me wondering, has there ever been a real-life Dexter, a killer, or even a criminal who targeted other criminals? Well, there sort of has been. Learn the story of the real-life Dexter on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back into... time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode of Everything Everywhere Daily is sponsored by listeners like you. Creating a daily show like this isn't easy. Researching, writing, and recording a daily show takes quite a bit of time. And you have to do it every single day. Over on patreon.com, there is a small but growing community of listeners who support the show with their donations.

In addition to showing your support for the show, you can also get some extra benefits as well. Depending on your level of sponsorship, you can be listed as an associate or executive producer of the show. There's monthly original wallpapers for your desktop and smartphone, as well as merchandise like stickers, t-shirts and hoodies. Depending on your sponsorship level, you can also submit ideas directly to me, because this is a daily show and I need a lot of show ideas. Next month, patrons will also be able to get monthly e-books of the episode transcripts as part of their support. As new projects, products, and events roll out over the next several months, patrons will have first dibs on everything. If you would like to be a sponsor, go to patreon.com slash everything everywhere, or click on the link in the show notes. The man who had earned the nickname, the Real Life Dexter, was born Pedro Rodriguez-Philo in 1954 in the state of Minasgeras, Brazil.

I should note right at the beginning of this episode that Pedro Rodriguez is not a hero. Even though he usually had a reason for doing the things he did, it doesn't mean that his victims warranted being killed or that the reasons were particularly good. He began his life with one strike against him. He was born with a damaged skull when his father hit his pregnant mother in a fight. Growing up in poverty, it wasn't long before he had his first brush with murder. At the age of 13, he pushed his cousin into a sugar cane press, almost killing him. It didn't take him long to actually kill someone.

His first murder was at the age of 14 when he shot the deputy mayor of Sinterita de Scapulai in broad daylight in front of the city hall with a shotgun. His reason for doing so was because he had wrongly accused his father, who was a school guard, of stealing food from a school kitchen, and then fired him. He tracked down the person who was actually the thief and then killed him. After the murders in his hometown, he fled to the city of Mogadus cruises outside of Sao Paulo, where he began to earn money by robbing drug houses and killing drug dealers, which is always a great way to make money. While he was there, he began living with a woman named Maria Apersida Olympia, who soon became pregnant. While pregnant, she was killed by members of a nearby gang who wanted revenge on Rodriguez. Rodriguez managed to escape the assassination attempt.

He then regrouped and with some of his companions began systematically, torturing members of the rival gang to find out who is responsible for the murder. He and his mates later attended the wedding of the rival gang leader, with information having been given up by his underlings. At the ceremony, he did his best impression of the red wedding from the Game of Thrones and killed seven people, injuring 16. Pedro wasn't yet 18 years old. He returned home after hearing the news that his mother had been brutally murdered by his father

with a machete. He went to the jail to visit his father, where he stabbed him 22 times. After his father lay dead on the ground, he cut out his heart and took a bite, because at that point, why not? If you're going to go down the path of patricide, you might as well throw in a little bit of cannibalism as well. I have no idea how he wasn't arrested

after killing his father in jail, but soon after he committed his next murder. His cousin had become pregnant by a man who then abandoned her. He hunted the man down and killed him. On May 24, 1973, Pedro was finally captured by police. Upon his arrest, he was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police wagon with another man who was an accused rapist. By the time the ride was over and the police opened the door, the rapist was dead. It was in jail, locked up with hundreds of other criminals that his career and killing really took off.

Once in prison, he was about to be attacked by a group of five other men. He attacked them first, killing three of them, and chasing the other two away. He killed at least two of his cellmates while incarcerated, one man he decapitated with a knife, several serial killers who were locked up with him were either attacked or killed by Rodriguez. Just to hammer the point home that he wasn't a selfless vigilante, he also confessed having killed one man in prison because he snored too loud, and another because he didn't like his face. While in jail, he killed at least 47 other inmates and attacked countless others.

In a confined institution full of predators, Rodriguez was the Alpha Predator. Oddly enough, after all the murders, this is the part where the story gets kind of weird, and it has to do with Brazilian law. Based on the murders Rodriguez committed at the time of his arrest, he was sentenced to 126 years in prison. Based on the murders he committed in prison, he would have been expected to have been sentenced to over 400 years more. However, a Brazilian law prohibits anyone from serving more than 30 years behind bars. He had only four years tacked on to his sentence for all the murders he committed in prison. On April 24, 2007, Pedro Rodriguez-Filo was set free. As you might have guessed, he didn't stay out of jail for that long.

By 2011, he was back in custody, but, shockingly enough, not for murder, but for crimes committed in prison, including inciting a riot and false imprisonment. He was released again in 2018, and at the age of 66 is a free man today. Pedro claims to have killed over 100 people, but there's only evidence for 71. Psychiatrists who have studied him have had a difficult time pinning down his condition. Most people would think him to be a classic psychopath, but one trait he has which most psychopaths do not is the ability to make emotional attachments. In fact, most of his killings were due to some sort of emotional attachment and the need to seek revenge. Rather, he's been labeled a sociopath.

Psychopaths tend to be like Ted Bundy. They can be charming and manipulative. Sociopaths tend to be erratic and emotional. A 1982 report on him said that his greatest need was violent affirmation of oneself, and he was diagnosed as being paranoid and antisocial, which they probably could have figured out from the tattoo on his left arm, which says, I kill for pleasure. Today, Pedro is a freedman,

and he has a popular YouTube channel with over 138,000 subscribers. He has converted to Christianity and now tries to help young people avoid a life of crime. However, he has said in interviews that, if necessary, he would kill criminals again. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Maccala. Today's review comes from user Sin 73, who left it on Apple Podcasts. They say, fun and informative. This podcast is full of fun and informative facts. It's a delight to listen to and makes me appreciate the world around me even more. I highly recommend it. You won't be disappointed. Thank you, Sin 73, and thanks to all of you who've left reviews over on Apple Podcast

and for those who support the show over on patreon.com.