Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Beast” Pt. 2 - Luis Garavito

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

Luis Alfredo Garavito raped, tortured, and killed well over 100 children. Find out how he lured away his victims and avoided detection from authorities before eventually being apprehended and tried.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for, like Jack the Ripper, the Golden State Killer, the Unit Bomber. It's tedious work to find what you're looking for. So, if you're hiring, I've got news for you.

You can skip the lengthy investigation and the tiresome process of sorting through hundreds of resumes, days. Just use ZipRecruiter. Try for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash killers because not only does ZipRecruiter have the technology to match you with potential candidates quickly, it also just added a new feature that pushes candidates who are qualified and interested in your role to the top of the list. They can even tell you why they're interested, making it easier for you to get a sense of who they are. Cut through the standard and get to the standouts. With ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.

And now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. That's ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything, website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best partner, Shopify, and get that. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash killers.

That's Shopify.com slash killers. Own it all. Pay off your home. Travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package.

The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro.

Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. On the morning of April 22, 1999, 12-year-old Ivan Sabagal left his home in Via Vicencio, Colombia. He headed over to Los Santoro's Park. Ivan's family couldn't afford his school expenses, so Ivan sold lottery tickets at the park

in order to pay for his books and supplies. Ivan's mother waited for him to come home at the usual time that evening. Yet the young boy never returned. His mother quickly called the police, but it was too late. Ivan had already been lured into the Colombian jungle by Luis Alfredo Garavito, the world's most prolific child killer. By April 22nd, 1999, Garavito had already raped, tortured, and murdered at least 138 young boys. Yvonne was now in danger of becoming Garvito's next victim.

Hi, I'm Greg Polson, and this is serial killers. Today, we're continuing our deep dive into the life of Luis Alfredo Garvito, the Colombian serial killer who raped and murdered as many as 300 years. young boys. His crimes earned him the nickname, The Beast. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. We'd like to ask a quick favor. Would you leave a five-star review of serial killers on your favorite podcast directory? It seems so simple, but it really helps us out. And don't forget to subscribe while you're there, because a new episode comes out every Monday. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast, and on Twitter, at Parcast Network, or in our website, pardust.com.

Luis Alfredo Garavito began raping and murdering young boys in 1992. By 1999, he had claimed the lives of at least 138 children in towns across Colombia and Northern Ecuador. However, investigators believe Garavito may have killed hundreds more and still search for suspected victims. With every boy's murder, Garavito played out the same disturbed fantasy. He tortured and raped the child before using a knife to carve out their internal organs and cut off their head. Garavito was caught and imprisoned in 1999, but

in Colombia criminals can't be sentenced to life without parole. And soon, this child killer may walk free. Last week we delved into the tormented childhood of Luis Garavito and tracked him across Colombia as he raped, tortured, and murdered children. Garavito was born on January 25, 1957, in the small town of Hanova. He told investigators that he was verbally, physically, and sexually abused by his father from a young age. By the early 1980s, Garavito was raping and torturing young boys in the town of Kimbaia,

near where he lived. Prosecutors say Garavito would offer his victim's money or a drink, then persuade them to go for a walk. As to motives, they say Garavito was apparently abused himself as a child. Most abusive victims go on to live healthy and productive lives, but Garavito dealt with the abuse by becoming an abuser. Jonathan Pinkus, a neurologist and the author of Bass Instincts, suggested in an interview with the Discovery Channel that Garavito was targeting victims who reminded him of himself.

Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Pinkis explained that Garavito, quote, was probably raped from age six to age 16 or something, and he has chosen victims who are friendless and homeless as he was. He has put himself in the place of the abusive parent or whoever it was who abused him. And as I said, psychiatrists call that identification with the aggressor, And I say it's like wanting to be like your old man.

He gets a great sense of pleasure out of being the one who is now doing the torturing, as opposed to the one who is being tortured, end quote. But by 1992, it was no longer enough for Garavito to torture and rape young boys. He wanted to kill. On October 2nd, 1992, he murdered a teenage boy named Juan Carlos. But this one murder wasn't enough to fulfill Garavito's twisted fantasy. Dr. Christy Caccones, a forensic psychologist, interviewed about Garavito, explained why. Quote, serial killers enjoy seeing the pain and suffering of another person.

But the pain is really just a tool to elicit that suffering that makes them feel godlike, that gives them an ego boost. But it's a temporary fix. It's something that they need to repeat and do again and again, end quote. And so Garavito did. For over seven years, he traveled from town to town in Colombia. Often posing as a priest, he targeted each town's poorest and most vulnerable boys. He lured children into sugar cane fields and coffee plantations, then raped, tortured, and dismembered them.

He killed so many children that in each town he visited, he left mass graves of his young victims hidden beneath the dense fields of sugarcane. In 1996, Colombian police came to... tantalizingly close to catching him. On June 8th, witnesses spotted Garavito buying several boys' candy at a shop in Boyaka. When one of those boys disappeared, police brought Garavito in for questioning. He denied knowing anything, so the Boyaka police let him go. By the time they discovered the boy's mutilated corpse, Garavito had already disappeared.

Police almost caught Garo Vito again in 1996 when investigating the murder of 12-year-old Renald Delgado in Tunha. A storekeeper and several prostitutes told police that they had seen Garavito with Rinald, so Tunha police brought Garo Vito in for questioning. Unfortunately, Garo Vito once again convinced police to let him go. He even accused them of discriminating against him because he was disabled with a bad leg. It's not surprising that Garo Vito would be able to manipulate police officers,

given that he was later diagnosed with antisocial. personality disorder. As we've seen with other serial killers, people who suffer from APD lack empathy and are incredibly skilled at manipulation. Garavito was able to manipulate the police into letting him go by taking advantage of their pity for his limp. In 1997, Garavito killed several young boys in Bogota. Later that year, he killed more children in Pereira. In October of 1997, Pereira police arrested Pedro Pablo Ramirez Garcia, the man they believed to be their killer. Garcia fit the police profile. He was the right height and age range. He had a long history of sexually abusing children that dated back to the 80s, and a child had recently accused him of

rape. He even sold honey out of the same kind of bottles found at the crime scenes. But Garcia insisted he wasn't their killer, and Garavito himself was the one who unintentionally proved Garcia was innocent. While Garcia was in custody in the fall of 1997, Garavito traveled back to Bogota in his guise as a Franciscan priest. There, he murdered four more boys. It was clear that Garcia wasn't the killer, and Pereira Police had to let him go. The next year in January 1998, the Pereira Police formed a task force to figure out who was raping and murdering the town's young boys. But the Pereira police weren't the only ones looking for Garavito. By the end of 1998, Garavito had murdered children in 70 different locations across Colombia and Ecuador.

Police all over Colombia were searching for him. One of these detectives was Aldemar Duran. Duran was so quietly dedicated in his search for the serial killer that his colleagues nicknamed him The Shadow. Duran started on the case when he began investigating the murders of three boys in Hanova between 1997 and 1998. As part of his investigation, Duran consulted his own forces archive of children who went missing between 1991 and 1998. He looked for similarities the archived crimes shared with the more recent murders. These included the positions of the bodies, rope fibers used to bind the victims, and empty

liquor bottles strewn at the crime scene. Based on those commonalities, Duran realized. he was looking for a killer or killers who targeted children in the streets. So he outfitted his fellow police officers with microphones and sent them to live undercover among the Colombian homeless population. Duran's officers kept their eyes and ears open as they searched for a killer targeting the children in their midst. Duran's theory was confirmed,

but surprisingly, this break in the case happened over 100 miles away from Hanova. In November 1998, police officers in Nasideros found the skeletons of 14 boys. Desperate to figure out who had murdered so many children, police had forensic scientists examined the bodies. They determined that all of the children had been attacked with a knife. Police also learned that the boys were Caucasian between the ages of 8 and 14. They looked for the boys' dental records but found no matches. This meant the boys were likely so poor they couldn't afford to go to the dentist. So police had confirmed they were looking for a killer or killers who targeted impoverished children.

But Garavito was not easy for Nasaderos police to pin down. He wasn't even in Nasaderos. Garavido continued roaming across Colombia in the winter of 1998, killing children at each new town he stopped in. If police and Nasaderos wanted to catch Garo Vito, They needed to learn the identities of those 14 young victims. With dental records ruled out and heavily decomposed corpses, law enforcement only had two options at their disposal to identify the victims.

One possibility was to attempt to extract DNA from the victim's bones. The second option was to reconstruct the children's faces out of clay. Dr. Bradley Adams, a New York City director of forensic anthropology, explained in an interview with the New York Times, quote, facial reconstructions are intended to provide an investigatory lead in cases that have gone cold. The hope is that someone who knew the person will see the reconstruction, recognize some similarities, and notify the authorities of a potential match,

end quote. Facial reconstruction involves a careful blend of both art and science. Caroline Wilkinson, a director of the School of Art and Design in Liverpool, told the New York Times, quote, Practitioners without artistic skills produce less believable and realistic faces, and practitioners without scientific rigor produce faces that are inaccurate and unreliable, end quote.

Police knew they needed a top forensic reconstructionist to create the faces of the murdered Nasadero's children found in November of 1998. So they hired Mario Leon Artundwaga, one of South America's most preeminent facial rector. reconstructionists. But it wasn't going to be easy for Artundwaga and the team working under him to reconstruct these children's faces. As Artundwaga explained in an interview with discovery, quote, the bones of children are still going through the growth process. The cranium is larger and

more delicate. Their physiognomy is smaller and their eyes are larger. Proportionately, the measurements are very different, end quote. Artunduaga was used to being able to work with internationally recognized parameters and standards to reconstruct adult faces, but to reconstruct the faces of Garavito's child victims, he needed to come up with brand new measurements. Artundwaga measured the facial features of a young boy who was around the same age as most of the 14 Nasaderos victims, and this allowed him to calculate with some new parameters. Artundwaga's team also studied new Russian reconstruction techniques, which involved analyzing a young murder victim's bones in order to figure out the child's gender, age, and ethnicity. Russians could figure out these key details by examining every little feature in the skeleton's face, the ridge of a victim's brow, the shape of the chin, even the size of the nasal chamber.

Artundwaga also looked for injuries and distinctive features such as a broken nose or missing teeth to help identify the victim. As Artundwaga worked on his reconstructions in the winter of 1998, police argued over who was responsible for the murders. Some believed a cult was responsible for the killers. Others blamed drug traffickers. But forensic scientists continued to analyze Garavito's victims, and they soon came to a shocking conclusion. Dozens, possibly even hundreds of young boys, had all been murdered by just one man. In late 1998, police were finally on Garavito's trail, But with Garavito constantly on the move, they needed to work quickly to stop him from claiming the lives of more Colombian children.

We'll return to our story in just a moment. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right.

Kayak, got that right. And now back to serial killers. By the winter of 1998, Luis Alfredo Garavito had murdered over 100 children in 70 towns across Colombia. That year, prosecutor Fernando Ayah from Via Vicencio began visiting the mass graves where Garvito dumped his victims. The coffee fields and sugar plantations where Garavito killed the young boys were generally patrolled by watchmen on horseback. There were usually a lot of workers near the crime scenes as well. Iya wondered why no one on the plantations had heard the boys screaming as the

killer attacked them. Iya found a tall tower near one of the mass graves and set up a 24-hour surveillance on the roof of the building. After looking down at the crime scene from a bird's eye view, Ayah and his team quickly realized that the plantation's vegetation was so thick that patrolling watchmen wouldn't have been able to spot the killer. Despite this insight into Garo Vito's methods, Ayah was no closer to catching him. As 1999 dawned, Garavito continued to roam the Colombian countryside, disguised as a priest. Garavito had already killed over 100 children by January 1999,

but he still felt an unrelenting need to kill young boys. Dr. Cuconis, the forensic psychologist we referenced earlier, gave a possible explanation for why Garavido killed so many boys. She said, quote, the problem is fantasy is always perfect. You can fantasize it, and you will have it go down exactly the way you want, but in reality it never works that way. So what happens is they commit the crime,

the crime didn't quite meet the fantasy. The fantasy was better. They'll think about it, elaborate on it a little bit more, think about what went wrong, and then try it again, end quote. So with each of his murders, Garavito was perhaps trying to perfect the same fantasy. And as Garavito continued to kill, police continued to discover his mass graves. On February 6, 1999, investigators found more of Garavito's child victim. in a grave in Palmyra.

Palmyra was less than 40 miles from Nasaderos, where police had found Garavito's mass grave of 14 victims three months before in November, 1998. Police were now convinced that the same man had murdered all of these children. Detective Carlos Herrera was put in charge of investigating the murders in Palmyra. Garavito was normally careful

not to leave evidence behind at crime scenes, but he had been, been sloppy in Palmyra and left behind 13 pieces of evidence. We've seen other serial killers get careless after getting away with several murders. This isn't because they secretly want to get caught. It's because they start to believe they're infallible. By 1999, Garavito had gotten away with murdering over a hundred children over the course of seven years. At this point, he was one of the world's most prolific murderers.

It's not surprising that he became over-reesome. confident. In Palmyra, Garavito left behind Pesos from all over Colombia, a pair of burnt eyeglasses, underwear, and even a pair of shoes. Investigators found these on February 6th, 1999. When Detective Herrera analyzed the abandoned shoes, he noticed two things. One, the killer was between 5'4 and 5' foot 6. Two, the right shoe's heel was worn down, but the front of the shoe showed no signs of wear and tear. Herrera used this to analyze Garavito's stride. He suspected the killer most likely stepped forward on his heel

and then rotated his foot outward. From this, Herrera also realized that Garavito had a bad leg and walked with a limp. Garavito's limp may be the result of a fall he sustained earlier in life, but it could also be directly connected to his disturbed personality. According to neurologist Dr. Pinkus, the same area of the brain that controls movement also dictates your personality. In an interview with the Discovery Channel, he explained, quote, The part that's just over the eyes and in the midline, which is called the supraorbital part of the frontal lobe,

has a great deal to do with personality, what sort of person you are. There are different kinds of people and those are determined by the brain. The frontal lobe does a lot of things. and the most posterior part of the frontal lobe is devoted to voluntary movement. If it were damaged or removed, there would be weakness on the opposite side of the body. End quote. In other words, the same part of Garavito's brain that made him limp could also be responsible for his criminal behavior.

And Herrera learned even more about Garavito after forensics analyzed the eyeglasses that were left behind. Herrera's team was to discern that the killer had an unusual eye condition, that only impacted middle-aged men. We don't know for certain what eye-conditioned Garavito suffered from, but it's apparently most often found among men either between the ages of 40 and 45 or 55 and 60 years. The glasses gave Herrera a critical clue to one of Garavito's facial features. The arms of Garavito's abandoned glasses were bent in a way

that suggested one of his ears was higher on his head than the other. The glasses were also partial. burned. After examining the glasses and the rest of the crime scene, Herrera determined that the killer likely suffered serious burns on his arms and left leg. A picture of the murderer was emerging. He was a middle-aged pedophilic serial killer between 5'4 and 5'4-foot-6. He wore glasses and walked with the limp, and he likely had burns on his arms and his left leg. From the bottles found at the Palmyra crime scene on February 6th, investigators determined Garavito's preferred brand of liquor.

The question was, how could they use this information to catch him? They needed to work quickly. Every day they spent searching for Garavito was another day he was free to kill. Investigators took all the data they had gathered and ran it through their database of known pedophiles over the previous 10 years. That initial search yielded over very first 10 years. That initial search yielded over 5,000 results. But since all of Garavito's victims were male,

the police eliminated the pedophiles who targeted girls. That brought down their list of suspects to 1,500. Because they knew about Garavito's rare eye condition, investigators were able to filter all suspects under the age of 42. This reduced the pool of suspects to 95 men. This was still too large of a group to investigate. So police eliminated all suspects who were outside the estimated height range, either shorter than 5 foot 4 or taller than 5 foot 6. They also narrowed down the list to suspects active in the areas where Garavito's victims were found.

After applying these conditions, their list now consisted of only 25 suspects. Early in 1999, Detective Duran flew to Columbia's capital of Bogota. to look at old case files from across the nation. Duran was hoping to find additional cases that might be connected to Garavito. While he was in Bogota, he learned about the 1996 murder of Ranald Delgado and Tunha. A suspect had been detained in the case, but released due to insufficient evidence. But Duran gleaned something very important from that case file, the suspect's name. Usually Garavito disguised himself as a priest or a laborer,

and gave false names. But when he was arrested in Tunha, he told police his real name, Luis Garavito. When Duran checked his list of 25 suspects, Garavito's name was on there. Garavito had also confessed to Tunha police back in 1996 that his hometown was Henova and that he currently lived in Trujillo.

This was crucial information as well. The first three-child murders Duran had been investigating took place in Heneva. and Trujillo was also a town where children's bodies had been found. Duran's work was finally paying off. He now had the name of the man he strongly suspected of killing hundreds of young boys. But Garvito was impossible to locate. He was still traveling from town to town in early 1999.

Since he couldn't track down Garavito, Duran did the next best thing. He went to Trujillo to interview Garavito's sister, Esther. Esther told Duran that she didn't know where her brother was, since he was always traveling around the country. But she admitted she was holding some of his belongings. Esther gave Duran a large black cloth bag that Garavito had left with her for safekeeping. The contents of that bag contained shocking proof that Duran had found his killer. Duran found a notebook, photographs of children, and bus tickets from the various towns where Garavito had committed his murders. They were trophies from his murders.

We've discussed in past episodes how serial killers often keep trophies as a way of reliving their gruesome sexual fantasies. Garavito was no exception. These trophies were confirmation, but they weren't solid proof. Luckily, Duran found a receipt from a wire transfer to one of Garavito's old girlfriends and Pereira, named Umbar Toro. As you may recall from last week's episode, Garavito often dated older women with children. This may have been an attempt on his part to appear normal to others in his community. When Duran interviewed Garavito's old girlfriend in Pereira in early 1999, he struck gold. Just like Esther, this woman also had a black cloth bag that belonged to Garavito.

When Duran looked through the bag, he found more bus tickets from towns all over Colombia. He also found newspaper clippings about the murders as well as synthetic fibers, lubricants, and razors that matched items recovered at the crime scene. By early 1999, Duran was sure that Luis Garavito was the serial killer, terrorizing towns throughout Colombia. But police still needed to find him. Garvito either had no idea that police were closing in, or he didn't care, since he continued his search for new young victims. In April 1999, he traveled to Via Vicencio, a city in central Colombia. On April 22, 1999, Garavido went to Los Centaro's Park. He soon found his next target.

Twelve-year-old Yvon Sabagal was in the park selling lottery tickets. That evening, Garavito persuaded the young boy to follow him to an isolated location. Our story will continue in a moment after the break. And now, back to our story. By April 1999, Louis Garavido had raped and murdered as many as 300 young boys in towns across Colombia. On April 22nd, he was in the central Colombian town of Via Vicencio in search of a new victim. He met 12-year-old Ivan Sabogal at Los Centaros Park. On the evening of the 22nd, he lured the child to an isolated location in Via Vecis.

Ivan's parents grew worried after he didn't come home. They went to the Via Vicencio police station that evening to report it missing. Via Vicencio police took the parents' concerns seriously. The previous year, in 1998, they had found one of Garavido's mass graves on the outskirts of town. Police feared that the serial killer might have taken Ivan. They were right. Even as the parents were making the police report on April 22nd, 1999, Garavito was luring Ivan to an isolated spot in Via Vicentio.

As soon as they were alone, Garavito attacked the child and attempted to rape him. Ivan struggled for his life. Suddenly, a homeless man stumbled by and saw Garavito trying to rape the young boy. The homeless man helped Ivan escape, and the pair ran for their lives, with Garo Vito close behind. Ivan and the homeless man managed to run all the way to a local auto shop. Yvonne told an employee at the shop that he had just escaped from a man who tried to rape him. At 11.15 p.m., the employee called the police. Investigators quickly went to the shop, bringing Yvonne's mother with them.

As mother and son reunited, Yvonne told police that Garavito had followed him all the way to the store. But when police searched for Garavito, he was already gone. So police offered Yvonne and his mother a ride. As they were driving back to the Via Vicencio police station, they passed a man limping down the highway. Ivan quickly told the police that this was his attacker. Police pulled over and arrested Garavito. Garavito clearly hoped that he could out with the police, just as he had done so many times before. He acted calm like he had no worries in the world.

And when they asked him his name, he said he was Bonafacio Morero Liscato. When Via Vicencio prosecutor Ayah heard that a man had been arrested for attempting to rape a young boy, he quickly decided to visit the prison and investigate further. Ayah had been searching for Garavido since 1998, and he suspected Bonafacio Morero Liscato might be a fake name. At 42, Garavito matched the age range of the known killer. He was in the correct height range, wore glasses, had burns on his arm, and he walked with a link. And sure enough, when Garavito was asked to sign documents under his assumed name Marrero, he wasn't able to maintain a consistent signature across the various documents. This was a clear indication that Garavito was using a fake name.

Ayah was sure that this man was actually Garavito. And with Garavito safely behind bars, police from across Colombia met in July of 1999 to compare notes and evidence on Garavido. Prosecutor Ayah shared a photograph of Marrero with Detective Duran, and Duran was able to confirm that Iya had captured Garavito. However, they let Garavito think that he had tricked them so that he would keep his guard down. On October 28, 1999, Garavito appeared in court before a judge.

He thought he was facing charges for the attempted rape of Ivan Savagal, under the name Bonifacio Morero. But when the judge ordered him to stand, he called him by his real name, Luis Alfredo Garavito de Cubillos. Garvito was stunned to realize that the police had figured out his real name, and then he got the shock of a lifetime. The judge told Garavito that he wasn't being charged with the attempted rape of a single boy. He was being charged with the rape and murder of 118 children. But even after Garavito was charged with the children's murders, police needed more proof in order to make sure that he was found guilty. In the fall of 1999, investigators persuaded Garavito's friend Umbar Toro to help them.

She had held on to one of Garavito's black bags for him without realizing that this was a bag filled with trophies from Garavito's murders. Now eager to help prosecutors convict this child killer, Toro visited Garavito's. Garo Vito in prison while wearing a wire and asked him if he had any other black bags like the one he had given her. During their conversation, Garavito admitted to Umbar that there was a third bag. He had given that bag to the wife of another prisoner. Investigators were able to locate this third bag. In that bag, they found pictures of murdered children, along with a slip of paper with tally marks. This was how Garavito kept track of his victim count. It was strong evidence, but it still wasn't enough. Investigators decided to look for more

concrete evidence tying Garavito to the murders. They knew that Garavito wore glasses, but they didn't know for sure if he had the same rare eye condition that fit the killer profile. They needed to prove that Garavito's prescription matched the prescription of the burned glasses they had found at the crime scene. If Garavito knew they were checking to see if he had this condition, he was likely to lie on his exam. Police needed to keep him from suspecting anything, so they ordered everyone at the prison to have an eye exam. The results definitively proved that Garavito had the same glasses prescription as the killer. While Garavito was taking his exam, investigators scoured his cell for strands of hair so they could run DNA tests. The tests matched

the hairs found on the children's corpses, as well as on the alcohol bottles, left behind to the crime scene. But investigators still weren't satisfied that they had enough evidence to secure a conviction. So they ran all of their circumstantial evidence through an innovative Dutch computer program known as Link. Link can analyze millions of pieces of data and draw connections between events, coincidences, and probabilities. Effectively, it shows possible connections to crimes that otherwise might seem unrelated.

can process 5 million pieces of data per second. Investigators input all the evidence they had on Garavito into Link to see if it could find connections between all the disparate pieces of information, such as the bus tickets, the hotel receipts, and the locations of crime scenes. The results that the software program provided were stunning. According to Link, Garavito was at every location where the children's murders had taken place. But investigators still weren't satisfied. In order to make absolutely sure that Garavito was convicted for the murders, they wanted him to confess. Knowing they had an ironclad case against him, prosecutors were confident that they could destabilize Garavito and catch him in a lie.

They were wrong. Even after eight hours of interrogation, Garavito maintained his innocence. He tried to manipulate the interrogator, Lily Narongho by crime. crying, and he insisted that he was being persecuted. Investigators concluded that only someone deeply familiar with the case and with Garavito's mindset could convince him to confess. So in the fall of 1999, they brought in Detective Duran. As you may recall, he had been so dedicated to the case that other detectives nicknamed him The Shadow.

Investigators hoped Duran could use his intimate knowledge of Garavito's crimes to get Garavito to confess. Duran decided to force Garavito to stop compartmentalizing his murders and admit to his crimes. We've seen in the past that many serial killers survive by compartmentalizing their lives. They keep their murders separate from their normal everyday lives in order to stay mentally healthy and avoid suspicion. Duran hoped that he could force Garavito to break down his mental barriers and destabilize him. Duran recited in great detail all the things Garavito had done to his victims.

Duran described how Garavito won over each boy's confidence and elaborated on the torture that Garo Vito inflicted upon his young victims. Duran later told an interviewer, quote, I knew of situations he had been in at each of these towns, how he had arrived, whom he had been with, how he was dressed, end quote. For 18 long hours, Duran forced Garavito. to relive his crimes. Garavito could no longer compartmentalize his life as a serial killer, and this caused him to have a nervous breakdown. In the 18th hour, Garavito began to sob.

He begged Duran to stop. As soon as he calmed down, Garavito then confessed everything. Garavito tried to pretend that he had been possessed by a demon, but investigators didn't believe him, and psychiatrists soon diagnosed him with antisocial. personality disorder. It was obvious to everyone that Garavito was just trying to manipulate them. In order to appear helpful, Garavito confessed to additional murders and drew maps so police could find the children's bodies. By May 2000, 11 different courts handed Luis Alfredo Garavito Kubillos,

a cumulative sentence of 835 years. But due to loopholes in Colombian law, his maximum sentence was 30 years. Garavito was placed in maximum security via DuParr Prison, named one of Columbia's worst prisons in 2014. It was built to hold 256 inmates, yet now holds 954. The facility reeks of urine and feces, because the water is allowed to run only eight minutes each day. The prisoners have to relieve themselves in plastic bags and are forced to discard these bags in communal bases. The inmates sleep on mattresses on the patios and passageways because they haven't been assigned cells. The patios are so dangerous, even the guards don't enter them. Garavita was terrified of being attacked or killed by other inmates at the prison. It was a reasonable fear.

In jail, pedophiles are considered the lowest of the low and are frequently targeted by other inmates. Given his notoriety, there was a good chance someone might want to kill him. Garavito is now kept in an isolated cell. He fears that someone may try to poison him, and he only accepts food and drinks from select people. Garvito has been a model prisoner, but this isn't because he's become a better person. Good behavior earns him time off his sentence. By posing as a model prisoner, Garvito earns a four-month reduction for every year he's incarcerated. Once he's pled guilty, the Superior Court of Bogota has actually reduced Garavito's sentence

to 20 years. He may be released as soon as next year. In a July 2002 interview with criminologist Mark Benicki, Garvito claimed that he was rehabilitated and that he would not kill again because he, quote, got everything sorted out in his mind, end quote. But there is no cure for killers like Garavito. Christy Cacconis notes, quote, this is most definitely, unequivocally, not someone that can be rehabilitated,

that when you see pedophilia and sadism, particularly together, and there is evidence that the person was a psychopath, there is no known treatment for psychopaths. And we know that these offenders continue to fantasize about this while incarcerated. They may create their own pornography while incarcerated. When we've gone and talked to them, they will tell you that the fantasies never stopped, end quote. All we can hope is that Garavira's notoriety will keep him where he belongs,

behind bars, for the rest of his life. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. If you want to listen to any previous episodes of serial killers, you can find them on Apple Podcasts, Tune-in, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify, or in our website, parcast.com, spelled P-A-R-C-C-A-N. If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review or tell us what you think on social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram as at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. It seems simple, but it really helps our show.

Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Carrie Murphy, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Paul Mahler. Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admeyer. Serial Killers is written by Sophie Quintero and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News

crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to you. Listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed.

and there was a full of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.