DANIEL CAMARGO BARBOSA

Daniel Camargo Barbosa

was a psychopathic serial killer from Colombia, South America. It is believed that he raped and killed over 150 young girls in Colombia and Ecuador.

Camargo's mother died when he was a little boy. He was raised by an abusive stepmother, who punished him and some times dressed him like a woman.

Even though, it is believed that he raped and killed more than 80 girls in Colombia. Camargo was in a Colombian Prison, where he was convicted to 20 years in prison for raping and killing a nine-year-old girl.

It was said that during this imprisonment in Colombia all the other prisoners were somewhat afraid of him because Camargo claimed to have pacts with the Devil. In 1984, he escaped from La Isla De La Gorgona Prison in a rudimentary boat. When Camargo disappeared, the Director of Gorgona Prison said that "he had been eaten by sharks while swimming". Camargo had fled to Ecuador, where he embarked on a spree of rape and murder.

In June 1988, Camargo was arrested in Quito, Ecuador for the murder of Gloria Andino, a twelve-year-old girl. He was linked to the crime by a fingerprint left on a candy-wrapper at the scene, this being the means by which he lured victims.

Daniel Camargo very calmly confessed to killing 71 girls in Ecuador since escaping from the Colombian prison. He led authorities to the dumping grounds of those victims, whose bodies had not yet been recovered. The bodies had been dismembered. As he told the Ecuadorean authorities of the locations of the bodies and how the sadistic crimes were committed, he showed no feelings of remorse. After raping his victims, he had hacked, slashed and crushed the girls with a machete. He gave cynical explanation for choosing children. He wanted virgins "because they cried"; this apparently gave him greater satisfaction.

According to Camargo, he killed because he wanted revenge on woman's unfaithfulness. He hated them for not being what women are supposed to be. His victims were all virgins.

A journalist who interviewed Daniel Camargo described him as "brilliant". "He had an answer for everything and was able to speak of God and the Devil equally". Well read, he cited Hesse, Vargas Llosa, Garcia Marquez, Guimaraes Rosa, Nietzsche, Stendhal and Freud. When he was captured, a copy of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment was found in his briefcase along with his last victim's underwear.

Camargo was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to 16 years in prison, the maximum sentence available in Ecuador. While serving his sentence in the Penal Garcia Moreno de Quito, he claimed to have converted to Christianity. In this penitentiary Daniel Camargo Barbosa was imprisoned with Pedro Alonso Lopez (AKA "the monster of the andes"), who is believed to have raped and killed more than 300 girls in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

It was reported that in November 1994 he was murdered in prison by Luis Masache Narvaez, the cousin of one of his victims.