Disturbing True Crime 01

Fred and Rosemary West

(Serial Killer Couple)

Chapter 1 - The Early Years

The date of August 6, 1992 would change a lot of things for Gloucester city in the United Kingdom. Upon investigating allegations that Frank West had done unspeakable things to his 13 year old daughter Louise West, multiple times and all with the complicity of his wife Rosemary-with Rosemary allegedly witnessing one of the attacks-the case would unfold and all manner of terrifying truths about the couple would come to light. Today we’re going to look into the very disturbing case of Fred and Rosemary West, one of the most terrifying killer couples ever.

Born on September 29, 1941 in Much Marcle, Herefordshire England Fredrick Walter Steven West was the first surviving child of Walter Steven West and Daisy Hannah Hill. They were a poor family of farm workers and didn’t have a whole lot in the way of wealth. What they lacked in wealth they made up for with a certain kind of closeness that is common for people with such backgrounds. Walter Steven was considered a disciplinarian while Daisy was the overprotective one of the pair.

Fred would be the eldest of six surviving children in the West household and growing up in a “if you don’t work you don’t eat” kind of environment he developed a very strong work ethic. His three sisters would pick hops and strawberries while the boys harvested wheat and hunted small game such as rabbits to provide for the family. The young Fred was viewed as a “momma’s boy” that had no real close relationships with children other than his siblings, which-and this might be a bit of conjecture on my part-made him put a lot of value on filial bonds. 

The other thing Fred developed was a lifelong habit of petty theft. The overall view of him as a “momma’s boy” wasn’t the only thing that most of his peers seemed to think low of him for. He was often referred to as “dim, scruffy, lethargic and generally terrible” by people at school. He was never terribly literate but seemed to display some skill as a menial laborer and had some talent for woodworking.

Retrospectively Fred, much later in life, would claim that at age 12 he had been abused s******y by his mother when he was 12 and had developed a view that incest was “normal” after witnessing his father engaged in taboo acts with his sisters. These allegations however are challenged by his own younger brother, Doug West, who dismissed these claims as pure fantasy on Fred’s part. I think, though, that based on the typical catalysts that go into shaping men like Fred West that there would be some amount of truth to his claims, even if he may have exaggerated some aspects of it to perhaps be an excuse in an attempt to exculpate himself for his wrongdoings.

All through adolescence Fred built a reputation as a known creep. He often pestered, harassed and accosted women and girls. He objectified them and clearly only saw them as toys for his amusement. The women that did accept his advances, more often than not, regretted it as they learned his own gratification was all he cared about. Things came to a bit of a breaking point in the summer of 1961 when Fred’s teen sister Kitty confided to their mother that Fred had been assaulting her regularly since December of 1960. This resulted very quickly in Fred’s arrest by the local police. The truly startling part of all this came when the young man readily confessed to molesting young girls his entire adolescence and even asked officers “Doesn’t everyone do it?”.

Chapter 2 - “Rena” Costello

All this begins to paint a very disturbing picture, and lay the groundwork for all the atrocities to come later on when Fred started down an even darker path of bloodshed and next level violence that would shock the world when it came to light. To begin with by 1962 Fred had reconciled with his father and mother but not the rest of his family, least of all his siblings. It was also in 1962 he reconnected with a woman whom he had dated for sometime in 1960 before her family relocated to Scotland. Her name was Catherine “Rena” Costello. Rena had returned to England from Glasgow due to being pregnant by a Pakistani bus driver and her family not being exactly thrilled about a multi-racial child.

In Ledbury on November 17th the couple was married. Later on she caught Fred having multiple affairs on her and so she began a little extra fun for herself. On multiple occasions Rena’s boyfriend beat Fred extensively for putting hands on Rena. The man, one John Maclaughlin, has been vocal in the fact that Fred West was quick to put his hands on women and children but was always hesitant about fighting another man. In 1965 Fred West struck a small boy in Glasgow with his Caravan and killed the child. West was cleared of any wrongdoing but he feared reprisals from the locals for the accident and so he packed up his daughter and step daughter and moved with them back to Gloucester and was followed in early 1966 by Rena. 

By this point Fred had really begun to spiral. When they relocated to Gloucester they also brought with them the family nanny Isa McNeil and family friend Anne McFall. By the time they had resettled in Gloucester in 1966 Fred had was exerting a new level of dominance and control over the three women, he was even beating the daughter that he had with Rena, Anna Marie, and was rumored to have begun s******y abusing Charmaine (Rena’s mixed race daughter). He encouraged Rena to become a prostitute in order to help supplement the meager earnings the household had coming in.

Unable to bear the abuse any longer, and fearing for her and the children’s safety, Rena eventually reached out to MacLaughlin begging him to rescue her, the children and McNeil from Fred. So MacLaughlin and McNeil’s boyfriend John Trotter drove to Gloucester to rescue the trapped women. However McFall had become infatuated with Fred and the two were wanting to get married and McFall told Fred of the plan so that when Trotter and MacLaughlin arrived Fred was there. McFall calmly told the others she planned to stay and act as the nanny to the children. After a physical confrontation between MacLaughlin and Fred as Fred tried to keep Charmaine and Anna Marie from going with the departing group, Fred swore he would kill Rena if he ever saw her again. Police had been called and broke up the altercation and Trotter, MacLaughlin, McNeil and Rena all left.

After some dramatics in which Rena was arrested for stealing items from Fred’s home in 1967 Anne McFall, only 18 years old and 8 months pregnant with Fred’s child, simply disappeared. Her dismembered remains would be found in 1994. Initially Fred denied murdering her but had confided to one guest after his trial that he had stabbed her to death during a heated argument. Rena tried returning to Fred following McFall’s disappearance but only remained about a year before leaving again. Having no one to care for the children Fred temporarily put them in the care of the local Social Services.

Chapter 3 - Rosemary Letts

It was in 1969 that Fred met the then 15 year old Rosemary Letts. Initially Rosemary was repulsed by the 27 year old. She found him disheveled, and unkempt and thought he was a tramp. But over time she became flattered by the attention he paid her and eventually became infatuated with the older man that seemed to go out of his way to spend time with her. On two occasions Rosemary refused to go on dates with Fred but the girl did allow him to accompany her home. As they got to know each other Fred found out that Rosemary had never had a boyfriend but had promiscuous tendencies which only made him pursue her more.

Within weeks of meeting Fred, Rosemary had quit her job at a local bread shop and taken over the duties of being nanny to Fred’s two children. The pair had already began a physical relationship and rumors began to circulate that Rosemary was engaging in prostitution at Fred’s caravan where she had moved in to act as the full time caretaker of Anna Marie and Charmaine. Rosemary’s parents tried going to Social Services and explaining that their 15 year old daughter was dating and living with an older man and even acting as a prostitute. This resulted in Rosemary being rehoused in a group home for troubled girls in 1969 less than a year into her relationship with Fred. 

At the group home Rosemary was only allowed to leave the premises in very tightly controlled conditions, however on weekends whenever she was allowed to go home to visit her family she would almost inevitably end up going to visit her boyfriend Fred West. On Rosemary’s 16th birthday she left the group home to once more live with her parents, however she had other plans. Her father in one last ditch effort to keep her away from Fred had Rosemary examined by a police surgeon who confirmed that she was indeed pregnant by Fred. However again she was discharged on March 7 under the premise that she would terminate the pregnancy and continue to live with her parents. Instead she opted to move in with Fred, fresh from jail on a 30 day sentence for theft and unpaid fines, which resulted in Rosemary’s father telling Rosemary she was never to set foot in his house again.

In October of 1971 Rosemary gave birth to her first daughter. Due to speculation that her own father had engaged in inappropriate relations with her it is theorized that Bill Letts is actually the father of Heather Anne. Two months later Fred was back in prison for 6 ½ months leaving Rosemary to take care of all three children on her own. During the initial days of her relationship with Fred Rosemary had noticed that Charmaine and Anna Marie were neglected and not well cared for in the slightest and had been a happy and willing caretaker for them, however, around this time she became a lot colder to the girls and even became abusive towards them.

Chapter 4 - The Murder of Charmaine West

Later on Anna Marie would recount how they were often subjected to harsh criticism and beatings during this period with Rosemary as their primary caregiver. Anna Marie being more submissive in nature would often break down during these abusive sessions whereas Charmaine was more stoic and refused to give Rosemary the satisfaction of breaking down and crying, which only made Rosemary come at her even harder. By this point I think it’s safe to say that Fred had gotten into Rosemary’s head and somehow started warping her and making her as depraved and vicious as he was.

A friend of Charmaine’s would tell a story about how one time she had arrived at the West residence only to find Charmaine standing completely nude with her hands bound behind her back and a gag in her mouth while Rosemary stood nearby holding a wooden spoon. The friend says that Charmaine looked completely unbothered by the situation while Anna Marie stood near the door with a completely blank expression. Unfortunately it is time to talk about another tragedy that by now probably won’t come as much of a surprise given what we have established as far as Rosemary’s brutality, especially in regards to Charmaine. But it is believed that Rosemary killed Charmaine shortly before Fred’s release from prison on June 24, 1971. On the 15th of that month Rosemary had taken the girls to visit him in prison and it is believed that on or shortly after this date that Rosemary killed Charmaine. The forensic evidence plus corroborating testimony from a friend of Charmaine’s mother definitively place the girl’s death before her father was released from prison.

She said in her testimony at the trial of Rosemary West that one day in June while Fred had still been incarcerated that she had taken her daughter to the West’s flat to say goodbye to Charmaine and Anna Marie as they were moving. The woman, Shirley Giles, stated that Rosemary said that Charmaine had gone to live with her mother and she was glad the girl was gone. To some people Rosemary made the same excuse saying that Rena had taken her eldest daughter to Bristol to live with her, while she told Charmaine’s primary school that the girl had gone to live with her mother in London. Anna Marie would later write in her autobiography that when she asked her father why her mother would take her sister and not her Fred replied “She wouldn’t want you love, you’re the wrong color.”

Prior to Fred’s release Charmaine’s body had been stored in the coal cellar, but after he was back home he buried her naked body close to the back of the flat they were living in at the time. Fred maintained that he did not dismember her but upon her exhumation it was discovered the body was severed at the hip and several bones were missing entirely from the skeleton, a pattern among all the victims later found which suggests that some of these bones were kept as macabre souvenirs or trophies.

Chapter 5 - The Murder of Rena Costello-West

In 1971 Rena Costello went to see Fred to check on the well-being of her daughters and possibly to demand custody of them. Every time she had separated from Fred she had tried to maintain contact with her daughters and visit them. But lo this would be the final time that Rena was seen alive. She was murdered by strangulation, possibly in the backseat of Fred’s vehicle while intoxicated. Other evidence suggests that she may have been the victim of SA on top of it all. Her dismembered remains were found in plastic bags in a cloister of trees about 1 mile from March Marcle.

Chapter 6 - The OTHER Crimes

This section is going to be particularly hard for some to listen to and probably even harder to write so please bear with me as we peel back yet another horrifying layer on this criminal onion.

— Anna Marie

In 1972 12 year old Anna Marie West was taken to the cellar by Rosemary and told to strip off her clothes. When Anna Marie hesitated, Rose tore her dress off and restrained her while Fred SA’ed her with Rosemary actively encouraging it. Afterwards she told the girl that “Everyone does this to all girls” making it perfectly clear that the assaults would continue in no uncertain terms. Rosemary frequently abused her as well and was always present during the times that Fred was abusing her and encouraging him. Anna Marie was also subjected to humiliation and forced to do household chores scantily clad and often while being made to wear “toys” as it were. From age 13 Anna Marie was forced into prostitution at the West’s home where her “clients” were told the girl was 16. Rose was always present during these encounters to ensure that Anna Marie never disclosed her real age to these “johns”.

— Caroline Owens

In October of 1972, not long after the abuse of Anna Marie had begun, Fred and Rosemary encountered the 17 year old Caroline Owens who was hitchhiking from visiting her boyfriend. They learned that Caroline both hated her step-father and was desperate for a job so they hired her to be the nanny for the children (this is all sounding familiar already).

She moved into the West’s flat where she shared a room with Anna Marie whom she noticed was very withdrawn. After she noticed the steady stream of men that came to visit her, the teen told her she worked as a masseuse to try and satiate Caroline’s curiosity. It didn’t take long though for the nanny to pick up on Fred’s creepy obsession with sex and talking about it. At one point both Rosemary and Fred attempted to seduce Caroline together and the girl quit and left the household.

Not put off by her rejection, the Wests made a plan in order to get what they wanted. Knowing her habit of hitchhiking along A40 one night, the Wests picked her up under the guise of wanting to apologize for their behavior and to make things right. Not long after she got into the car there was an altercation where Caroline was beaten into unconsciousness. She was subjected to a prolonged assault by both Fred and Rosemary and was eventually able to escape their home once more.

Eventually when she revealed to her mother what had happened she immediately informed the police and the Wests were charged with “assault” “indecent assault” “actual bodily harm” and “r***”. Caroline had chosen not to face the tribulations of testifying in court against them and was so despondent over the fact that all s****l abuse charges were dropped and the Wests had pleaded guilty to lesser charges and walked free from the courthouse having only paid a £50 fine that she attempted self deletion.

Chapter 8 - The Murders

I am making a decision here that instead of going into anymore horrendous details about these crimes I am going to summarize it by naming their known victims and give some brief information about them as I can find it. By this point I don’t know if any of us can handle more terrible details about what these monsters did.

    Lynda Gough, 19

    Carol Ann Cooper, 15

    Juanita Mott, 18

    Shirley Robinson, 18

    Alison Chambers, 15

    Heather West, 17

These are not all of the victims, but the ones I was able to find names and ages for. To be honest writing about these horrific crimes has left me so drained that I really can’t handle any more of the atrocious details associated with this disgusting set of monsters so I’m going to start wrapping it up.

Chapter 9 - The Cowardly Scumbag

This will bring us back to where we started in 1992 when Fred West was arrested by police for his abuse of Louise. On January 1, 1995 Fred West wrote a rather sickening note to Rosemary and then asphyxiated himself and the world is undoubtedly a better place for it. For her part in all of these atrocities Rosemary is still rotting in prison right where she belongs.

Conclusion

Now I do have to apologize for the fact that near the end of the script I deviated from my usual unbiased style of research and writing because post 1972 the details of this case get so horrendous that it would be nearly impossible for them not to affect a person and foster some resentment and bias against the perpetrators. The things they did to so many young women, including their own daughters is something that is going to stay with me for quite some time; things that for sheer decency sake, for the sake of my own psyche and for the sake of all you in the audience I am not going to type out.

Pedro López the “Monster of the Andes” 

Huge content/Trigger warning

This episode is going to contain some highly disturbing and potentially triggering stuff. Parts of it will be worse than others.

Introduction

   Serial Killer: Noun. A person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern.

    Monster: Noun. An imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening.

Not all monsters are imaginary however. In Colombia, Ecuador and Peru for twenty years a monster stalked the poor and homeless girls and young women of the region. His name was Pedro López, and he would come to be known as “The Monster of the Andes” because he was the stuff of nightmares for the poor and vulnerable girls and young women of three different countries for decades. For people in the Andean region of South and lower Central America from 1978 until 1998 the boogeyman was all too real.

Chapter 1 - The Makings of a Monster

Pedro Alonso López was born October 8, 1948 in Tolima Colombia. At the time there was a lot of political unrest and the area had the highest crime rate in the world. Pedro’s mother was a sex worker and he was the 7th of 13 children. Being on the bottom of the sociatle pole meant life was quite difficult for the López family, the added stigma of what their mother did for a living only increased their difficulties. Pedro’s father had been a member of the country’s right wing political faction and six months before Pedro’s birth was killed in La Violencia, the ten year period of civil war which raged from 1948 until 1958.

Perhaps owing to his mother’s profession but at a young age Pedro began expressing some very unhealthy attitudes towards sex. At the age of 8 he was caught by his mother being inappropriate with his sister and she threw him out onto the street. However, this decision would ultimately lead to Pedro becoming the monster that tormented hundreds of people. Not long into his time living on the streets of Colombia Pedro was approached by a good samaritan who lured him with promises of food and shelter. That was not the case however, and instead what happened would create the M.O. that Pedro would later adopt in his crimes.

The man took Pedro to an abandoned warehouse and repeatedly assaulted him. Afterwards Pedro was once more dumped on the streets, homeless, hungry and traumatized. In the aftermath of this experience Pedro became very wary of strangers, and adults in particular. He learned how to remain unseen during the day only looking for food at night.

Not terribly long after that fateful encounter in the abandoned warehouse Pedro headed off to the capital of Colombia, Bogotá. While in Bogotá Pedro received help from an American couple. They housed and fed him and even enrolled him in the local school. Unfortunately during his time at the school Pedro as well as other young boys were victimized by one of the male teachers. After another predatory encounter with an adult Pedro once more returned to life on the streets of Bogotá. As he became more and more street savvy, Pedro gradually escalated his crimes from ones of necessity such as stealing food to ones that involved him stealing cars off the streets. He had learned he could make a fairly lucrative living this way and for a long time this was how he sustained himself.

This however led to Pedro’s first arrest when he was 18 for car theft. While he was in prison four inmates attacked Pedro, and this third time being victimized snapped something inside Pedro and he killed three of the men who had attacked him. His actions were ruled as self defense by the Colombian authorities and his sentence was merely extended by 2 years. But Pedro, however, now had a taste for violence, and for killing. Murdering three of his assailants really pushed Pedro to a place mentally that he would only spiral further out from.

While he sat in prison with nothing to do but think about and reflect on his life Pedro began to resent his mother. He blamed his current situation on her, blamed the brutal assaults he had endured on her, blamed the fact he was now a killer on her. It was her fault for putting him out on the streets. It was also during this time that Pedro started becoming obsessed with pornography. A blossoming hatred for women was growing inside Pedro, fueled by memories of his sex worker mother and a toxic obsession with nudey magazines. And in 1978 when he was finally released from his first stint in prison that hatred was unleashed upon the girls and young women of Peru first.

Chapter 2 - The Reign of Terror

 Upon his release from prison Pedro moved away from Colombia to the neighboring country of Peru where he began to kidnap and murder young Peruvian girls. He targeted the most vulnerable girls, generally of an indigenous background that tended to be poor and often homeless. Eventually however one of the tribes caught Pedro. After torturing him they buried him up to his neck in sand and left him to whatever fate the wilderness held for him.

But this is not the end of old Pedro. Oh no. Fate had other plans, and apparently those plans involved a lot of atrocities because Pedro was spared his fate by none other than an American Missionary. The Missionary convinced the tribe to turn Pedro over to the Peruvian authorities which they did reluctantly. The tribe certainly had a point as the authorities regarded the matter as “trivial” and instead of considering the scope of his crime plus likelihood of reoffending and putting him back in prison they deported him back to Colombia and from here it was Ecuador that would be visited by the monster next.

His brush with death did nothing to rehabilitate Pedro, and once he arrived in Ecuador he began to prey upon the poor and homeless girls there. In Ambato during one of the most important festivals of the year in 1980 it was hard to feel very jovial when local girls, all between the ages of 8 and 12, had gone missing. The local authorities however weren’t paying an overt amount of attention to the disappearances and therefore never made the connection that it wasn’t just runaways or a spate of child trafficking but in fact a predator that took their inaction as carte blanche to continue doing what he was doing.

And it wasn’t until an unreasonable amount of rainfall unearthed the remains of four local girls that they finally realized the horrible truth: Ambato was hosting a serial killer. But now they were paying attention. They had no leads and few resources to make use of but now that they knew there was a killer just waiting for his chance to strike again they could at least be prepared for whatever was coming next. As luck would have it they got their huge break only days later at the Plaza Rosa marketplace in Ambato when Cabina Pavetta spotted a strange man trying to leave the market with her 12 year old daughter, Maria.

Cabina raised the alarm shouting after the man, who was subsequently captured by the townspeople and delivered to the police. It didn’t take authorities long to recognize just what kind of monster they had in custody, despite Pedro’s stubborn refusal to answer any questions. Realizing they were going to have to try a different approach. They enlisted the aid of a local priest and disguised him as another inmate and put him in a cell with Pedro and just let the man talk.

Chapter 3 - Confess Thy Sins

Despite his reluctance to speak about his crimes with the authorities, Pedro had little problem speaking openly about his violent and depraved acts with the other prisoners. In the days after the priest recounted everything Pedro had confessed to him the police confronted Pedro with all the information they had and Pedro broke down and gave them a full confession. One of the more unsettling things is how vividly he could recall his crimes, seeing as how he confessed to murdering at least 110 children in Ecuador, over a 100 more in Colombia and another 100 in Peru. Over 300 children he claims to have done despicable and evil things to, making him, if true, the most prolific child murderer until modern times. Now for this next part I am going to issue a trigger warning, but I’m going to quote Pedro’s confession to the police and it is… upsetting. Pedro told the police he would “Walk the streets looking for innocent good girls and would lure them away with promises of gifts.” He added that he “Liked the girls in Ecuador. They are more gentle and trusting. More innocent, and are not as suspicious of strangers as Colombian girls. They never scream. They expect nothing. They are innocent.”

Blood boiling confessions aside… the police knew they had a true monster on their hands. The more he talked the more this was confirmed. “I lost my innocence at age 8. So I decided to do the same to as many young girls as I could.” I think this is a good time to circle back to the beginning when his mother threw him out at age 8 for being inappropriate with his sister. Given his strong hatred for women and his admission that he lost his innocence at 8 I think that he was abused prior to leaving home and that abuse is what triggered the episode with Pedro and his sister. I feel like if the man that assaulted him in the warehouse was the first instance of him being abused he would have focused more of his hatred on men. That’s some speculation on my part. My goal is not to excuse what he has done but to understand what goes into making men like Pedro López.

He would prowl the alleyways and markets of towns and villages to select his targets. He looked for the ones with a certain air of innocence about them. Pedro would lure them away somewhere isolated where he would assault and abuse them before looking into their eyes and strangling them, deriving his ultimate gratification from watching life fade from their eyes. Pedro also prepared graves in advance for the ones he chose. Often he would bury multiple victims atop one another in the same hole. 

His M.O. never changed. He sought out his targets by day and would comfort and reassure them throughout the night. But then as the sun rose he would strike. Pedro never killed at night because he couldn’t watch the life drain from his victims eyes, and that was where his satisfaction lay. His confession somehow managed to become even more disturbing, as if he hadn’t already proven what an inhumane monster he truly was, when he told police that he would have tea parties and play morbid games with his lifeless victims. Sometimes he propped them up in their graves and talked to them. “My little friends like the company.” He told the officers taking his confession, but when the children obviously failed to contribute to the conversation he would grow bored and go hunting for a new victim.

I think it goes without saying that while appalled by the claims the police were skeptical at best of this grandiose confession. That was not going to last long. Pedro, shackled in leg irons, led the police to the bodies of 53 girls between the ages of 8 and 12 in graves near the Ambato area. At 23 other sites they found empty graves, possibly, probably due to the cadavers being taken away by predatory animals. Despite the empty graves the police were now entirely convinced that this man was every bit the monster his claims had made him seem. During the trial it was the public that renamed Pedro as “The Monster of the Andes”.

Chapter 4 - A Time of Reckoning

July 31, 1981 was the date the trial of Pedro López officially began. He was now 33 and had been diagnosed as a sociopath. He was charged with the maximum sentence under Ecuadorian law at the time which was 16 years. Ecuador would later change this to 25 years. The public was not overly concerned that once free from Ecuadorian prison that he would kill again however because upon release he would be made to stand trial for his killings in Peru and Colombia. Although by Pedro’s own admission in an interview with a journalist from prison he told them that if freed he would “happily” go back to victimizing the children. The deranged pleasure he found committing these atrocities overpowered any sense of “right” and “wrong”. Needless to say he felt zero remorse for all the evil he had done in the world and he looked forward to strangling his next victim.

Pedro was in prison for 14 years and was released early for good behavior. Upon his release he was deported to his homeland of Colombia to stand trial for a two decades old murder. However instead of being detained in prison Colombian officials ruled him to be insane and therefore he was institutionalized in a psychiatric facility. It was 1995 by now and he would only remain in the facility until 1998 when after paying a $50 bail he was released.

Pedro’s first stop was the home of his now elderly mother where he demanded his inheritance. But when he realized she was still living in poverty he stole her furniture, including her bed and sold them to people on the streets, and then Pedro López vanished without a single trace. Since 1998 there have been no confirmed sightings of Pedro, no deaths or killings that could be confirmed to fit his M.O. The man simply disappeared into the crowd like Hannibal Lector at the end of “Silence of the Lambs.”

Conclusion

This is undoubtedly one of the single most disturbing cases I have ever come upon, and Pedro López one of the most evil individuals. Was he born evil? That I cannot say one way or the other. But if forced to speculate I’d say that Pedro was probably a fairly normal child until whatever catalyst, be it what happened in the warehouse or something else, occurred that warped his psyche and turned him into the monster he became.

As far as theories as to what became of The Monster of the Andes there are no shortage of those. Some people speculate that he fled South America for one of the island countries such as Cuba, Haiti or the Dominican Republic. There have been rumored sightings of Pedro both in the United States and Canada. Other people say he possibly returned to Peru to resume his crimes and this time the indigenous tribes served him their own justice. It’s impossible to say and we will probably never truly know the ending of the story for Pedro López. What I really wanted to do here at the end was to make this about the children whose lives were taken by this monster, however I have been unable to find any kind of list of such names so instead let’s celebrate the life of that little girl in Ambato who was saved by the crowd when her mother saw a legitimate monster trying to take her child away. Maria Cabina could have been just another victim whose name we would probably never have known; but through the intervention of good people was spared a fate that no one deserves, much less a child.

I had intended for this to be a bit longer, but in complete honesty once I started writing and began to truly process the heinousness that Pedro had committed I found myself trying to deliver this information in as delicate a way as possible without doing a disservice to the victims of López and the horrors they were subjected to. I’ve known of Pedro López for some time now and watched and read many things about him; but it was not until I began writing this stuff down that it really sank in the true evil that dwelled within Pedro. It’s a fine line to tread trying to bring you all a good solid case that people should know about whilst not making it so incredibly dark that people become upset or triggered. All in all while this is a truly horrific case I have greatly enjoyed putting this together for everyone.