Serial Killer Luis Garavito - Research Paper Example

The name by which this serial killer is known indicates his satanic nature: La Bestia (the beast). Garavito was also known as El Loco (the crazy one), Tribilin (Goofy), and El Cura (the priest). He also went by the pseudonym of Bonifacio Morera Lizcano. (Murderpedia.org, 2006). A discussion of Garavito’s background, his victims, his modus operandi, his arrest, his possible motives and fear of the possibility of his release demonstrate his impact on the world. Garavito was born on 25 January, 1957, in Genova.

This town is located in Colombia’s Quindio province, the western coffee-growing region. He was the first of seven children in a poor family. He was repeatedly beaten by his father, Manuel Antonio Garavito, who was a brute and subjected his son to physical and mental abuse. He was also repeatedly raped by two male neighbors. Garavito dropped out of school after just five years. He left home at the age of sixteen and went on to work as a store clerk and then as a street vendor who sold religious icons and prayer cards.

Once he reached adulthood, he drifted from job to job, moving often due to the problems caused by his heavy drinking and aggressive behavior. He was treated for depression and showed suicidal tendencies, attempting to kill himself twice. Police reports indicate that he was under psychiatric care for five years. (Murderpedia.org, 2006). Garavito’s victims were young boys between the ages of six and thirteen. The only exception was a boy of sixteen, who was handicapped. The victims belonged to poor or peasant families or were street children.

Garavito invariably chose light-skinned, good-looking boys of less than average intelligence. It is significant that Colombia has witnessed political violence which has resulted in the displacement of 1.5 million people. Children separated from their families are a common sight on the streets of towns and cities where they eke a living by selling newspapers and chewing gum, polishing shoes or begging. The large number of missing, unreported children in Colombia enabled Garavito to get away with his killing spree for more than half a decade.

Garavito’s modus operandi was exceptionally uniform. Chief Prosecutor Alfonso Gomez Mendez stated at the press conference that Garavito “passed himself off as “a street vendor, monk, indigent, disabled person or a representative of fictitious foundations for the elderly and children's education, in that way gaining entrance to schools as a speaker”” (qtd. in Wetsch. 2005). Garavito’s approach was studiously planned and executed. He would patiently befriend the boys, using various disguises (street vendor, bum, priest) and props, such as different hair-dos.

He would secure their confidence by giving them juice or cake at a local shop and then lure with different strategies. He would ask for help in some task, such as selling oranges, harvesting sugar-cane or transporting cattle. He lured addicted children with the promise of drugs and others with money. These encounters always took place after 10 a.m. and before noon, usually over the weekend, when more children loitered round the marketplace. This timing was preferred as his offers of jobs would be credible to the boys and the children would not be missed until dinner time.

Garavito’s crimes were committed in hidden areas, overgrown with tall plants on the outskirts of towns, often on the slopes of hills. The children