Trigger Warning: This article refers to rape and sexual assault.
His Early Years
Lopez was born on October 8, 1948, in Santa Isabel, Colombia. His father, Medardo Reyes, was a member of the country’s right-wing party and was killed in La Violencia. His mother, Benilda López, was 3 months pregnant with her son at the time of his father’s death. Pedro was the 7th child among 14 siblings. Lopez’s mother was physically abusive and, by age 10 , he had either been kicked out or ran away. After leaving home, Lopez traveled to Bogota, Colombia where he became homeless and known as one of the “gamines”. Later on, he would soon join a gang and smoked. While on the streets, a stranger offered him a place to stay but took him to an abandoned building and sexually assaulted him.
The Beginning of His Murder Spree
Lopez was arrested at 21 years old (some reports state that he was 18) for stealing a car. While in jail he was (tw) raped by two men, and he killed his attackers with a makeshift knife.
After Lopez was released, it is believed he started to seek out young girls, specifically those with an Indigenous background. He would later make his way to Peru where he would lure his victims to remote areas, committing (tw) rape and murder. He later reported that he had murdered dozens during the mid-late 1970s. Lopez was caught by the Ayachuchos community when he tried to kidnap a nine-year-old boy. Originally the group planned to bury him alive but a Western missionary convinced them to hand Lopez to the Peruvian authorities. They would later deport him to Colombia.
His Capture and Release
Back in Colombia, Lopez continued murdering others, and by the late ‘70s, he would make his way back to Ecuador where there were multiple cases of missing girls. Families and friends tried to find the girls on their own, even going as far as paying for ads in newspapers about their missing daughters. In 1980, vendor Carlina Ramon and a group caught Lopez in Ecuador when he attempted to lure Ramon’s daughter from a busy market.
Lopez was arrested, and while in the police’s custody, he refused to cooperate with the authorities until one investigator by the name of Pastor Cordova Gudino went undercover as a fellow inmate. While undercover, he gained Lopez’s trust and was able to get him to confess and even get details about where the victims were buried. Police searched these places and found 57 bodies.
Lopez was charged with 110 murders and would claim to be responsible for around 200 more deaths in the neighboring countries of Peru and Colombia. Finally on July 31, 1981, 33-year-old, Lopez pleaded guilty to the murder of 57 girls and was imprisoned in Amboato where he was diagnosed as a “sociopath.” Due to Ecuador’s laws at that time, Lopez was sentenced to 16 years, which would upset the public and the victims’ families and friends. Ecuador would later change the maximum prison sentence for murder to 25 years.
In August 31st, 1994, Lopez was released from prison. After only serving 14 years, he would get out early due to good behavior. He was deported to Colombia, where authorities tried to convict him of a 2 decades old murder, but instead, Lopez was then declared insane and would later be put in a psychiatric facility.
In February 1998, he was declared “sane” and released on a $50 bail with additional stipulations. He visited his mother and asked for his inheritance but learned she was in poverty and sold everything from his inheritance to people on the streets. Lopez vanished from public view. Because his whereabouts are unknown, many members of the public are scared to this day.
