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Location Of ​One Of World’s Most Prolific Living Serial Killers Is Still Unknown

Location Of ​One Of World’s Most Prolific Living Serial Killers Is Still Unknown

Pedro Lopez, from Colombia, was convicted of killing 110 people, but confessed to the murder of as many as 350

Jess Hardiman

Jess Hardiman

The location of one of the world's most prolific living serial killers is still unknown, after he was released from prison for 'good behaviour' back in the late 1990s.

Pedro Lopez, from Colombia, was convicted of killing 110 people, but confessed to the murder of as many as 350.

He is believed to be the second most prolific serial killer that's still alive today, behind Luis Garavito - who was proven to have killed 138 people, but may have actually murdered more than 300.

Lopez, who was nicknamed the 'Monster of the Andes', claimed to have been brutally gang-raped while in prison for car theft, and, while still incarcerated, set about hunting down his attackers to kill them.

After being released, he started murdering young girls across South America, saying that he had killed more than 100 youngsters by 1978.

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According to 9News, a 1979 flash flood in Ambato, Ecuador, unearthed the bodies of four young girls, which in turn helped lead to Lopez's arrest.

Lopez - who confessed to at least 300 sexual assaults and stranglings in total - then agreed to take police to a mass burial site, where they found the graves of 53 of his victims.

Several months later, he would plead guilty to dozens more.

The University of New Mexico's Dirk Gibson, who wrote about Lopez in his book Serial Killers Around the World: The Global Dimensions of Serial Murder, told 9News: "It was believed those children were human trafficked, stolen or sold on the market, or that they ran away.

"Often local law enforcement suspected serial killers last."

According to the BBC, Lopez was arrested in 1980 but 'freed by the government in Ecuador at the end of [1998]'.

The outlet says: "In an interview from his prison cell, he described himself as 'the man of the century' and said he was being released for 'good behaviour'.

His Wikipedia page states that, as of 2021, his whereabouts are unknown.

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Lopez's story has now been shared on Reddit, after one user posed the question: "What are some deeply unsettling facts that you know?"

The thread has attracted more than 10,000 comments in just a matter of hours, including one response that has been upvoted 13,000 times.

Linking through to a Wikipedia page, Reddit user DavosLostFingers wrote: "The world's most prolific living serial killer is a man called Pedro Lopez. He was convicted of the killing of 110 girls. But he claims he has raped and murdered over 300. His current whereabouts are unknown."

Many people were stunned by the tale, with one writing: "It got increasingly disturbing, until I read that his whereabouts are unknown. Then I just felt chills."

Another asked in disbelief: "How do you get convicted for 110 and then confess to 300 total and still be let out due to good behaviour??"

Featured Image Credit: Police handout

Topics: World News, News, Reddit, Serial Killer