For better or worse, serial killers continue to fascinate us. You can find their stories in a variety of media, from books to television to podcasts. We’ve all seen or heard the horror stories of Bundy, Dahmer and Ridgeway. Yet a name stands out not only because of the scale of his crimes, but also because he has been all but forgotten.
Pedro Lopez, known as the “Monster of the Andes,” went on a killing spree in the late 1970s and eventually confessed to murdering more than 350 girls between the ages of 7 and 13 in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Guinness World Records lists him as the most prolific serial killer of modern times. Check out the history of one of the world’s most ruthless killers you’ve never heard of.
Pedro Alonzo Lopez was born on October 8th, 1948 in Santa Isabel, Colombia. His mother was a prostitute, and his father was killed by a gang when she was only 3 months pregnant. The seventh child amongst 13 siblings, Pedro was kicked out by his mother at the age of 8 for fondling one of his sisters.
The young boy made his way to Bogota, Colombia’s capital, where he joined a gang of fellow homeless children and began using an impure form of cocaine known as Basuco. After a time a man offered to take him in, even offering him a bed. Instead the man took young Pedro to an abandoned building and brutally raped him over and over again.
