The Monster of Andes

Pedro Alonso Lopez is a Colombian serial killer who was sentenced to death for killing 110 girls. But he said in his interview that he killed more than 300 girls after raping them.

 According to Lopez, he committed the crimes in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.

 Lopez first gained international fame when he met an interview with freelance photographer Ron Lettner.

 The interview took place in 1980 in an Ambato prison.

 Lopez is known as "The Monster of the Andes". The Andes Mountain is the name of a very long mountain range that touches seven American states. Lopez is named that because Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador are also included in that seven United States.

 "The Monster of the Andes" became famous.

 Lettner's interview quickly went viral. The interview was first published in the Chicago Tribune on July 13, 1980, and in The Toronto Sun and the Sacramento Bee on July 21, 1980. In the years that followed, North America Continued to be published in leading publishing houses.

 According to Lettner's interview ... Lopez became known as "The Monster of the Andes" when he identified 53 graves to police in Ecuador, all of which belonged to 12-year-old girls. He was found guilty of murder. Lopez also pleaded guilty to another 240 murders in Peru and Colombia.

 Early life

 Lopez's mother was a prostitute named Benilda López De Casteneda

According to Lopez, the constant observation of prostitution in childhood had a profound effect on his psyche. Her life took a turn for the worse in 1957 when her mother saw him having sex with her younger sister. Lopez was only eight at the time. His mother kicked him out of the house. Lopez fled to Bogota, the capital of Colombia. Here Lopez has abducted a pedophile, took him to a deserted house, and raped him several times.

 At the age of 12, Lopez was adopted by an American family and admitted to the school. But two years later, Lopez also ran away because a schoolteacher had apparently molested him.

 At the age of eighteen, he started stealing cars for his livelihood.

 Murders

 He was also jailed for some time for car theft.

 After his release from prison, Lopez began hunting underage girls in Peru. He first raped them and then killed them.

 Lopez said in a statement that he had killed more than 100 girls by 1978. Lopez was captured by a local tribe while abducting a nine-year-old girl. They were going to kill him but stopped by an American Christian missionary. The group said they were doing the wrong thing. The government has the power to punish. The tribesmen handed him over to the state police, from where he was soon released.

 After Peru, Lopez went to Colombia and Ecuador, where he continued his heinous deeds.

 Every day in Ecuador, there were reports of missing girls.

 Arrest

 In Ecuador, Lopez was arrested by a group of traders. He was caught trying to kidnap the daughter of a businessman in the market.

 Lopez refused to open his mouth to the police. Then a clever detective played a psychological trick with him.

 He entered her barracks as a prisoner and a few days later not only confessed to his crimes but also managed to locate the places where all the victims were buried.

 After much effort, the police managed to find 57 bodies. Following Lopez's confession, he was charged with 110 counts of murder. He later confessed to a number of crimes in neighboring Peru and Colombia.

 He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, according to Ecuador's soft laws. The public protested the decision but later fell silent due to state law. According to reports, consideration is being given to extending the sentence to 25 years.

  Release

 According to the BBC, Lopez was arrested in 1980. He was released by the Ecuadorian government in late 1998. In a prison interview, Lopez called himself "Man of the Century."

 Lopez was released from an Ecuadorian prison on August 31, 1994, then arrested as an illegal immigrant and handed over to Colombian authorities, where he was found guilty for 20 years old murders. But he has later declared a psycho patient and admitted to the psychiatric ward of a Bogota hospital.

 He was released on bail of 50 dollars in 1998, subject to certain conditions. He later escaped. A&E documentary states that a 2002 murder was traced. Interpol had advised Colombian police to re-arrest Lopez.

 There are no updates on Lopez in 2020.