A Colombian serial killer who confessed to murdering more than 190 children during the 1990s died Thursday in a hospital, prison authorities announced. He was 66 years old. Luis Alfredo Garavito, known as “the Beast,” admitted to killing children aged 8 to 16, mostly from low-income families. He lured and abused them by disguising himself as a monk, a homeless person, or a street vendor. The National Penitentiary and Prison Institute reported that Garavito passed away in a hospital in Valledupar, located in northern Colombia, where he had been incarcerated. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
Garavito was born in 1957 in the Quindío department of Colombia. As an adult, he traveled to 11 different departments around the country, where he committed heinous acts against underage victims. Authorities first became suspicious of Garavito when they noticed similarities in cases of missing children in Pereira, Armenia, and Tunja. In April 1999, Garavito was arrested on charges of attempted rape. During the investigation, when asked if he was responsible for the deaths of 114 children whose bodies were found in 59 Colombian towns starting from 1994, Garavito confessed to the crimes and pleaded for forgiveness. He even admitted to more murders, totaling over 190.
In the same year, Garavito publicly apologized to the families of his victims during a court hearing, stating, “I want to ask for forgiveness for everything I did, and I am going to confess. Yes, I killed them, and not only them, I killed others.” According to the AP, there were discussions about Garavito’s potential release in recent years, as he had served three-fifths of his sentence. However, in 2021, former President Iván Duque rejected the possibility of Garavito regaining his freedom and reassured the public that the serial killer would remain in prison under his administration.
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