Episode 20: A VERY Short history of the killer of killers: Pedro Rodrigues Filho

0:13 Hey everybody, it's your country. My name is Brittany Ransom, and this is when Killers get caught, a podcast devoted to deep dives, into the lives, and psyche to the Killer's. We love to learn about and each week. Usually, I have Brian here with me and we find a True Crime Story that resonates with us, then we discuss one, well-known or lesser known killer and go deep into their childhood lives, methodology, and how they got caught and well, in most weeks we would have Brian here to talk about the Cryptids with the supernatural. But right now, now he is taking a bit of an extended Hiatus to deal with the loss of a loved one. I asked that nobody on social media reach out to him. During this time, he's asked that you give him some space.

0:56 As for me, I also needed a little bit of a break which is why we've been gone for the last two weeks. Life is just off sometimes and I'll just leave it at that. But this week and True Crime I actually have I just saw the story on the news today. It only Couple days ago and a woman in Texas was just charged with sneaking into her school to pretend to be her daughter under the guise of a social experiment. And so it happened in El Paso County and she's 30 years old and she made a YouTube video about it and she like, put on a mask and a hoodie and walked around all day and she didn't get found out by the school until about 7th period. And I got got this from watching one of her subsequent videos and she pretty much just said, I think that you should all be kind of ashamed of yourselves because you didn't know I was here all day I went through homeroom and taking attendance and everything unfortunately the school didn't see it that way and they filed charges.

2:06 There were two criminal warrants out for her, one for criminal, trespassing, and tampering with government documents. Then they also got her on a warrant for like, a parking ticket to they took her into custody. She recorded all of that and posted it on social media, too. She's saying that the school has an issue with security and with all these like school, shootings and things going on that they should do better. She said that there could have metal detectors or some form of like ID cards or something, and she's not entirely wrong. I just think she might have Have gone about it in a way that's kind of adds some criminality to her record. It's definitely interesting.

2:49 It's an ongoing thing like this just happened a couple days ago that she was arrested in El Paso, Texas. But the video is actually on YouTube still and it's called going to school as my 13 year old daughter, middle school edition. It happened on June 1st So yeah that's kind of the one thing that's kind of popped up. Oh yeah her bond was 47 thousand nine hundred dollars which I find to be like a very random trivial amount of like where's that number come from. But either way, that was my crime story for the week and we'll see if I continue doing these while I'm on my own. Or if I, you know, someone reaches out and wants to maybe do a hosting situation for the next couple weeks or co-host with me, But jumping back into things. I use my break to look into a serial killer, whose fans refer to him as the Brazilian?

3:47 Dexter killer PD padrino Matador and for those who don't know, Dexter being the fictional serial, killer who grows up to kill other serial killers after his father, teaches him a more ethical way to deal with his urges. And I first read about Pedro, Rodriguez Philo, when I bought the big book of serial killers by Jack Rosewood, and he's also one of the three killers profiled in the book. Psycho.com by Eileen, Ormsby about serial killers and have gone viral in the Modern Age of digital media.

4:30 And I'm going to get to that point because he has a YouTube channel and that's all I'm gonna say about it right now. But like I do every episode. Let's start with talking about the boy who became padrino Matador. He was born. June 17 1954 on a farm and sent Arena do so pukka which is in the state of Minas. Karai Brazil. He was actually born with a damaged skull due to his father abused His mother while she was pregnant, and dad was just overall very an abusive person and also abused him when he was a kid as well.

5:11 Very all early on Pedro learned that most situations could be handled quickly with violence. Something you definitely don't want like a preteen to really be solid on. But in the interview he did with Marcela rezende, he claimed that he first felt the compulsion to kill someone when he was about 13 years old and he tried to kill his older cousin by pushing him into a sugar cane, press on the Family Farm, the cousin did not die and there hasn't been any way to really substantiate these claims that he makes him. Some of these interviews I'm going to be referencing a lot of them today.

5:53 Some of them are interviews that he's posted on his own channel on YouTube. To get as many as I could essentially transcripts in English, but I didn't get to watch all of them, but there's not a lot of ways to substantiate some of these claims of things that happen. Because as we know like serial killers like to make themselves seem more important than they are so who knows, maybe he's being really honest. Maybe he's not however, what we do know and can verify is that in 1968 when he was 14 years old that's when he first killed somebody and the story's a little bit wild. So Pedro's father the father who abused him but he still felt some serious loyalty to God accused And of stealing from his job and dad was a security guard at a local high school and food went missing in the cafeteria kitchen area. His father, lost his job over this. And Pedro was just kind of full of this Fury about the situation and He said it was unfair and the person who fired his dad was the deputy mayor of Santa Rita desuka and not only did he kill the deputy mayor, but he did it in front of city hall with a shot gun that belonged to his grandfather. Then a month later, he Tracked Down the actual security guard who had stolen all the food and

7:27 shot him too. And so at 14 year old fourteen-years-old, this kid is a total. I mean, he's a murderer on the run. And so, he ends up down in an area called Haggadah Cruces and greater São. Paulo, and he's just down there, trying to avoid the police. He does find a nice place to hang out and discovers that the local drug dealers are kind of annoying to him. So he kills them and he sort of found this weird home down and São Paulo where He was making money, robbing drug traffickers getting information from them.

8:09 And then murdering the drug dealers. They were working for he set up shop there and he met a woman named Maria Olympia and the to even got engaged. They were going to have a baby, I called her, but Tina, and they lived happily for a little while taking on the job of drug dealers that he dispatched and then killing some of those drug dealers. Vowels. I don't think it's that. I think anyone listening probably understands that these kind of lifestyles are just not sustainable. And as it just goes with this, when you are someone who is making a lot of money doing an illicit job, there's other people who want that and they're willing to kill for it too. So a rival gang leader, attacked their home and killed Bettina, and Pedro's unborn child.

9:04 It wasn't actually on the entire family but Pedro was able to escape unlike last time though he had no intention of leaving so Paolo. Instead he began recruiting soldiers for his own little army and he set up a new business. He was hell-bent on Revenge and so he began picking up lower-tier gang members from different gangs and torturing them for information. In about their bosses before killing them because he was just trying to figure out which gang had been the one to attack his family. Then when he finally did find that man, he didn't wait at all.

9:50 The Rival leader, who killed Bettina was at a wedding. With some of the other gang members that were part of his gang and Pedro and his group opened fire on the wedding. Not only killing that gang leader, but seven more of the gang members and wounding 16 others as punishment. They were all listed as being part of the gang or gang Affiliates, but I kind of wonder if that's Him discussing like him saying like oh you're the wife of a gang member whatever you're Affiliated. I couldn't find any clear Distinction on that event because most of the reporting about Pedro fellow is that from when he really got busy killing people in jail. So I think that's an interesting thought process but it just said that there were 16 other wounded people and that it's assumed that they were also gang members or gang affiliated Now, I just listed all of these.

10:56 Right, we're talking about Deputy Mayor security guard six or seven gang members. The man who killed his fiancee, seven wedding guests. So, Pedro doesn't even fit 18 years old and he is killed 15 people. He continues to live in Sao Paulo unbothered for a little bit, maybe like a year, or so. And then in 1973, he's 19 years old and he gets word that his mother has been murdered and the person who did it is his father and that his father killed, his mother with a machete and he was back in jail, he was in jail back in Santa Rita. So according to that interview with Marcelo rezende, Pedro says, he went to visit his father in the city jail and he had a machete on him.

11:53 And he stabbed his father 22 times ripped out. His heart, bit off a piece of it, and spit it in his face because of that situation. When I spent my time researching Pedro, he comes up as a sometimes, Cannibal and I saw some Some people say that he ate a piece of his heart but in several different books that I was reading through, it seems like he didn't actually eat the heart so he's just a murderer, not a cannibal, good thing to think about. The police couldn't catch him. And this kind of Was the The Benchmark of him. Avenging, the pain of others, and he really started fixating on murdering criminals.

12:41 After this, he started like whenever you would see, would see crimes on the news or in papers, he would then look that person up, and it's really important to give some context here. Brazil has a issue with homicides, just like America does. But the situation is that only 40% Of murders in America. Don't go solved actually, I think it's backwards 60%. Don't go solved in America, but 10% go unsolved in Brazil. So there are a lot of people who get charged for crimes or you know, they managed to get off or they never get caught and so when Pedro saw these things in the paper or the news he decided he was going to take it into his own hands and so he would search like their names and Find out their addresses and then he would stop by for a visit. Some of the people he killed during this time period before he would actually get officially arrested were the adult man. Who impregnated his teen cousin?

13:45 He shot that man with a shotgun, his preferred method of killing was bleeds. But if he was feeling particularly spicy, he would use the method that the criminal had used to, then torture and kill that person. Kind of like a bit of horrific car. I just before they died several different Portuguese newspapers confirmed that there were an additional 11 killings of unarmed people before he would get arrested on May 24th 1973. Then from that 73 to 2003, is when things really kind of heated up, he started targeting other murderers.

14:26 And people within this prison system, he killed Francisco Dia CCP. Una de who was a serial killer and a rapist. He attacked, July, acacio, Dacosta, who was a serial killer, and robber, and nearly bludgeoned, that man to death, but Dacosta survived police reported. That there was even a time that they were transporting, Pedro with another prisoner. And both of the men were like handcuffed to like the chairs as you do and these sort of vehicles, and when they got to the next location, they opened the back of the van. An and the other man was dead and Pedro simply told them like he was a rapist. So I killed him.

15:12 He attempted to kill has many Ramos who was a bank robber, make bank robber and murderer, but he got stopped by the guards. He decapitated another and me, he killed two of his cellmates and those didn't really fit his pattern of attack because those were men who severely annoyed him. Another story that I read in a paper, he got jumped by five other inmates and he killed three of those men and two of them ran away in total. There are 40 more people. He killed while he was in prison. He killed more people while he was in prison, then before he got there.

15:57 And so his original sentencing, when he went into jail in 1973 was 126 years, but over the next few decades, Decades, he added another 250 years to his sentence. Pedro, still claims to this day that he's killed over 100 people. But the official confirmed kill count is 71. It's interesting because part of the gig that I do for this podcast is a lot of research and I have read easily a dozen or more different people's opinion of Pedro, Soho and some people call him a vigilante But lanica Soy criminology expert, who wrote a book about murderers and Brazil, referred to Pedro as an Avenger who killed those who he believed had harmed others. The problem with that though is that many of the prisoners, he killed in prison hadn't actually been sentenced, some of them were only accused and when people did a bit of a Statistical analysis of murders, versus actual, you know, convicted murderers.

17:11 Only 36 percent of Pedro, fill hose victims were ever found guilty of any crimes, like I said before, he killed two of his cellmates. One of them was because he said he didn't like the guy's face. So his code of ethics was very rigid but also bizarre and a little flexible depending on how Pedro is feeling. I personally, Today's episode of when Killers get caught, is brought to you by the magic claps Boutique which happens to be company owned by a very own Britney. Ransom, if you seen Brittany and her live streams, she's always rocking some awesome earrings.

17:57 That she herself makes from cute ice cream earrings, too spooky mermaid earrings. She even makes self-defense keychains so you can look stylish and protect yourself. At the same time, the magic class Boutique is going to release some special jewelry for a podcast next month. So keep an eye out for that as well. To learn more. Go to www.michelintransport.com. Thank that he does fit the, the modern thought process of Dexter, you know, Pedro had this murderous desire in him and maybe he just found a way to rationally, expel.

18:42 Those feelings by choosing other people that were kind of like him. So, I did mention to you that he's still alive and he was given nearly 400 years in prison, but he's not in prison anymore. so, In Brazil, there is a law that says that no one can spend more than life in prison and just like in America life in prison is about 30 years. And so the law in Brazil says that You essentially, it doesn't matter what the severity of your crime is 30 years is the, the max sentence for anyone crime. And so maybe this was a mistake on the part of the court system in charging him for all of his crimes before. Well then again, hmm.

19:40 See if this was America, what they would have done is hold off for a couple of crimes and then when he got out charged him with the other murders so that it didn't fall under a double jeopardy Clause but regardless it become its 2003. He's hit the 30 year mark So now there's this huge dispute over. Do we release this man who is being referred to as the perfect psychopath? The problem is he got diagnosed with multiple things while he was in prison. He was diagnosed with psychopathy but also as a sociopath And so there was a law passed in Brazil. In 1934, the anyone who was a psychopath could be detained indefinitely, if you were at a treatment facility that got repealed November 8th 1990, but a lot of people didn't appreciate that. After a few years of them, debating, if Pedro was rehabilitated, they released him in 2007, a he'd spent 42 years in prison.

20:44 More years of his adult life were spent in prison, then as a free man and he was ready for the second phase of his life, becoming a viral YouTube Star. But before I get there and how that even happened, I have to explain what life was kind of like, for him on release, like I said, he'd been in prison for the majority of his life. He didn't really understand much of the modern world, he didn't. I mean, he had no understanding of what a cell phone was when he got out to even get home. He had to ask strangers for help to figure out the train system subway system. He was famous and he didn't even realize it. Loads of different media.

21:35 People podcasters, other people all beating down his door for interviews and he could just walk somewhere and people would take his picture. That's a lot to get used to even if you're just a civilian and especially hard when you've been in prison and now you just want a little bit of Peace. One thing that I guess is nice, though is he did find love while he was in prison. He had been exchanging letters with a woman who was also a prisoner. She had been imprisoned for burglary for 12 years and when she was released she'd visit him once. Pedro was released the two of them moved in together.

22:16 She has no desire to be a part of his public life so she is only listed as a unidentified woman who he's dating and he's expressed in several interviews. All he wants. Now is just to try and live a good and honest life. But a lot of the citizens in Brazil feel that it's unfair that he had such a short sentence, in their opinion, what they say is that Pedro had a chance to have like an attorney. He got to go to trial. None of Pedro, fill hose victims. Got to go to trial. They didn't get their day in court, because he exercised that right. And in one of the interviews that I got transcribed, he told another podcaster and Brazil that he doesn't regret killing people who harmed other people, but he does regret being a criminal at all.

23:18 So I think that's a very interesting thing to say like, You regret, you don't regret murdering bad people because they were bad in your eyes but you regret ever getting involved in the criminal life at all. So, that's another interesting one. There were a couple years of peace and quiet, and then he got arrested again in 2011 for participating in, not one, but six, different riots that involved him and several other people. A security guard from a prison who have been involved in.

24:03 Illegal activities in the prison. Some of those illegal activities involved, harming, prisoners for that. He was given a seven-year sentence and he went back into prison and was released in 2018. So like he's sort of stayed out of trouble. But not quite. I, it's hard because I totally identify with wanting to do a prison riot and hurt the people who are hurting people, but regardless I think Brazil was like really dude. Really. So he gets out in 2018, right? That's also when he starts making YouTube videos with a friend of his who had known for a long time named Pablo Sylvia. Now, at this point, like today, 2021, Pedro has appeared on many different Brazilian podcasts.

24:51 He's on video, he's on videos on Pablo. Sylvia's Channel, he has his own channel, he's done other TV interviews, Pablo Oh, Sylvia produces most of the videos that he puts up on YouTube. And the idea behind these videos is that he comments on the crimes and Brazil. And like I said before, there's a lot for him to comment on because only 10% of all murders. Get solved in Brazil. I'm Pedro see still feel like he's doing some good giving Brazilian citizens and enter a look into the mind of a killer as well as seeing Pedro's opinion on the psychological motivations of the people accused of these crimes.

25:40 As of January has YouTube channel had over 20,000 followers and about 2.5 million likes so he's doing pretty good Pablo. Who chooses the Articles at Pedro comments on and apparently they also go to church together. He's also been approached to make a film about his life, as well as a book. The filmmaker is named Bruno Santana. And I guess the idea behind the movie is that they're going to take Pedro to different locations, where some of these crimes happened and have him recount these moments and the ER says that it's going to be exciting and amazing and you know you're going to learn new details, you never heard of before.

26:32 Pablo Sylvia is also helping him prepare the biography. And it's really interesting because everyone who's working on these projects with Pedro. Phyllis say that he's this really kind man. He treats, everyone. Well, he has friendships with the different staff and their families. Just a very strong juxtaposition from a man who also will admit in the same interview. Yeah, no. I definitely enjoyed killing and killed, 100 people. One thing that I will say, and I guess I'll leave you with the end of this story. Is it what it seems like is that he wants to just kind of disappear? He said he wants to live in a small farm in the middle of the Woods.

27:22 And he's looking to reach some kind of inner, peace and happiness, but one thing he is experiencing that is hat and made him. Happy is that through YouTube. He's kind of stopped being this Boogeyman, you know, killer PD. But during a matador, when people see him now, they just go. Hi, mr. Pedro, and for a couple of minutes he gets to feel like a regular person and not like the animal in a cage who was being viewed by the masses. Overall, it's just a very peculiar little story. I don't entirely know how to feel about it. I On one hand, I definitely like the idea of a serial killer that kills other Killers.

28:09 That's why I like the TV show Dexter at least for the first several seasons but Knowing what we know now that he had this very flexible and ever-changing moral compass, I don't know if I feel a sympathetic to him as I did. When I first started looking into this you know I mean one thing by saying that you know you murdered a man because you spied on him having a conjugal visit that was one of his cellmates and then you murdered another one of his cellmates for looking weird. Weird like those don't really fall into the avenging. Angel stereotype.

28:52 But, uh, that's kind of all I have for you this first week, I will have more next week as I do, some more research into a different serial killer. And like I said, I'm putting out the call for Anybody who'd like to guest host, I have a couple of weeks and just send me an email and we'll see what we can do. Like usual will ask, you can always support the magic clasp. It's my jewelry company. I have been working on some potential merchandise for the future as well, and you can always leave us a review on mainly Apple podcasts, but thank you anybody.

29:38 Who listened all the way? I'm sorry. This episode is so short and I'll be ready for you next week. Good night.