Pedro Rodrigues is a difficult killer to categorize; he is a rare oddity. Brazilians see him as a prolific serial killer and abnormal psychologists see him as a sociopath, but one with unique tastes.
To others, Pedro Rodrigues is an avenging angel – one that will deliver retribution when no one else will.
Rodrigues is a criminal who killed other criminals. He killed at least 70 people, most of them were convicts he met in prison. They were either rapists, gang members, drug kingpins or murderers themselves. Brazil dubbed him Pedrinho Matador which translates to Peter the Killer.
The Perfect Psychopath
Born in 1954 in Minas Gerais Brazil, Rodrigues never stood a chance when he came into the world with a severe head injury caused by a beating his mother took from his father whilst pregnant. Rodrigues grew up in a home where violence was normalized by his father who taught him that crimes must be resolved by violence and if no one else was willing to do it, he would.
Whether it was brain damage or fate, Rodrigues got a taste for blood when he was merely fourteen years old when he fatally shot the Vice Mayor of Minas Gerais, after he had fired Rodrigues’ father for allegedly stealing food at work. It would not be long before Rodrigues killed his second victim: the real food thief.
The two murders began to attract unwanted attention, so Rodrigues fled to Mogi das Cruzes in Sao Paulo, Brazil. After he arrived, he quickly fell into criminal activity and became involved in a few burglaries before killing his third victim: a drug dealer.
While in São Paulo, Rodrigues met a woman named, Maria Aparecida Olympia, who he fell in love with. After the two moved in together, Olympia was enough to sate Rodrigues’ thirst for murder as he took a break from the spree. Until Olympia was killed by gang members, her death was a form of revenge for the drug dealer Rodrigues had killed.
Olympia’s death would break Rodrigues and propel him into a vigilante murder spree. Feeling responsible for his love’s death, he hunted down several people who were supposedly involved in Olympia’s murder. It was his life’s mission to avenge by torturing and killing anyone who had anything to do with her death. His modus operandi was stabbing.
Once he successfully achieved his goal, Rodrigues moved on to another vendetta. This time against his own father, which became his most notorious murder.
The motivation came after his father murdered Rodrigues’ mother with a machete. So he traveled to the local jail where his father was serving time and he managed the murder by stabbing him 22 times. He went on to cut out his father’s heart and chewed on it, horrifying every criminal and guard in prison.
The Criminal That Killed Other Criminals
Unable to escape the scene with numerous witnesses, Rodrigues was finally arrested in May of 1973. He was placed in a police car with two other criminals, one of which was a rapist. Police left the criminals unattended for a short period of time, but it wouldn’t be long until Rodrigues committed another murder. By the time the police returned to the car, he had killed the rapist.
Rodrigues’ arrest should have ended his vigilante killings but instead, it only added fuel to the fire. Suddenly, he was surrounded by criminals, killers and rapists – his preferred victims. The prison Rodrigues was locked up in was no longer a place for convicts to serve their time. It was a hunting ground.
Pedrinho Matador managed to kill at least 47 of his fellow inmates, most of whom were convicted murderers themselves. It is reported that Rodrigues killed the inmates he felt deserved retribution.
Rodrigues was initially sentenced to 128 years, but the murders he committed in prison added up so his sentence escalated to 400 years. Brazilian law, however, only allows for a maximum of 30 years spent in prison for his first convictions and in the end, he only served an additional four years for the murders he carried out in prison for a total of 34 years. In 2007, he became a free man.
It is estimated that he is responsible for at least 70 murders. Pedro Rodrigues remains as Brazil’s most notorious killer, yet he lives freely to this day. If you are from Brazil, you have very little to fear Rodrigues unless you are a criminal and meets his criteria. Then, there is nothing that can save you.
If you can’t get enough of Brazil’s favorite serial killer, you can find him on his very own Youtube channel. Yup, you heard that right, Pedro Rodrigues has over 28,000 fans and millions of views.
