INTRODUCTION
Daniel Camargo Barbosa (22 January 1930 – 13 November 1994) was one of the most prolific serial killers during the 1970s and 1980s. He was a Columbian psychopath who had brutally committed several heinous crimes. It is assumed that he has killed over 150 young girls. Initially an ephebophilic robber and a paedophile, he became an active stalker and eventually a serial rapist and a serial killer. Due to his criminal nature, he was known as “The Mangrove Monster” and “The Sadist of Chanquito”.
BACKGROUND
On 22nd January 1930, Camargo was born into a wealthy family, living in Anolaima, Columbia. His father, Daniel Camargo Briceño was a local businessman. His mother, Teresa Barbosa was the second wife of his father. He also had an elder half-sister.
At the age of around two years, his mother died and eventually his father remarried to a young adolescent, named Dioselina Fernández. Dioselina wasn’t able to bear children but she had desperately wanted to have a daughter of her own. Meanwhile Briceño was completely focused on his business and was emotionally distant from all. All these circumstances led Daniel Camargo Barbosa to inculcate in him the ability to lie and manipulate people.
Daniel Camargo was an intelligent student and had good performance record in school. With attainment of adolescence, he started to develop certain violent tendencies. As a punishment his step-mother would take out her aggression on him by abusing him. She would often force him to dress like a girl and further humiliate Daniel publicly. This was a major turning point in Daniel’s life as it sowed in him the seeds of hatred towards women.
In the early 1940’s, Daniel started his schooling from an all-boys Catholic boarding school. With time, he moved on with his prior trauma and once again became academically good. He had made plans for further studies but unfortunately his family was hit with a lot of economic hardship. Daniel was forced to work as a door-to-door salesman. During this period, he realised that he had the skills required to gain the trust of people as he could very easily get into his customers homes or make them buy things.
Daniel’s victims (Daniel Camargo Barbosa, n.d.)
Source: http://www.trulydisturbing.com/2019/05/28/truly-disturbing-true-crime-top-15-serial-killers-with-the-highest-victim-counts-from-around-the-world/
EVENTS
In 1957, Daniel started dating his client, a young woman named Alcira Castillo. They soon began living together and had children. But their financial life wasn’t stable and Daniel had no other option than to rob. On 24th May, 1958 he did his first crime by robbing a shop owned by one of his clients. He did an elaborate hoax and escaped the prison, thereafter continuing to live his normal life.
In 1962, Daniel fell in love with another women named Esperanza and got engaged to her, leaving his first wife and two kids. Later on, Daniel had found out that her fiancé wasn’t a virgin and this exasperated him. To sought this matter, he manipulated her and they both made a deal where Esperanza would help out Daniel by getting him virgin girls to have sex with and Daniel would in exchange stay with her. This fixation was the new beginning of the crimes that Daniel was yet to commit.
CRIMES
The alliance of Daniel and Esperanza began the era of unlawful acts. Esperanza lured young girls to an apartment and then drugged them with sleeping pills so that later Daniel could rape them. They committed this offence with five young virgin girls. They weren’t caught until 10th April,1964 when the fifth victim reported the crime. Both the partners were arrested and Daniel was charged and convicted for sexual assault with an imprisonment of 3 years, which was later increased to 8 years.
This prolonged conviction provoked Daniel and he ruminated himself. He figured out that only if he had murdered the girl after rape, he would have never got caught.
In 1973, he went to Brazil after being released from the prison. Due to lack of proper documents and an illegal immigration he was once again arrested and deported to Columbia.
Daniel had by now started working as a street vendor where he sold the television monitors. On 2nd May,1974 day while doing his daily job his eyes got hold of an attractive 9-year-old school girl. He kidnapped, raped and at the end murdered her. This was Daniel’s first murder. On the next day he went back to the crime scene to recover the television screens and to dispose off the victim’s corpse. Unfortunately, he was being followed by a cop who then arrested him. He was convicted and got a sentence for 30 years of seclusion to Gorgona, an island near Columbia. For 10 years in prison, he studies the sea currents and navigation. Finally, one day he got a rowboat on the beach which he paddled for hours till he landed on the border of Ecuador. The authorities assumed that he must be dead as it was next to impossible to navigate the way out through such currents without any prior experience. Daniel thus became the first prisoner to ever escape from Gorgona prison.
Serial killer and rapist Daniel Barbosa leads police officers to the graves of his victims in Colombia. (kulturmeister, n.d.)
Source: https://www.chapintv.com/noticia/el-asesino-serial-que-estrangulaba-ninas-fue-asesinado-en-la-prision-donde-se-encontraba/
Daniel was now a 44-year-old psychopath who had found a new territory (Ecuador) to engrave his mark upon. On 18th December 1984 he raped and murdered a 9-year-old girl.
The time period from 1984-1986 saw a rise in the rape and murder cases, with at least 55 being victims of Daniel. It was thought that a new serial killer was in the game who had sought to win the competition from López’s, another active criminal of that area.
To earn a living, he used to sell the clothes and objects procured from his victims. On 26th February,1986 he was caught red handed with bloody clothes of his last victim. He was taken into custody where he accepted his crime. He informed the police in detail how he had killed a total of 71 rape victims. He cooperated with the police and took them to the bodies of his victims’. In 1989. He was convicted and sentenced for 16 years.
MODUS OPERANDI
Daniel found young virgin females the most attractive. He selected his victims who were either helpless or poor. His childhood ability to manipulate others helped him in convincing his victims that he was a foreigner who could provide them jobs in a church on the outskirts of a town.
Once agreed, he would accompany them and then take a turn into the forests, pretending to know the shortcut. He then raped his victims and then killed them later on. Some of the most common methods he used for killing were strangulation, slashing, stabbing, crushing with machete, etc. After killing he would collect all the valuables and then leave the bodies there only to decompose.
JUDGEMENT
After committing several murders and rape Daniel was sentenced for 16 years of imprisonment in Quito’s García Moreno Prison. This was the maximum punishment for murder in Ecuador.
On 13th November,1994 Daniel was killed by his inmate, Arcesio Noguera Jaramillo. Arcesio was a 29-year-old prisoner and nephew of one of Daniel’s victim. He had resorted to kill Daniel and take revenge for the mishappening that happened to her aunt. Before killing Arcesio said, “It is the hour of vengeance” and then shanked Daniel eight times thereby killing him.
Daniel Camargo Barbosa dead (Daniel Camargo Barbosa, n.d.)
As a trophy he cut off one ear and claimed his revenge as successful by killing the 64-year-old serial killer. At the end there was no one to claim the body of Daniel Camargo Barbosa and so he was buried in a mass grave in Quito’s El Batán cemetery.
REFERENCES
- (n.d.). Retrieved from kulturmeister: https://kulturmeister.com/notorious-serial-killers-en/daniel-barbosa/?lang=en
- criminal minds wiki. (n.d.). Retrieved from fandom.com: https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/Daniel_Camargo
- Daniel Camargo. (n.d.). Retrieved from criminalminds.fandom.com: https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/Daniel_Camargo
- Daniel Camargo Barbosa. (n.d.). Retrieved from Murderific True Crime Podcast: http://murderific.com/daniel-camargo-barbosa/
- Daniel CAMARGO BARBOSA. (n.d.). Retrieved from Murderpedia.com: https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/camargo-barbosa.htm
Author
Swati Gupta
Intern, Dept. of Forensic Science and Criminal Investigation
Legal Desire Media & Insights