Daniel Camargo Barbosa (22 January 1930 – 13 November 1994) was a Colombian serial killer and rapist. He is one of the most prolific serial killers in history and is believed to have raped and murdered at least 72 young girls in Colombia and Ecuador during the 1970s and 1980s.
Barbosa was stabbed to death in prison by the nephew of one of his victims in 1994.
Early life
Camargo's mother died before he had even reached the age of one and his father was overbearing and emotionally distant. Afterwards his father married another woman, Dioselina Fernandez, who had fertility problems. This caused his new stepmother to become abusive to Daniel, humiliating him in various ways. She would often beat him and dress him up as a girl and then would force him to go to school dressed that way; his peers and classmates made fun of him. Despite this humiliation, Daniel stood out as a great student at the León XIII school in Bogotá with a reported IQ of 116. However, his desire to continue studying was hampered when he was forced to drop out of school to help his family financially.
Crimes and imprisonment
He was first arrested in Bogotá in 1958 for petty theft.
Camargo had a de facto union with a woman named Alcira and had two children with her. He fell in love with another woman, Esperanza (age 28), whom he planned to marry, but then found out that she was not a virgin. This became the root of Camargo's fixations. He and Esperanza formed an agreement that he would stay with her if she aided him in finding other virgin girls to rape. Thus began a period of their partnership in crime. Esperanza was Camargo's accomplice, luring young girls to an apartment under false pretenses and then drugging them with sodium seconal sleeping pills so that Camargo could rape them. Camargo committed five rapes in this way, but did not kill any of the girls. The fifth child that they abused in this way reported the crime, and both Camargo and Esperanza were arrested and taken to separate prisons.
A judge sentenced him to three years in prison, and Camargo was initially grateful for the perceived leniency of the judge, swearing to repent and mend his ways. However, a new judge was given precedence over the case and Camargo was sentenced to eight years in prison. This provoked Camargo to rebellious anger. He served his full sentence, and was then released.
See also
- List of serial killers in Colombia