CRIME HUNTER: Brazil’s bloodiest serial killer murdered ‘for pleasure’

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Brazil’s worst serial killer Pedro Rodrigues Filho wore his intentions proudly in a garish tattoo that read: “Mato por Prazer.”

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Translation: “I kill for pleasure.”

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The monster known as The Matador killed frequently.

By his own estimate, he butchered at least 100, including his father and brother-in-law. Even prison failed to stem this raging killing machine: Matador murdered at least 40 fellow cons while behind bars.

But last weekend, Matador who was bizarrely back on the street, was cut down in a hail of bullets outside his Sao Paulo home. So far detectives have not said who the killers might be or offered a possible motive for the Sunday morning murder.

According to cops, a black car approached the serial killer while he was on the porch of his house. A single gunman shot Matador four times, leaving him dead at the scene.

A relative told local media that the masked killers told her: “It’s nothing to do with you. Take your daughter and go inside.”

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As he lay dying on the filthy pavement, one of the killers delivered the coup de grace and slit his throat.

Part folk hero part monster, Matador claims he killed at least 100 times — and deeply enjoyed his work.

His life of homicide kicked off when he was just 14 and blew the head off the deputy mayor of the town where he grew up after the politician fired his security guard father for allegedly stealing. He then murdered the man he believed was the true culprit.

Fleeing to Sao Paulo, he engaged in petty crime and met his future fiancee, Maria Aparecida Olympia. She was later brutally murdered by members of a vicious local drug gang.

In revenge, Filho and friends massacred seven and injured 16 others at a wedding organized by the gang’s leader.

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Months later, he discovered that his favourite cousin was pregnant and the baby’s father refused to marry her. The Matador took care of the cad with a bullet.

But The Matador’s father would meet a more grisly end. The seasoned killer discovered his hated father had murdered and dismembered his mother with a machete.

The killer once revealed that his abusive father had kicked his mother in the stomach while she was pregnant with him in one of their endless domestic fights.

While father and son were imprisoned, The Matador took his revenge for what the old man had done to his mother.

“I arranged a well-thought-out plan and I turned up at my father’s cell,” Filho said. “I had promised revenge on my mother’s coffin.”

Filho then proceeded to stab his father 22 times before tearing the old man’s heart out — and biting into it.

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“I just chewed it. I cut the tip of his heart off and chewed it, and I threw it on top of his body,” he later said without emotion.

But Filho claimed he never killed the innocent. He murdered rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers, assassins and traitors. Or, as he would later put it, “bad people.” His motivation, he said, was anger, not bloodlust.

The serial killer first went into the joint in 1973 after he was sentenced to 128 years in prison. He had been slated for release in 2003 (a bizarre Brazilian law stated at the time a prisoner could not be held for more than 30 years).

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But because he murdered 40 fellow convicts while caged, the judiciary kept the killer locked away and his sentence was hiked to 400 years.

Finally, in 2007 after 34 years behind bars Filho was released from prison. He quietly worked as a night watchman, but more recently he had become an anti-crime crusader and media personality.

Trouble was never far away and he was arrested again in 2011 for threatening people, illegal possession of weapons and participation in illegal riots. He was finally fully released from his sentence in 2018.

Recently, Matador launched a popular YouTube channel where he regaled fans with tales of his sordid criminal past. And he warned young people against taking up a life of crime, mayhem and murder.

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Criminologist Ilana Casoy — who met Filho — said he was a charismatic man who was “joyful, casual and intelligent.”

“He fascinated people – a reflection of our society, in a country where only 10% of homicides are brought to justice,” she told the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

MOST WANTED

DANICK MIGUEL BOURGEOIS

411: Bourgeois, 29, of St. Albert, Ont., is wanted for second-degree murder in the Dec. 16, 2015 slaying of Frederick “John” Hatch. According to the OPP, Hatch was last seen alive in Nepean. His body was found 450 km away near the Town of Erin the next morning. Bourgeois is 5-foot-8, 148 pounds, with a thin build, black hair and brown eyes.

CONTACT THE OPP: 1-833-517-8477, local police, or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).

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