Deep Dive
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All right, welcome back to another episode of Psychopedia. I am your co-host, Tank Sinatra, here with my co-host... Investigator Slater. That was herky-jerky. I almost said Tank Slater. It's your love of combining two things into one. Yeah, I love a portmanteau. You remember. Well, that was somebody on Instagram that said portmanteau. It's not a solacistic combination.
Whoa. I know. Solositsa combination is like when my friend Joe said microfine glass. Now you're just showing off.
Yeah, I mean, I got a little intelligence up there. He's sharp as a tack. The old ball dome. Investigators later still has laryngitis. We're dealing with that. She's on prednisone. So she's probably going to break the table. But we're going to get through it. We just, we're high on albuterol right now. We both just took shots off the inhaler. Yep, we're good to go. But I do apologize if my voice is a little annoying. It's never, I don't think it's ever going to be annoying. No, because I hear it and I'm like, shut up. Well, that's just, that's...
That's very common. Yeah, yeah. I think everyone hates the sound of their own voice. Yeah, I just feel like I especially hate it today. Yeah, but can you hear it? You hear it in the headphones? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Loud and clear. I want to rip my fucking headphones off. I want to rip my head off. I want to rip my tongue out. I want to rip my head off. I want to be on psychopedia. The first person to ever fucking mutilate himself. Just kidding. That's not funny. But I have a story for you. Let me hear it. It's a good one. It's a very parent-heavy story. All right, give it to me.
So I'll wrap it up with my, my weird idea. But the other day I was crushing it in dad land, like just absolutely fucking seatbelts. We went to like six different places in two hours. Nice. Very rare. That's a heavy lift. Yeah. Like I don't think I've gone six places in one day ever. Yeah. My entire life.
So not to reward them just because we were like making good time on everything. And I was like, what are we going to do? And then I looked at movie times. We were over by the movie theater and I said, you guys want to go see The Meg too? You know what that is? No. The Meg is a movie about the Megalodon shark. Okay. Huge shark. Yeah, yeah.
My older son loves it. Has watched one like 30 times. Like my worst nightmare. Yeah. The sharks are tremendous. They're like the size of buildings. Nope. Can't. Can't go there in my mind's eye. Move on. So, okay. Well, I have to tell the rest of the story so you can just fuck off for a second.
So I buy tickets. We go one more place. I say, if we are back here by whatever time, 2.15, I was like, we're going to the movie. So we get there. Everything worked out perfectly until we got into the movies. We get popcorn, drinks, whatever. My older son walked up three steps, jammed his toe.
And popcorn went literally everywhere. Like his whole popcorn was almost emptied out. Yeah. He fell on his elbows. Oh. Because he had a drink in his hand. I know, I know, I know. That's so embarrassing for him. Luckily, there wasn't a lot of people in the theater. It was 2.15. Did he get hurt? No, but he was a little pissed about the popcorn. But I was more like, fuck, there's so much popcorn on the floor. What am I going to do? And then I was like, what am I going to do? Go outside and tell them there's popcorn on the floor? They're going to be like, yeah, we know.
We'll be there after the fucking movie's done. Yeah, I'm sure it's not the first time that's happened. No, no. So we get up there and then one of the previews they showed is for The Conjuring. Oh. And my five-year-old was not into that at all. Either was I. I jumped. I'm surprised that they had that as a trailer. Me too. I was surprised too. But there's this jump scare scene and he goes like this. He jumps. I see his legs jump and I was like, oh my God, this is so good. What am I doing? Oh, baby.
So he's pretty scared. I put my hand over his eyes for the rest of the preview and he didn't even try and move. I was like, this is the right thing to do. He's just like, thank God I can't see anything. The movie starts. My younger son finishes his whole giant Fanta orange soda. Is that a pee? No, he got tired, came across, sat on me, fell asleep and then peed on me. And
And then we had to leave the movies. And my older son was pissed. No good deed goes unpunished. Like, it was just the most cursed movie visit of all time. You went for it. You swung and you missed. I did. I missed hard. Not your fault, though. And I give you credit for being a great dad. And I'm sure you didn't, you know, make him feel bad for peeing. No, which brings me to my point. Yeah. Is that
It's going to sound weird when I say this, but I'm just going to say it. Wait, can I read your mind and see if I know it? You thought of the McDonald triad? No. Oh, okay. No, no, no. There's nothing in my mind more dad or mom oriented than...
than getting peed on or thrown up on. Oh, yeah. You are in your stripes when that happens. It's just so... My oldest son shat on me in the middle of the night once. Projectile shat. I remember. I remember you telling us about that. I was changing his diaper. I've been thrown up on like there's just nothing. I'm not saying it's good, but it's
But it's not bad. It's like, I'm a dad. I'm a fucking dad. Yeah, man. Or a mom or whatever. You get peed on by a little kid and it's like, yep, this is just. And it's how you handle it too that makes you grow as a parent. And I think solidifies that bond with your child. Yeah, for sure. No, I did not make him feel bad at all. No, of course you wouldn't. Fantastic. And I just want to do a little throwback sesh. Okay. If it's okay. And then we're going to go right into the case.
Because I'm going to get this framed and put it on my wall. Can I just ask you one last question about the movie? Sure. Did you or did you not dump M&M's into the popcorn? No, we did not. Why? We don't do that. Big miss. Okay, go ahead. It's all right. It's okay. I see what the logic is. It's great. I'll take a handful of M&M's and then a handful of popcorn. Okay. But the M&M's are going to sink to the bottom of the popcorn. I don't want that. You shake it up. Anyway, move on. You shake it up. There's a risk of popcorn going everywhere. You know, this is a review from Apple, which...
If I wrote this, I don't think I could have done a better job. Oh, I can't wait to hear it. Love. Is that wrong? This is by Ace Trucking. I'm assuming this person drives a truck for a living and has nothing to do but listen to true crime podcasts. Sounds like a dream. I know.
Tank and investigator Slater are the perfect balance. Just when I'm sick to my stomach about the facts of the case, tank makes a comment or reference that provides the perfect. He said, perfect amount of levity. And man, if that doesn't just fucking tickle me, I want to bring levity to grave situations. That's what I do without disrespecting the victims without, you know, derailing the case too much. I just want to have a little fun here. Uh, investigator Slater's attention to detail and gifted prose is
are unmatched. I got the ghost, the ghost bumps. I wait for every Wednesday like a kid anticipating Christmas. Well done, you two. Oh, well done, you. Join the club, bro. When I wake up on Wednesday morning,
I feel something. And that's when I get the text that says, it's Wednesday. Yeah, it is Wednesday, which is funny because you're Wednesday. Yes, I am. Yeah. I wonder if that's why we chose Wednesday as our release day, like subconsciously. Probably. You know? Yeah. Just works with the whole theme, the whole brand. It does. I love it.
I love it. Yeah, it's very good. I love when things happen for a reason. That's all I have to say. Okay. I got a lot to say about this case. You said that this case is going to be a little bit different. A slightly different case. It's obviously true crime. It is fascinating, but victim profile-wise, a little different from what we've covered. Perpetrator-wise, a little different from what we've covered. Fascinating all the same. Can't wait to get into it.
And I know nothing about this case. No. And that to me is just really exciting. I know you love that. I really do. I also like when I kind of figure out what's happening at some point, but I really like not having any clue what I'm about to get into. It's like watching a movie. You haven't seen the previews for you. Just like the actor or the actress in it. You're like, I'm just going to go see it. Yeah. I'm just going to go see Barbie. Do you want to talk about Barbie? Nope. I certainly do not. I am Barbie tapped out.
Have you seen it yet? No. Fucking loser. I don't see, the only movies I see are documentaries related to the cases. Ryan Gosling is in it. I'm aware. I'm aware. But listen, you can keep him. He's all yours.
Good. I'm sorry. I'm not. I'm not. I don't feel the same way. Me and Ryan Little Goose fucking hanging out. I hope one day. Hope he's into true crime. Anyway, why don't you just dive right into the details of the case and I'm going to hold my breath and hope that I don't get knocked out by a tidal wave of horror. Well, you can count on that. Yeah. You ready? Wait, without further ado. Nicely done. Let's get into the case.
He is smart. Me? He is lovable. Aw. He is bloodthirsty. Yeah. He is Dexter Morgan, America's favorite on-screen serial killer who spends his days solving crimes and his nights committing them. Dexter, for those who may not be familiar with this fictional character, is a serial killer with a moral code that directs him to kill only those he finds guilty of unforgivable offenses such as murder, rape,
and harm against the innocent. Dexter himself is violent, merciless, and naughty by nature. He kidnaps his unsuspecting victims, encases them in plastic wrap, collects blood samples from their flesh to keep as trophies, and then proceeds to murder them. And yet, we, the viewers, adore this man.
We move well outside our moral boundaries and find ourselves in his corner, actually rooting for his success in killing fellow offenders. A few years ago, Dave even dressed up as Dexter at the Halloween parade in Manhattan, and we couldn't walk more than like 20 feet without people stopping him to take a picture. Really? Yeah, this is when like Dexter was really in the height of it.
of its fame. Dave's also very hot. Dave is also spicy. They probably just wanted a picture with a hottie. Possible. I'm going to try and find a picture and post it on our socials. Yeah. Just real quick.
I just want to remind people that if you're not getting enough of what you need here on the Public Facing Podcast, we do have a Patreon at patreon.com slash psychopedia pod where you can get pictures of Investigator Slater with her real teeth and episodes of Psychopedia Unhinged where we just go absolutely crazy.
off the rails berserk. Kind of like you doing right now. Yeah, it is what it is. Punctuating my intro. I am holding back. Okay. Yeah. So don't make me feel bad about it. No, you're doing great. My inability. All right. Sorry. Keep going. Okay.
Similar to all of us, Dexter maneuvers through life's complexities while clinging to a set of his own highly regarded principles that guide him. But the real allure of Dexter tends to lie in the way he embodies that critical juncture where the two most extreme facets of human behavior intersect.
He personifies the juxtaposition of a cold-blooded killer and a warm-hearted family man. Yeah. An unfeeling assassin and a supportive friend, a ruthless vigilante, and a benevolent brother. His character resonates with people because many of us, in reality, possess a little bit of Dexter within ourselves.
But would the seductiveness of Dexter decrease if he were a real person killing real people in the real world? Probably. Would we be able to justify his vigilante approach if he were really out there stabbing knives through people's hearts while wearing an apron, dish gloves, and sometimes shrink wrap around his face?
Well, I can somewhat answer these questions because I'm going to introduce you to an off-screen, real-life, self-proclaimed vigilante serial killer who has been referred to as the perfect psychopath.
This man ranks in the top five serial killers of all time globally. Really? Yep. As by his own estimate, he was responsible for taking the lives of over 100 drug dealers, criminals, rapists, and murderers. And people fucking loved him.
Serving as the inspiration for author Jeff Lindsay, who created the media sensation that is Dexter Morgan. Really? Today, we are discussing Pedro Rodriguez Filho, also known as the Brazilian Dexter, the
the South American Punisher, and the Matador. Guy had enough, huh? Yeah. He just went to town vigilante style. Yeah. Did you ever see Dexter? I've seen it. I never got that into it, but it's one of those shows that I know that is waiting for me at the right moment. Came out of the gates really strong. Yeah. Really strong first couple seasons, kind of fell off after that. But-
It was such a wild success. People really, really resonated with that vigilante character. Do you think it fell off or you just got used to it? No, it fell off. I don't, well, I can't speak for you, obviously, which I'm going to try to do even in the face of lying to you right now. I just don't like Game of Thrones, the last season. Did you watch Game of Thrones? Of course.
Did you like the last season? I did. I loved it all. Oh, good. Okay. It was fine. Yeah, sure. Everyone was like, the last season was horrible. I fucking hated it. It's like, dude, you heard somebody say that on Twitter and now you think you have to say it? The last season was fine. Yeah. We watched it very late. We watched it a couple years ago and we watched it all in one shot. I didn't remember that people hated the last season until like two months after we finished it and I was like,
Oh, I didn't even notice a difference. Yeah, Dexter, I'm not going to ruin it. I don't want to spoil it, especially if you're going to binge it. But just the way it ended, it wasn't great. It just really wasn't. You know I've loved Blacklist for a long time. Yes. Right? I don't know how, but yes. Yeah, it just got super annoying. It was super annoying from episode one. Oh, I thought it was so good. Respectfully. Okay, let's get into the case, yeah? Yeah.
The first of seven children, Pedro Rodriguez Vila was born on June 17th, 1954 on a farm in Southeast Brazil. While Pedro's mother, Manuela, was still very pregnant with him, she was kicked in her stomach by Pedro's hot-tempered, abusive, alcoholic father.
The kick to Manuela's near full-term pregnant belly was so forceful that it caused Pedro to be born with a deformed head and damage to his prefrontal cortex. And we've talked about this a couple of times by this point on Psychopedia. The prefrontal cortex is crucial for regulating social behavior, impulse control, and aggressive responses. We explored this specifically in our coverage of Patrick Mackay in episode 15 because he too was damaged in utero.
Babies born to mothers exposed to domestic violence during pregnancy often, not always, but often have an increased likelihood of experiencing mental health and or behavioral issues later in life. In Pedro's case, there definitely seemed to be a correlation between the damage he sustained to his prefrontal cortex
in utero, and the subsequent development of psychopathic traits and extremely violent behavior beginning in his very early years. That's so sad. Do you know that a normal person's prefrontal cortex, do you know when it's formed? 21. 25. 25. For men. Might be 21 for women. Right. But isn't that nuts to think that there's like 23-year-old men out there just
barely fully formed. Right. And then once it's fully formed, you got to learn how to use it and exercise. I thought by the time I was 18, I was an adult. Well, the law told you you were an adult. It's a little tricky. Yeah, they lied. I'm still not an adult, but continue. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.
My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com slash results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Pedro was not only born with a condition that in many ways predisposed him towards aggression, but he also regularly encountered violence in his environment as well.
The volatile actions of his own father remained a fixture of Pedro's childhood. And his mother, Manuela, always had one hand raised in an iron fist with the other clutching a Bible. And extending beyond the four walls of his home, the area in which Pedro was raised in Brazil was also notorious for high criminality and a significant number of fatalities. There was a saying that was often whispered around his neighborhood that said, God must exist because the devil certainly does.
So he had that less than ideal cocktail of being born with damage to his brain, which is sort of nature, albeit not genetic, and aggressive environmental influences, which is the nurture element. That's so sad. Yeah, it's...
Cards are a little bit stacked against him. I haven't heard about the stress of a baby in utero causing violent tendencies, but I have heard it in regards to addiction, and I'm sure it's the same pathways that are formed. Right. If that baby's stressed out in the womb, it comes into this world thinking that the world is, you know, an unsafe place. And then if that's exacerbated by the parents...
In the younger years, that baby slash adult doesn't have much of a chance. It's a very, very heartbreaking, tragic way to begin an uphill climb, I would imagine. He's already my hero, kind of, because he took that and turned it into something that I assume is at least good. Maybe. We may have to edit that out. Yeah, you're going to want to withhold any judgment until we get to the end.
Growing up, Pedro spent a lot of time with his grandparents, particularly his grandfather, Joaquim, who taught Pedro how to swim, plant, harvest, hunt, and fight. Sounds wholesome at first glance, until you learn that Pedro would also accompany Joaquim to his position at the local butcher shop and was introduced to the art of skillfully wielding a knife and intricately dissecting an ox carcass at a very tender age. Why is that not good? I'm going to...
say that teaching a child pre, I mean, he's before 10 years old at this point, how to carve up a carcass, I doubt it was done in a very like educational manner, although that's just me going off the cuff. Yeah. I mean, listen, I guess if it's part of like making money for the family, which it ended up becoming...
maybe it's okay. It just doesn't seem like the best idea. If it didn't turn out to be a murder, it probably would have been fine. But the thing that threw me off was that he taught him how to fight. How did he teach him how to fight? Did he fight him? Well, that's, it's funny you should say that because to me, that's not so bad. I'm not saying it's bad. It's just weird. Like how did it? Well, Dave teaches my kids how to do Brazilian jujitsu and wrestling all the time. You get punched in the face. This is what you do. If you get taken to the ground, this is what you do. Yeah. Not to go on the like offense, but the defense. Yeah.
His grandmother would also encourage Pedro to drink the blood of the slaughtered animals to gain strength. According to Pedro, it was his grandparents who instilled in him the values of being an honorable, righteous, and fair-minded individual. Wait, his grandmother made him drink the blood? Yep. That's the worst thing we've heard so far. Yeah, it's pretty nasty. By far. Pedro's entire nuclear and extended family relied upon him to bring home the bacon before he even reached the age of 10. Ha ha.
Let's go. Wow. He was a drug trafficker? No. Oh, man. I thought that was going to be it. I know. Oh, man.
drain blood from people? Nope. Not doing so good. He killed feral monkeys. Yeah, for their pelt and their meat. That seems to me wildly unlikely, but if you say that happened, that happened. You want to do some research and confirm? No, no, I think you already did the research. I just want to have an uneducated opinion. Okay. Because a kid killing a feral monkey, like that kid's got some fucking skills. We're talking about Pedro Rodriguez. Yeah. We're not talking about like...
your son who fell asleep on you in the movie theater. And peed. And peed. Yeah, very true. So violence truly engulfed Pedro from all directions, between his abusive father, the slaughtering of oxen,
of oxen and the skinning of monkeys. By the time he turned 13 in 1967, Pedro had become thoroughly hardened, utterly fearless, and a staunch adherent to a black and white sense of fairness, all while harboring intense resentment towards injustice. He assessed every situation through an all-or-nothing lens. Either something was just and right, or
or it was unjust and wrong. No room for nuance, no gray area. Yeah. And coupled with that mindset at the age of only 13, Pedro encountered his first powerful urge to take the life of a human being he deemed as having committed a grave offense.
This unforgivable injustice was committed by his older, much larger cousin when he punched Pedro in the face while accusing him of stealing a horse that Pedro was in fact only borrowing. Following the punch, Pedro's cousin proceeded to mock him, call him weak, and laugh at his expense. Instead of immediately retaliating or lashing out, 13-year-old Pedro kept his composure, looked his cousin square in the eye, and calmly said, I'm going to kill you.
Then, a few weeks later, while working together at a sugar cane mill, Pedro nonchalantly but resolutely shoved his cousin into an industrial-sized sugar cane juicer containing an enormous steel press. Ooh, yeah. His cousin's arm was immediately eviscerated by the steel jaws of the machine.
though his head and shoulders wouldn't fit through the rollers of the press. Oh my God. So Pedro decided to expedite the process by grabbing a machete and viciously hacking away at his cousin's trapped body with the intention of later pushing the severed flesh through the rollers of the sugar cane press, effectively crushing and flattening every single part of his cousin's body. And that's on fucking sugar.
That's like, wow. No meth involved in this one. No, I meant to say like to shove someone into a juicer and have their arm get stuck, but then their shoulders and head were too big to get pulled into it.
The fucking brutality of that. Yes. And to reach for a machete because it's not happening quick enough. You'd be better off maybe, I don't know. I feel like that's one step above shoving somebody into a wood chipper, which is also awful. Yeah. But a wood chipper, at least it's like there's space. A juicer is like tight fucking grinding gears. Yes. Yes, it is.
All Pedro really succeeded in doing was to mangle his cousin's arm in the rollers of the press before people came rushing over to intervene. The fucking arm was probably gone, obviously. Oh, it was eviscerated. Pedro was, of course, arrested and forced to spend a couple of nights in jail, but his grandfather bailed him out and refused to press charges.
As the family relied upon Pedro to continue working in order to bring home money. Wouldn't the cousin want to press charges or his parents? Same deal. So now that he was essentially unable to work. Yeah. The entire family was now relying even heavier on Pedro. He got himself a promotion. Shit. Talk about cutthroat. I mean, I'm very, I don't mean to belabor the point, but I'm very hung up on the fact that, how old is he at this point? 14? 13. 13? Yeah.
I'm just thinking of videos I've seen where like a fucking car engine gets thrown into a grinder and it bounces around for a minute and then eventually it gets caught on the right angle at the right grip and then it just rips it through. I mean, the kid's arm. Okay, let's maybe move on so I don't have to think about it anymore. Okay.
So because Pedro was just a minor at the time, his sole punishment was to clean the blood and flesh of his cousin's mutilated arm off the machine. Which he liked. Which turned out to be a painstaking task that took him four weeks to complete. Wow. Yeah, there's a lot of moving pieces in there. Yes, and he had to clean out each one.
And it has to be noted that Pedro never expressed feeling any remorse for maiming his cousin. In fact, he would repeatedly tell the story of what he'd done to anyone willing to listen, indicating that he took immense pleasure in writing an injustice.
But his cousin punched him in the face, right? And accused him of stealing a horse. I mean, it's a little bit of an overreaction. So this is the very tricky part, which we'll get into in a little while, about vigilantism. Sure. That's why when you said...
would we keep that same energy for someone who's doing it in real life? Absolutely not. Because with Dexter, you don't even have to think about it, but you have just built in, you assume that whoever he's killing deserves to die. Whereas when it's a real person, it's like, you're not judge, jury, and executioner, dude. And a vigilante is exactly that. Yeah. Aside from not feeling any remorse for what he'd done or the fact that his cousin was now permanently disfigured,
What this incident did on a macro level was to whet Pedro's growing appetite for actually killing somebody in the name of correcting injustice and righting a wrong. A year later, another event transpired during which Pedro found himself driven to rectify a perceived injustice, this time in response to an injustice committed against his father. Pedro Sr. had been working as a night security guard at a school for 12 years straight and
when he was suddenly accused of stealing food from the cafeteria. Despite denying the accusations and correctly pointing the finger at the day guard, who was truly to blame for the missing food, Pedro's father was fired from this job by the deputy mayor and branded a thief. This made it almost impossible for Pedro Sr. to pick up alternative work, which had a negative financial impact on the family. Young Pedro's thirst for revenge escalated
absolutely consumed him following this incident. Yeah. Propelling him to take action in order to address this most recent wrongdoing. So pop quiz. Yes. What did Pedro do next? I can feel the horrific nature of these choices in my bones. Yeah. You're getting that spidey tingle. Yeah. As I like to call it.
A, disappeared into the mountains for several weeks with a rifle, machete, and a tent. Disappear for a couple of weeks, hurts nobody. Just does this thing, he disappears with a rifle, machete, and a tent. Right. I mean, you could think a little bit beyond what I said to what it means or what it might mean, why somebody might do that. If you want to put a little thought into this pop quiz. Okay. B, decapitated the deputy mayor and placed his head in the refrigerator at the school to make a statement. C,
hung the mayor by a hook at the slaughterhouse before slitting his throat. I mean, one of those choices is much different than the others.
So he went into the woods with a machine gun? Yeah, okay. What does that mean? I don't even know what it's saying. I'm going to tell you. Oh. At 14 years old, Pedro disappeared into the wilderness for 30 days where he hunted and lived off the land, hardening himself physically while formulating a plan for revenge. So at 14 years old, he took himself off, isolated himself, hardened himself, lived off the land, and prepped for revenge. He gave himself a bar mitzvah.
He became a man. He became about his business. Yeah. Well, I think that that's absolutely wild. Yeah. That is of the, I mean, the two other choices were so direct and like, you know, in the vein of what's happening, the other one just made no sense, but he was prepping himself. Yeah. Ugh.
Can I tell you something? Yeah. You could have said, and I'm helping you now, which I shouldn't do because I suck at these and you're very good at them, but he disappeared into the woods with a machete and whatever. He spent eight hours a day kicking trees with his calves to toughen himself up and then another one where he ran five miles a day and read David Dobbins. So all physically intense training. Physically and psychologically. Right. Intense training. Right, right, right. Okay, note to self. Yeah. Fuck, I shouldn't have said that. I'm getting this.
So messed with you. Whatever. So upon his return, armed with a .36 caliber rifle on a moonlit night, Pedro conceals himself in the darkness adjacent to the deputy mayor's residence. Deputy. Then, as the mayor's jeep entered the driveway, Pedro took aim and fired.
Writing that sweet, sweet high...
Pedro decided to also cleanse the world of the day guard at the school who was the actual culprit responsible for stealing food from the school cafeteria. Deputeria. And here's what he did. Pedro hid in a storage room at the school and waited for the day guard to show up for his shift the following morning. When he arrived, Pedro pressed a gun against the guard's head while forcing him to sit down in a chair.
In this solemn moment, Pedro provided his victim with the rationale or justification for his forthcoming action, which was to terminate his life. Kid's 14, by the way. Right. Exactly right. Now, this scenario may resonate with Dexter enthusiasts because it mirrors the modus operandi of Dexter Morgan in his dealings with victims post-abduction slash pre-execution. It also aligns with the archetype of various superheroes who provide life
lengthy narratives prior to taking out their adversaries. So he's really taking on that role of
I am cleansing the world of an injustice. Yeah. And you're going to hear about like the good act I'm about to do. And we can assume he's never seen Dexter, right? We can definitely assume that. Yes. Considering he was the inspiration years later. Yeah. And HBO wasn't even founded yet. No, but you know that they're books, right? No. Darkly Dreaming Dexter. I read the books before I even saw the series. The author is Jeff Lindsay. Really good.
Were the books better than the series? I am afraid to tell you yes. Obviously. The way you said that. It's funny to me that people say the book is better than the movie. It's like, yeah, obviously. Oh, oh, you're, okay. The author had infinite time to develop characters and, you know, inject detail. And more than that, the reader gets to decide
The setting. Like visualize the setting and visualize the characters and you tailor it to what you want to see. Yeah. I read a book once called Mystic River. Have you ever heard of that book? Have you ever seen the movie? No. Fucking no.
Investigator Slater, in all of the free time that you have, right? That's a joke. Mr. Griver, I read in one night. All the free time you have. Never in my life. I read that when I was like 22. It was the best book I've ever read in my entire life. Wow. And you read a lot. Yeah. Well, as far as fiction goes, it was the best book. It was just the...
When people say books are gripping or whatever, I'm like, eh, whatever. It's fucking overused. That book was gripping. I'm going to give it a go. Mr. Griver. Great movie, by the way, with Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon. I was going to say Brad Pitt. No, the guy from Shawshank Redemption? Yeah, Tim Robbins. Yeah. Real quick story. The three of them are young. One of them gets kidnapped. He gets brought back, whatever it is, two or three weeks later. He's forever changed.
Fast forward 30 years, they're all adults. One of the friend's daughters gets killed and then it's like off to the fucking races of figuring out who did it. Damn. Oh, it's so good. According to Pedro, he looked the day guard in the eye and delivered the following monologue. I'm going to try to say this in like my best Bruce Wayne voice. Okay. Let's see how this goes. Do you see what you did? It destroyed my family.
My brothers are starving because of you. Is it fair that you did this? How was it? Wow. Oh man, you look pretty like Shook. Well, I'm acting too. Oh, you dickhead.
Wait, what did he say? Because I'll say it in my regular voice. No, just say it in your regular voice. Do you see what you did? It destroyed my family. John Wayne is like this. Do you see what you did? Not John Wayne. It's Bruce Wayne. Batman, motherfucker. Batman, Bruce Wayne. I think you said John Wayne, but we will only find out when it's already too late for both of us. And it'll be a fun little treat for the listeners to tell us which one is wrong. And I'm pretty sure it's me. I think it's you, but...
He was basically delivering this whole monologue to the day guard saying, because of what you did, my father lost his job. My brothers are starving. We have no money. Yeah. This is just me taking your life is just, I'm going to kill you. He's 14. That is insane. The man burst into tears, the day guard and begged for his life while Pedro aimed his gun and pulled the trigger.
twice, killing him on the spot. Yeah. Then Pedro covered the body with empty boxes and set the storage room on fire before exiting a escola. What a little psycho. Pedro, who again is just 14 years old at this point in the case, fled the city after committing double homicide and journeyed to Sao Paulo. There he sought refuge with his godmother to evade law enforcement who were actively pursuing him at this point. Yeah, obviously.
Because remember, just to give you a quick tally, he did what he did to his cousin. He killed the deputy mayor. Yep. And he killed the day guard. Well, you kill the deputy mayor, they're going to be looking for you. I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy mayor.
So once he arrived in Sao Paulo, Pedro did not exactly keep a low profile as he immediately linked up with the beautiful widow of a well-known drug trafficker, a woman named Botina, a.k.a. Booty. As in little boots, not badonk. Wait, as in what? Little boots, like on your feet. Not badonk. Not badonk. So she didn't, she was not packing. She may have been packing, but her name came out of footwear.
Not her butt. Not junk in the trunk. Booty was a big wig in her own right and used her good looks and influence to lure young teenagers into both her criminal organization and her pants, which is exactly what she did to Pedro. Because in addition to taking young 14-year-old Pedro under her wing, into her home, and inside her criminal enterprise... And inside her vagina. She also took his virginity.
By taking such actions, Booty not only committed statutory rape, of course, which is not funny, but also stirred up resentment among certain adult members of the cartel who felt envious of her involvement with young Pedro. Wait, how old is she? She's a woman. She's an adult. She was the widow of a huge drug trafficker, but in and of herself, she was a big deal. So Botina, a.k.a. Booty, full-grown woman, the widow of a cartel member? Yes.
rapes Pedro, statutory rapes Pedro. I mean, he's 14. He's a kid. Yeah. But he's like, I mean, he's more of a man than...
Well, he's definitely engaging in some pretty adult behavior, but he's still 14 years old. This woman for sure preyed upon him. I don't think we can emphasize enough that he's literally 14 years old. I know, and I feel like I'm... I hate this expression, but I feel like I'm beating a dead horse by constantly reminding you of his age, but it's really, really important to keep that in mind because it just highlights...
The fact that this guy lives, this boy lives on another plane from reality. Well, he was, I mean, kicked in the head in utero. And he grew up in a very, very violent ambience, both in his neighborhood and with his abusive father. Yeah, Brazil is a tough, I mean, I don't know exactly where he was, but I think there's very few areas of Brazil that are not tough. Well, it was also, you know, in the 70s, very, very tough, very rough and tough. Yeah. Yeah.
So these three older cartel guys who were jealous of Booty's relationship, and I'm doing air quotes for relationship, with Pedro, they came together and they strategized to eliminate their fresh new competition.
So they staged an ambush against Pedro on a scorching hot afternoon by luring him to a secluded lagoon under the pretense that they were going to jump in and get cool. But these three bigger men proved no match for
Yeah. Yeah.
Pedro established his dominance and reputation as an individual not to be trifled with. So just to speak to his brutality and his willingness to hurt, part of the reason why I was so thrown off by the monkey thing is because monkeys are absolutely vicious. Like a seven pound monkey will fuck you up. And a feral one at that. Because they don't have what, like we have strength, but we don't have strength.
But we have governors in our brains to keep us from being fully strong. Like there's stories of mothers lifting a car off of a baby, her child that's underneath it. Like that's not something you could do on a regular Tuesday. You'd have to be pumped full of adrenaline and have a reason to do it. That's how animals operate all the time. Fight or flight or chill. And for him to be able to kill a feral monkey as a child, like he has no inhibitions regarding violence whatsoever. No.
And a complete physical ability to do this as well. Like, he's fast. And he's well thought out. And he's in tune with, like, being on his guard on top of his game. Like, these are very mature elements of a personality, I feel like. Yeah. And obviously, they're being used negatively. 100%. But... But I'm just saying, like, my son... I mean, he's nine. And so Pedro's 14. So obviously, there is a big difference between a 14-year-old. But, like, he has, like, no...
Like the top half of his body doesn't know what the bottom half of his body is doing. He's like awkward and clumsy and you know what I mean? Like if I call his name and he's in the middle of walking, he will run into a wall. This is commonplace. Yeah.
This kid's drawing guns on the fucking cartel before they have a chance to realize what he's doing. Yeah. And he's taking them out. Yeah. I mean, I got to read that book. It's wild. Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Yeah. I mean, that's the fiction version. There's plenty of books, of course, on Pedro, which I can recommend.
So after he did this, after he opened fire on the fucking cartel and brought them down, not the whole thing, but like some senior members. Yeah, members of the cartel. He gained the sexy moniker Cartridge Petey due to his weapon of choice, which was a two-shot, 12-gauge sawn-off pipe shotgun.
Terminator 2. Fuck, man. This kid's intense. Yeah. Needless to say, Pedro was accumulating enemies from various quarters, ranging from official law enforcement officers to Brazil's infamous death squads. These death squads, or the
Escuadrillo de Morte was part of a paramilitary organization that emerged in the late 1960s to persecute, torture, and kill suspected criminals regarded as dangerous to society with the consent of the military government.
In other words, government-sanctioned murderers. Yeah. By this point, Pedro had to watch his back constantly and was living a transient life out of cars, cemeteries, churches, because death lurked around everywhere
every corner at this point. He was paranoid because he knew all too well that he had a glaring target on his back from the cartel to death squads, law enforcement, every single person and group of people that he's ever pissed off back at home, right? After killing the mayor and the night guard to where he is now. And one of those things would be enough to have after you. Absolutely. Yeah.
But ultimately, this phase of his life as a drug trafficking street kid ultimately came to an end after he was wounded in a shootout with Brazilian police during a drug transaction in which Booty was killed. Now in physical bad shape, Pedro sought refuge with some extended family members so that he could lick his wounds for a bit. Pop quiz. What happened when Pedro arrived at his extended family's home?
A, they completely handed over their home to the now 16-year-old out of fear for him because his reputation preceded him. Yeah. B, induct him into the practice of black magic. C, report him to the death squad. Yeah, this is a better one. There's some holes in it, but it's okay. I wish you guys could see her. Talk about like a fucking death squad. I am going to take you out. A.
They completely handed over their home? No. Well, it doesn't matter if you're good at them or not. I'm not. C. Nope.
See, the choices are not aligned. They don't have to be. They should be, Investigator Slater. Says who? Induct him into the home, call the police on him, or teach him about black magic. Take your shot. Well, now you fucked up, so I'm going to tell you it's obviously the one you didn't choose. Yeah, they inducted him into black magic. Yeah. Which is terrible. It's nuts. Well, he doesn't need black magic. Well, he thinks he does. He is black magic. But where he goes from this point on is it,
It like catapults him into an absolutely outrageous string of killings. So it's about to get worse. It's a lot worse. Hear me out. Okay. His relatives were practitioners of Condomble Macumba, a religion sometimes considered to be witchcraft or black magic or psychotherapy for the poor. That's in quotes. All right. Not my phrase.
It's a highly ritualized belief system encompassing spirit offerings, ceremonial dancing, and animal sacrifices. Adherents often report becoming possessed by spirits, and the most sacred and symbolic substance in the rituals is blood. Pedro believed that being inducted into this faith would mean that he'd have spirits to protect him from his enemies.
So he insisted that his family indoctrinate him because remember at this point, he's paranoid. He knows he is a target on his back. So he thinks now he has the solution. So imagine going from doing what he's doing, but being fearful to doing what he's doing and thinking he's indestructible. Yeah. It escalates from here. For sure. We're going to do another pop quiz. Okay, good. All right. What was Pedro required to do to prepare for the indoctrination ceremony?
A, slice his left wrist, an extension of his heart, and walk around the house seven times while leaking 77 drops of his blood as an offering. Sounds more like OCD than black magic. Keep going. I used to have OCD and I had to count ritualistically, so I get that. Yeah. B, sacrifice a willing elder of the faith. C, gather together a coconut, an all-black cat, gunpowder, and seven string beans.
I'm speechless. He had to sacrifice a willing member? Nope. Oh, fuck. He had to do the thing with the string beans? Yes. Okay. The other one, A, was pretty specific too. What did he have to do? He had to gather together a coconut, an all black cat,
gunpowder, and seven string beans. Seven string beans. So after shaving off all of his hair and eyebrows... Purification. Pedro killed the cat. I'm sorry that I had to utter those words. Drank its blood and then covered himself in the cat's blood and entrails while in a trance. The carcass of the cat was then filled with the seeds and buried while a group of people danced and drummed around Pedro.
One week later, Pedro dug up the cat's remains, threaded the seeds onto a string, and wore them as a necklace to serve as a defense against harm. Pedro truly felt connected to this experience and now, at 16 years old, felt that he had become invincible. He no longer feared the police or the death squads and, crucially, no longer viewed his enemies as real threats.
In an autobiography written years later, Pedro said the following, From that point on, cops opened fire, but their bullets didn't hit me. You wrote a book? The enemies attacked, and I defended myself with ease. Nothing would stop me. Before, I was afraid. But after the ceremony, it was as if nothing could affect me. Wow.
From that moment on, Pedro had officially become a self-proclaimed defender of the weak and vulnerable. What a guy. In his mind. Exactly. He hijacked food trucks and fed the hungry living in slums. He burned down shops that cheated the poor. He defended the honor of women killing the men who cheated or harmed them. And anyone who harmed an animal would receive the exact same pain and punishment that was inflicted upon the animal. What?
What about him with the cat? Well, that didn't count because that was part of a ceremony. Serial killers can be categorized typically into four major types according to motivation. We've touched upon this in previous cases. Sounds familiar. There's the visionary type that attributes his crimes to visions or voices directing the killing. Missionary. Mission oriented. Very good.
The second is hedonistic. Okay. The hedonistic serial killer will kill for the pleasure derived from the act of killing. Yeah. Then there's the power control oriented type who derives gratification from exerting control over a helpless victim. And finally, as you touched upon, the mission oriented killer who sees his goal as ridding the world of certain types of people perceived as undesirable. He's mission oriented. He's mission oriented. Yeah. Exactly. So he sees himself as...
when in fact, he's just a certain type of serial killer. Shortly after this, Pedro left Sao Paulo and headed to West Rio de Janeiro where he met the love of his life, a girl named Maria Apricito Olimpia. Amazing pronunciation. Thank you, sir. Say it again. Just kidding. I'm joking. I'm joking. Just go. Maria Apricito Olimpia. Very good. Nailed it. Bonita. Booty. Patina. Yeah.
After Maria became pregnant, she and Pedro moved into a modest little shack together while Pedro continued stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. And the legend of Cartridge Petey ran through the slums of Brazil's largest cities where he was both admired and feared, accruing a body count along the way that essentially meant he'd always have enemies and could never really let his guard down. Yeah.
Danger not only posed a direct threat to Pedro, but of course also extended to those he loved. Which is why, unsurprisingly, in 1971, a day arrived in which Pedro returned home to his shack after carrying out his role as a just avenger to discover his love, Maria, who was seven months pregnant with his child, dead and slaughtered. And written on the wall of their home in Maria's blood were the chilling words, We will get you.
That must have fucking sent him on a rampage. He swore on his slain wife and unborn child that he would find their killer and exact revenge. So when people, I have a question, and you may not know the answer to it, but that's okay. Serial killers who are typically devoid of emotions or whatever, when they're doing the act of killing, when something bad happens to them, do they feel anything or are they just like, do they know it's supposed to be bad?
Like, do you think that he felt anything when his love was killed? Yes. And this is why there are plenty of people who do not find Pedro to be a psychopath, but rather a sociopath.
which is different. He for sure connected with people. He connected with the people he loved. He felt empathy. He was trying to serve the poor because he felt something for them. He was not devoid of emotion. So there, in the earlier years when this, you know, when he came to the public light, plenty of people referred to him as the quote unquote perfect psychopath. Afterwards, when more, you know, psychoanalysis was done and different people took a shot at it, I think it was
determined that he was not a psychopath. Yeah. Okay. If that answers your question. Yeah. For more than a year following this tragic incident in which his wife and unborn child were killed,
Pedro was unwavering in his mission to find the people who did it. He made hundreds of inquiries and tortured anyone who was not forthcoming with information relating to the person or people responsible for the killings. Whether they had the information or not, I'm sure. Right. That's right. Eventually, Pedro identified the person accountable for orchestrating the attack. This individual turned out to be a drug dealer named China, whom Pedro had stolen from on previous occasions.
So remember, he's accumulating enemies with everything he does. So it's not surprising. No. He almost didn't know where to begin in trying to find somebody who would have a vendetta. Could be anybody. Literally. It could be law enforcement or it could be people on the streets. Yeah. Brandishing his trademark 12-gauge shotgun, self-righteous, vigilante-esque, homicidal maniac Pedro arrived at the wedding ceremony
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
The wedding was an absolute bloodbath, just like in Game of Thrones, the red wedding. Yeah. And it earned him legendary status in the criminal world of Sao Paulo. Yeah. From that day forward, Pedro, aka Cartridge Petey, had henceforth become known as Pedrino Matador, which translates to mean killer Petey. Matador means killer? Yeah.
Pedrino Matador was a man not to be fucked with. A cold-blooded, fearless vindicator who would stop at nothing to exact vengeance upon any man who wronged him or the ones he loved. He even got a tattoo on his arm that said, I kill for pleasure, which is actually the complete opposite of vigilantism, I'd think, but here we are.
According to an interview that Pedro gave years later, at that period in his life, he killed at least one person every single day. He later told a reporter, I would summon the devil. It was a ritual. It was like, it's yours. This body is yours. This blood is yours. He'd give his life and will over the care of the devil every day? No, I think he was saying that the devil was referring to his victims in that way. Oh.
These bodies are yours. This blood is yours.
Wow. He would kill his victims and drink their blood, believing that the blood of his enemies would make him stronger, which is something that was instilled in him at a very young age from his grandmother. Yeah. And whenever he didn't kill, Pedro would grow agitated and find himself unable to sleep that night. Oh my God. Because remember, he firmly believed that he was purging society of evil. So if a day passed without him cleansing the world of injustice, it weighed heavily on
On his warped psyche. That's how I feel when I don't post a meme. Oh my God. He can't sleep. He were depriving us of humor and comedic levity. So relatable. But the wedding massacre had been a tall order. Yeah. And authorities had begun closing ranks on Padrino Matador in spite of the black magic protection that he felt continued to shield him.
Then on May 24th, 1973, Pedro was ambushed by the police and taken down in a dramatic gunfight during which men were literally screaming out for his death. Legit battle cries. Yeah. When Pedro woke up several days later from his injuries, he found himself handcuffed to a hospital bed, badly wounded, and surrounded by doctors, nurses, police, and several news cameras.
At just 18 years old now, he's still only 18 at this point. Yeah, that's crazy. Pedrino Matador was officially caught and charged with murder.
So they made him a hero. Fucking idiot media. Yeah.
Pedro was relocated to a prison. So finally, this guy's locked up. And you'd think that that would be the end of it. No. Only the beginning. He had been formally found guilty of 14 counts of murder, although he maintained by then that he had actually taken the lives of more than 100 men.
Well, now he's going to be in a prison where the people are convicted of crimes and it's like fish in a barrel for him. You are spot on, Tank. Spot on. This was a fucking playground for him.
So Pedro received a 126-year sentence and was sent to the Araquara prison, a place that was absolutely teeming with his adversaries. But in true form, this did not scare him one bit. Probably so excited. Pop quiz. Okay. While being transported from the hospital to the prison, what happened?
A, the police transport van was intercepted by a media van, resulting in a collision that allowed Pedro to make his escape. B, Pedro killed two other criminals riding in the back of the police van with him. C, Pedro hijacked the police van and led a high-speed televised highway chase. Wow. I mean, the easy choice is that he killed two of the prisoners in the back of the van. So...
You should give me nothing right now. I was looking for a little something. I know what you're looking for. You're not getting it. Is that what he did? Yes. Oh, okay. It was really hard for me to keep a poker face. You were like. I was like biting my tongue. So he killed two prisoners. Because one guy in the back was a murderer and one guy was a serial rapist. Yeah. It was the fucking best day of his life. Yeah.
In the 1970s, Brazilian prisons overall garnered a reputation as some of the harshest and most brutal correctional facilities globally.
Araquara prison in particular had inhumane conditions like overcrowding, unsanitary and unsafe conditions, corrupt guards, and gang warfare. It was also rife with infectious diseases like TB and dengue fever, which is a virus transmitted by mosquitoes. It causes high fever and joint pain.
Brutal inmate beatings were a daily occurrence and death was common. Yeah, sure. It was extremely rare for an inmate to remain alive in jail for 15 years before ultimately being killed by either an enemy or a disease. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. For the majority of prisoners, the lone path to survival lie in affiliating with a gang that could offer a measure of safeguarding. Yeah, even a little bit is helpful. Right. And upon his arrival, Pedro entered the prison with an immense situation
symbolic bullseye on his back. Really? Sure.
Because all the gangs and people he fucked with on the outside, their brothers were on the inside. I thought he would be like the king of the jail. Yes and no. Yeah. Not only were there men inside who were members of the same gangs that he'd brutalized on the outside, but he also had high profile celebrity status by this point, thanks to all of the media attention he garnered. Yeah, as a vigilante, I guess he's almost going in there like as a cop.
but as a cop who will do horrific things to his enemies. Right. Wow. As such, almost immediately, Pedro was jumped by five men in the prison yard. But by the end of the fight, three of those men were killed and two were so severely wounded that they surrendered. Wow. The legend of the fearless 18-year-old Pedrino Matador. Oh my God, he's 18. AKA the People's Avenger reached...
exponential heights by this point. Wow. Is he big? No, he's not particularly big at all. He's just fucking ruthless. Yeah, okay. He went on a killing rampage inside the prison and was essentially praised on the outside for ridding the world of these criminals. In total, Pedro went on to murder 48 of his fellow inmates. Oh my God.
In his first three days. Prison was a good time for this cat. Yeah. That is until death struck down one of his own. It all changed for Pedro when one day the prison director informed him that his mother, Manuela, had been stabbed 21 times to death in her sleep with a machete by Pedro Sr. No. Yeah.
who also tried to kill Pedro's brothers. They escaped, thankfully, but the mother did not. Why? Because he's a hot-headed maniac. Oh, yeah, I forgot. The father was violent. Now, even though Manuela was a very tough mother growing up, Pedro considered her to be the holiest woman on earth. Yeah. And her death was something he could not or would not tolerate.
When a judge allowed Pedro to attend his mother's funeral, he swore over her coffin that he would avenge her brutal murder. So cinematic. Yeah.
But there was nothing he could do on that precise day because his father was arrested and taken to a different prison following the murder. Oh. So he had to bide his time. Transfer. In the meantime, Pedro continued killing fellow inmates and expanding upon his outside fan base as well as a pool of people who wanted nothing more than to see his demise.
What do you do with someone who just keeps killing people in jail? Just give them more time or like... Well, the thing that you shouldn't do is put him in gen pop over and over and over again. I like how you just said gen pop like you're in jail. I mean, I am gangsta. But the thing to remember, the reason why I gave you like a little brief sort of overview of the Brazilian correctional system at this point is because it was so corrupt.
You're not talking about a pristine system with, you know, checks and balances in place. You're talking about a very, very corrupt, diseased, unsanitary hellhole. Well, you're also talking about the 70s, which is, I mean, I've watched...
World's toughest prisons recently. And the prisons in Mexico and South America are just... I mean, yeah, they're cells kind of, but it's more like mattresses just strewn about and... There's a hole in the floor. Lack of food. That they use as a toilet. Yeah. And as the new guy, Pedro was forced to sleep essentially on top of the hole. Oh, my God. Yeah. Very rough conditions. Now, one week following his mother's funeral...
Pedro received a visit from his aunt, his father's sister, and something felt sus. She brought a cake with her, okay? And he knew that this cake could not be trusted. So rather than eat the cake himself, Pedro served it to his cellmates as well as to some stray dogs around the prison. Within minutes, everyone who ingested the cake had begun to violently vomit. Wow. Because the cake indeed...
Pedro Sr. Yes, sir. Obviously. Yes, sir.
It was go time. I can't believe this story is real, by the way. I know. I feel like I'm even saying it like a movie narrator because it just has that element of disbelief. Yeah. So Pedro stole a gun and keys from one of the prison guards in the new facility and forced the remaining guards into his cell, which he then locked.
Then he made his way over to his father's cell and pounced on his dad with a knife, counting out loud each time he plunged the knife into his father's body. When he reached the number 22, he came to an abrupt stop because Pedro wanted to be sure that he stabbed his father exactly one time more than his father had stabbed his mother. Pop quiz, Tank. Okay. What happened next?
A. Two guards and the prison director entered the cell, prompting Pedro to kill all of them. B. Pedro castrated his father and hung his penis and testicles out of the bars of the cell. A. C. Pedro removed his father's heart from his chest and proceeded to sink his teeth into it. Oh, my God. Oh, um, castrated his father? No. Good. Okay. Okay.
He ate his father's heart? Yes. He cut his father's heart out of his chest. He sliced off a chunk. He chewed on it for a bit, realized that he couldn't like chomp it down and swallow it. And he spit it out onto his father's slaughtered corpse. What a fucking, I mean, how is he not, why don't they just shoot him? The guards, they
They like it? They must like it. Well, he locked these particular... Yeah, just anybody. Yeah, sure. Again, it goes back to how corrupt the prisons were. Yeah. I mean, they must be like, all right, this guy's cleaning up a little bit. He's getting rid of like the worst. Could be. Could absolutely be. On the outside of prison, he was celebrated for what he was doing on the inside. Oh my God. So the cycle of brutal killings persisted within the confines of this new prison. Yeah. He decapitated a man named Claudio.
and began committing murders upon request by this point. People would write him letters from the outside requesting that he murder people on the inside who did them wrong. And if he deemed their injustices as unforgivable, he would carry out murder upon request. Wow.
And in addition to receiving death requests, Pedro also received a fair share of fan mail, including love letters and marriage proposals. And there is actually a term used to describe the paraphilia of being sexually aroused by a criminal offender. Love after lockup? No.
That's very catchy and definitely on TV. That's the name of a show. I know. Yeah. But no, it's not that. What is it called? I'm going to ask you. I'm going to give you some choices. Oh, there's a paraphilia and it's a pop quiz. You know I love me a good paraphilia. Which is my paraphilia. It's pop quizzes. A, hebristophilia. Hebristophilia. B, chlismophilia. Chlismophilia. C, sapophilia. Sapophilia.
Hebristophilia, sickle cell anemia, or hebrastophilia. Or clismophilia. Clismophilia. No. That wasn't my guess. That wasn't my guess. Syphiophilia.
Is it your guess? I'm giving you a minute. No. Yeah, that was not my guess. Clismophilia. You just said that, man. I did? Yeah. Didn't I say hybristophilia? No, you didn't. All right. Anyway, I don't even know where we are. You were going to say what? The correct answer is hybristophilia, which is also known as the Bonnie and Clyde syndrome. Oh.
And it is the paraphilia of being sexually aroused by a criminal offender. And there are plenty people with that paraphilia. Oh, yeah. And I just want to tell you, clismophilia is the paraphilia of getting sexual arousal by giving and or receiving an enema. Okay. And sapophilia is a fetish or a paraphilia for learning and gaining wisdom. Yeah, it's like a sapiophile. What's that? Or sapiosexual. I don't know what that is. Sapiosexual is when you're turned on by somebody's intelligence.
Almost exclusively. Oh, wow. Yeah. Cool, man. You knew that. In 1982, psychiatrists inside the prison unsurprisingly initially diagnosed Pedro with psychopathy, paranoia, and antisocial personality disorder while indicating that he was driven by a violent affirmation of self-doubt.
His official confirmed body count amounted to 71, earning him a cumulative sentence of 400 years. So in answer to your question, he was tacked on years for the murders he was busted for committing inside.
The authorities finally decided that he'd never be able to play nicely with others, and in 1985 decided to send him to the Taubate Maximum Security Center, which was located 80 miles outside of Sao Paulo, where he was to have no contact with any prisoner. No, he can't. He underwent a decade of isolation, confined to solitary from 1992 to 2002.
Throughout those 10 years, his sole interaction with fellow human beings consisted of guards and the occasional journalist who was brave enough to venture inside for interviews. That is a brave fucking journalist. Oh, yeah. But remember, the media's fascination with Pedro persisted inexhaustibly.
And they continued to place this quote-unquote vigilante hero in the spotlight for exacting retribution upon those who inflicted harm, particularly upon women, children, and the less privileged. So you can see a little bit from an outsider looking in under this very, very, very just
basic cloak he comes across as heroic I mean I mean he's not I don't think that yeah but you have to also remember how the media portrayed him well you have to also understand how the media portrays anything that's interesting to people true they will just if it gets views and clicks then they will yeah jump all over it until it stops right
So we're coming now towards the end and we're going to talk a little bit about the end of his term, if you will. Yeah. What I'm about to say next is nuts. I researched this obsessively because I absolutely could not handle it and because I have sophophilia. Uh-huh.
The maximum sentence that any criminal in Brazil can receive, and this includes confirmed murderers and serial killers, is 40 years. And that's because Article 5 of the Brazilian Constitution stipulates that
that there will be no penalties of a perpetual nature. Meaning, nobody in Brazil can be sentenced to life in prison. Didn't he get like 400 years? Yes, but not to be served. So listen, the Brazilian penal code was established when the average life expectancy was 43 years old and it has not been updated since. Wow. Which effectively caps the maximum prison sentence that can be served by any one individual for 40 years. So this ensures that someone...
unless they die before their sentence, will likely be released at some point. However, giving somebody a 40-year sentence, knowing that they're going to die within 15 years from a murder or sickness, it's the same thing. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. But...
Pedrino Matador, who in and of himself was a lethal weapon, was released from prison on April 4th, 2007. Oh my God. Yes.
He moved into a pink cottage in a rural area of Brazil with his pet Labrador, started attending church regularly, and took up work on a farm. He must have just binged the fuck out of Dexter. Probably. He did struggle to acclimate to this new world of technology and skyscraper buildings and the internet. Relatable.
Yeah. The world was a completely different place. So he served 40 years? He's actually served 34. Did he stop killing people in jail? Yeah, because at this point he was sanctioned, remember? Oh, so he couldn't. Right. But he would have. He would have. Yeah.
Even though he kept to himself upon release, authorities were not happy about Pedro's new status as a free man. And they worked hard at figuring out a way to place him back behind bars. Yeah. Incredibly, on September 15th, 2011, Pedro was released from prison.
Pedro was re-arrested on charges of having participated in a riot during his previous incarceration and having taken a prison guard hostage. He received another eight-year prison term. And once more, the media frenzy ensued. Documentary filmmakers, authors, journalists visited him regularly over the course of those eight years. He was released again in 2017 at the age of 64.
At which point he wrote an autobiography, which I referenced earlier. Yeah. Along with becoming which of the following things? Pop quiz. Okay. A, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor. Okay. B, a death squad officer. Whoa. C, a YouTube star. C. Yeah.
Yeah. Why are you sad? You got it right. I didn't because I just think it's insane that people, like there's this big thing now on YouTube of like ex-mafia members just fucking doing like telling everything. Oh, really? And the fact that it's
cool, kind of, or seen as cool. I mean, growing up in the 80s and 90s, I don't live by this, so I don't die by this. But I understand there are different rules for them where it's like, if you live a life of crime, you know, you don't have to work for a living, but you do have to commit crimes and you probably make a lot of cash and a lot of money. Part of that agreement is that you don't get to go monetize it another way and like speak about it or write books. It's like, it's just weird. It's just, it strikes me as odd that they're
What's the guy's name? I don't even remember his name. I'm surprised that they haven't been killed for releasing information about the underground world in which they came. I think most of the people who they dealt with are now dead. Okay. You know? Yeah. And they served their time. They were in jail for a long time. Right, right, right.
Yeah, it's just weird. I mean, if fucking big pussy on Sopranos gets killed and sleeps with the fishes, how are these guys doing what they're doing? I have no clue. So his name is Pedro. So he started a channel on YouTube called Pedrino X Matador and acquired 200,000 followers with over 10 million views.
views. His content ranged from anything like a day in the life of Pedro X Matador to Pedro analyzing other crimes. He's got a true crime podcast. Smart. He covered the tattoo on his arm that said I kill for pleasure with a scorpion and covered the word revenge with love.
Oh, what a guy. He became a motivational speaker for hire by age 67 and claimed that he was a cured psychopath. Wow. And this is the last part here. Sadly, or not sadly, depending on whether or not you support the actions of the Brazilian Dexter, at about 10 a.m. on March 5th, 2023. So very, very recently. Wait, when? March 5th, 2023. Okay.
So like four or five months ago. Yes.
Okay. Pedro Rodriguez-Filo was taken down for good in a hail of bullets outside of Sao Paulo. He was killed? How did we not hear about this? We did. That's how this case wound up back on my radar after so long. Oh. This is why I was personally excited to cover this case, just because it had, you know, come to a conclusion. It closed the loop. Exactly. According to law enforcement, a black car approached Pedro while he sat on the porch of his house, shot him four times, slit his throat with a kitchen knife, and left.
So far, detectives have not said who the killers might be or offered a possible motive for the murder, but we know the man had enemies in every corner of Brazil. I was just going to say, that should have, whatever, you know, I'm not,
But that should have happened a long time ago. Pretty incredible that it didn't. Yeah. And his reasoning was the black magic protected him. I forgot he had black magic. That's why it didn't happen. Right. And that's the case of Pedrino Matador. Pedrino Matador. Pedrino Matador. Matador. When I'm smoking a cigar at Matador Cigar Lounge. Oh, yeah. That's the name of your cigar lounge. Yeah. I'll be thinking about him. Yeah. Crazy, right? Maybe I'll watch Dexter now.
So to answer the question from the top of the episode, yeah, no, I'm not into this guy as like a, I wouldn't want one of him in like where I live.
So that was the case. Wow. All right. Good job. Thank you. A little different, a little bit different from what we typically cover, I feel like. Excellent research. Thank you. Excellent work. I appreciate that. I know it was long. You did great hanging in there, letting me drag you through this, as you would say. Yeah. Yeah. I felt dragged. So good job, you know, from where you sit. But I feel good. I feel good about this. I feel educated. Good. I love it.
I'd love to hear that. I feel extremely educated. I know a lot about a lot more now. Good. In the case of Petrino Matador. You did a good job with pronunciations. Thank you. Not bad for me. No.
Thank you to the listeners for listening. Truly. Thank you, guys. If you made it this far... We love you. And I mean, if you're listening to me say this right now, you're fucking top 1% of listeners. You're fire. Yeah. You really are just grinding our gears. But not in a maiming type of way. No. Wow. That was definitely a poor choice of words on my part. Well, grinding gears is bad, but it's okay. It is? You know what she meant. You know what she meant. Yeah. You know...
I scare myself sometimes. But if you like what you heard, leave a rating on Apple. Maybe I'll read it out. I don't know. I'll say rating, review, subscribe, share it with your fellow psychopath friends that enjoy this true crime genre of podcast. And I guess we'll just see you on the next episode. Can't wait. Bye, guys. Bye.