The Robinhood of Murder

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Throughout his career as a serial murderer, Pedro Rodriguez Philo gained a vast variety

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of nicknames. He was called Killer
Little Pedro, Killer Pete, the South

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American Punisher, and my favorite Brazilian
dexter. But more than anything, he

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became known as Brazil's most prolific serial
killer. He was convicted of a morbidly

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impressive seventy one killings, all of
which took place when he was a teenager,

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but he continued to insist that he'd
actually killed more than a hundred people.

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Astonishingly, some of these murders took
place while Pedro was in jail.

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You'd expect the most jaw dropping aspect
of Pedro's crimes to be that he's somehow

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successfully killed at least seventy people beginning
at the age of only fourteen. Most

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fourteen year olds are struggling to keep
the rooms clean and get to school on

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time, but here Pedro was stacking
bodies like it was his job. However,

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this isn't the part of his crimes
that gained so much media attention.

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The strangest thing about Killer Pete was
the way that he selected his victims,

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regardless of their age, race,
and gender. He exclusively targeted criminals,

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whether they were rapists, murderers,
thieves, or drug dealers. Anyone who

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lived a life of crime in Pedro's
neighborhood had a target on their backs.

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And the irony is clear. Taking
out so many criminals, Pedro became a

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criminal himself. Why did a teenage
boy feel so compelled to carry out this

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extreme form of vigilante justice. By
the age of thirteen, Pedro was tempted

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to kill. It all came to
a head one day when he was fighting

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with one of his cousins on his
family's farm, and he shoved him into

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the brutal grip of a nearby sugarcane
press. If he left his cousin there,

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it would have been fatal, but
after some deliberating, Pedro decided to

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save his life instead. Still he
had to think about it. Some experts

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have traced Pedro's violent nature back to
trauma to his head in the womb when

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in his mother's belly, he was
brutally kicked by his father during an argument,

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resulting in injuries to an unborn Pedro's
skull. If this wasn't a ten

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minute murder podcast and I can talk
as long as I wanted to. At

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this part is where I'd go into
detail about how many kids that grow up

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to be violent or murderous have some
sort of head trauma in their past.

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It's pretty staggering how much it occurs. And no, I'm not saying that

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anyone that hits their head hard in
childhood is doomed to a life of crime.

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I'm saying it happens more than average. Pedro's real life of crime,

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true to his nature, began in
an incredibly high profile way. After his

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father lost his job as a school
guard due to false stealing allegations. Dro

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went after the man who fired him, who was in fact the deputy mayor.

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With his grandfather's gun, Pedro shot
the mayor execution style in front of

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the entire city hall, and then
carried out his first act of justice by

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also shooting the man who he believed
had actually been the thief. With so

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many witnesses, a fourteen year old
Pedro had no choice but to go on

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the run. It seemed as if
now that he'd started killing people to deliver

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what he believed was justice, he
got a taste of it and he couldn't

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stop. While on the run,
he started stealing from drug dens as well

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as shooting the drug traffickers he found
inside them. He quickly became a local

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celebrity and was given his first,
almost affectionate nickname, Pedrino Matador. While

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he was on the run, Pedro
met a young woman named Maria Olympia,

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and he was instantly smitten. It
brought out a slightly softer side of Pedro,

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and the two teenagers moved in together. Marie quickly became pregnant, but

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before she could give birth to their
child, she was killed by the leader

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of a rival gang. Pedro was
obviously very upset, and he set out

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on a mission of revenge to kill
not just the gang leader who murdered her,

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but every single member of the gang. Despite Pedro's first vigilante killing being

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carried out to get justice for his
father, eventually his own dad became a

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victim of his crimes. As a
child, Pedro had idolized his father,

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but in reality he was raised by
a violent man who frequently beat his mother.

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Pedro got the news that his father
had believed his wife was having an

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affair and responded by slashing her to
death with a machete and then dismembering her

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body. There was horrific news,
a violent end to the life of the

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woman who raised Pedro. Pedro wasted
no time in traveling to the local prison

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where his father was being held.
He told the guards that he simply wanted

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to pay a visit to his one
reviving parent. Instead, he murdered his

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father, stabbing him more than twenty
times. If that was the end of

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it, you'd be like, yeah, on brand for Pedrino Matador. But

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wait, there's more. He did
something that he had never done before.

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Using the same knife, he cut
his father's chest open and removed his heart.

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Later, Pedro described the act saying, quote, I chewed it.

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I cut out a piece of his
heart. I chewed it. At the

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age of nineteen, Pedro's five year
killing spree was put to an end when

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he was arrested in May of nineteen
seventy three. However, the officers made

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the mistake of transporting him in a
van with another criminal. A convicted rapist

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was inside there with him. Pedro
couldn't resist the siren call of carrying out

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one more vigilante killing, and he
somehow managed to murder the rapist without the

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police escorts noticing. Technically, Pedro
received a sentence of one hundred twenty six

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years behind bars, but Brazilian law
didn't allow any criminals to serve more than

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thirty years of jail time. This
is why, instead of spending his life

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in jail, he was released in
two thousand and seven after serving his sentence

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of thirty four years in prison,
which only came out to be about twenty

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five weeks per victim if you're doing
the math. Pedro was released from jail

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in two thousand and seven, but
four years later he was arrested again,

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this time facing charges for deprivation of
liberty and inciting a riot. This time,

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he was better behaved during his time
in jail. After serving seven years

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of good behavior, he was once
again a freeman. From then on,

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Pedro publicly announced that his life of
crime was over and he considered himself to

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be a reformed criminal. Then he
did something that not many, if any,

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serial killers, have ever done.
Pedro became an influencer. Pedro started

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a YouTube channel under the name Pedrino
x Matador. He continued to search for

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justice, but in a very different
way than he had in his youth.

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He started making YouTube videos, mostly
make up tutorials and get Ready with Me

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videos JK. His videos were about
crimes and modern criminals, taking it upon

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himself to educate his audience that a
life of crime is not something to aspire

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to. Maybe if being a YouTuber
had been an option for Pedro and his

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youth, he would have lived a
life as an influential anti crime YouTube personality

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instead of killing more than a hundred
criminals himself. Pedro's description on his profile

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made it clear that he no longer
considered himself one of the bad guys.

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If he ever had quote, I
am not the monster, even though seen

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and stigmatized as evil, can find
their light. Nobody said it would be

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easy. I assume my mistakes.
I paid my penalty, so I don't

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need to be judged or defended by
anyone anymore. For those who believe,

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follow me on the journey to the
light, because darkness has already consumed more

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than two thirds of my life.
Pedro became somewhat of a celebrity in Brazil

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and appeared on several interviews and podcasts, and one podcast in twenty twenty,

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the host asked Pedro if he would
ever kill again. Pedro said quote,

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no, I would only kill again
if someone came to take my life or

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the lives of the people I love, who are my family. Morbidly,

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this statement predicted the future. Soon
somebody would indeed try to take Pedro's life,

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but unlike Pedro predicted, this time, he would not be able to

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kill his attacker in self defense.
It was the fifth of March twenty twenty

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three when the news broke Pedro Rodriguez
Philo had been shot dead at ten in

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the morning that day. Shots had
been fired from a passing car, killing

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Pedro where he stood. The shooters
then fled in another car. To this

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day, nobody knows who the killers
were or why they decided to shoot a

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man who so many men members of
the public hailed as a hero. Were

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they vigilantes themselves, enemies that he'd
made during his life of crime, or

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was it a simple crime of opportunity. Months after the killing, there have

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still been no arrests made in connection
with the shooting. After reportedly turning his

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life around, Pedro became a victim
of the same kind of crime he had

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committed in his youth, and this
time, for better or worse, there

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was no vigilante to deliver justice for
him. That's ten Minute Murder for today

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Brief and bingeible true crime. I'm
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