Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos (25 January 1957 – 12 October 2023), also known as La Bestia ("The Beast") or Tribilín ("Goofy"), was a Colombian serial killer and sex offender who sexually assaulted 200 victims before murdering 193 victims, mostly young men and boys from 1992 to 1999 in western Colombia.
Beginning a series of torture-rapes on minors aged 6 to 16 in the autumn of 1980, Garavito was estimated to have raped and tortured a minimum of 200 minors, before committing the rape, torture, mutilation, and murder of an additional 189 minors in Colombia from 4 October 1992 to 21 April 1999, and a further four murders in Ecuador during the summer of 1998.
Apprehended on 22 April 1999 for the attempted rape of 12-year-old John Iván Sabogal, Garavito was held under suspicion for several months until he confessed on 28 October 1999. The court ruled that Garavito should serve sentences totalling 1,853 years and 9 days in prison. Between his Colombian and Ecuadorian victims, Garavito is confirmed to have murdered at least 193 minors in total, making him the most prolific serial killer and child molester in modern history. If his 2003 confession is to be believed, his murders of 23 minors and 5 adults would raise his murder victim count to 221.
Garavito and his siblings were neglected; he described his father as a "womanizer" and his parents fought frequently. He claimed he "had the misfortune of being in a family that spent its time arguing, fighting, and throwing words of great calibre", and that his father physically abused his family. Consequently, Garavito and his siblings hid from their father.
Garavito claimed that his strict father only interacted with him for work-related purposes and errands, and that his father frequently berated him. Attending Simón Bolívar School in Ceilán, he was teased often and ridiculed by other children, and struggled to learn most subjects. Nicknamed "Garabato" (meaning "squiggle", for his glasses), Garavito was reportedly bullied by his classmates and thus preferred being alone at recess.
Around 1968, Garavito was removed by his father from the fifth grade in order to financially assist their family, and was thus discouraged from making friends or interacting with girls. In 1969, during a routine vaccination visit that his father had taken him to, Garavito was allegedly sexually molested by the pharmacist-phlebotomist, a devoutly religious man who was also the family's neighbor. The man was also said to have been close to Garavito's father, and is alleged to have sadistically bitten, burned and cut Garavito during the incident; experts and others have questioned the truth of Garavito's claims, however.
Following this first incident of abuse, Garavito allegedly killed and dissected two birds, out of frustration, before reportedly beginning to sexually fondle and inappropriately eye his younger siblings. Garavito also alleged that he molested a six-year-old boy in 1969. According to family and friends, Garavito became very withdrawn, extremely aggressive and "ready to take revenge on the world."
The family relocated to Trujillo in 1971. He did not disclose the experiences until his arrest for fear and belief his family would not believe him. Soon after arriving in Trujillo, Garavito was shown heterosexual pornography by a neighbor, who mocked Garavito's disgust at the pornography before beating and sexually assaulting him. Through his family, Garavito began drinking alcohol.
In 1972, he aggressively attempted to initiate sexual relations with local women who rejected his advances. The same year, he was evicted by his mother for attempting to sodomize a 5-year-old boy and again in 1973 after an attempted assault on a 6-year-old boy at a Bogotá train station. The boy screamed and Garavito was briefly detained, explaining he only wanted to "lightly" molest the child in response to an attempted rape charge. Following the latter incident, Garavito claimed he was reprimanded by his father for not choosing a woman to sexually assault instead of a young boy. As a result of their frequent fighting over his pederasty, he was evicted for the final time for "homosexual behavior."
Garavito started working as an assistant at a compensation fund and later in a chain of stores, and studied marketing, but he was problematic and escalated to physical altercations with clients, co-workers, and bosses. After losing his job, he worked as a street vendor who sold religious icons and as a migrant worker, developing platonic relationships with older women over the course of his adulthood. Garavito began work on a coffee plantation as a youth in Trujillo, first falling in love with a schoolteacher and single mother named Luz Mary Ocampo Orozco, with whom he later attended weekly mass services.
Both of his girlfriends had children, whom Garavito reportedly nurtured as if they were his own, and was a good boyfriend when sober. His companions likewise described him to be amicable despite his notably violent temper and occasional drunken states in which he threatened to murder his father. While drunk, Garavito was physically abusive toward his girlfriends, as well as increasingly jealous, controlling, and belittling. As a result, he was often the subject of local scandals and town gossip, facing repeated evictions by female partners in later life.
Garavito suffered symptoms of psychosis, paranoia and depression, and compulsively molested male and female children, developing an almost exclusive preference for pubescent boys. He had depression and suicidal feelings related to his lack of achievement and wanted to start a family, but suffered erectile dysfunction with his female partners when drunk. This caused him extreme grief, and he often ranted of his hatred for his family to them.
Garavito began participating in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in 1978, converting to the Pentecostal faith and working as a clerk at a store where he met with his first girlfriend Luz Mary. Drifting from his family, he was only close to his older sister, Esther, who avoided him due to his alcoholism. Garavito also had conflict with his younger siblings over their father's favor to them. Relocating to the town of Armenia, he acquired a new job at a local bakery. Garavito frequently visited church services where he would beat his chest during prayer, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and occasionally seeing psychiatrists before ending his day by frequenting Valencia Park to procure the services of child prostitutes.
Garavito's employment at the bakery was terminated after fighting his co-workers; he subsequently attempted suicide. He then decided to seek psychiatric care at the San Juan de Dios hospital and was repeatedly hospitalized throughout the spring of 1980, where he expressed a desire to die over a belief that his life "was worth nothing". He was primarily treated for depression despite evident psychosis and bulimia; he was, however, prescribed antipsychotic medication. Intent on explaining why he was suicidal to the psychiatrist, Garavito stated he "wanted" children, before rephrasing this statement to imply that he simply wanted to start a family.
Garavito later obtained employment in 1980 at a supermarket in Armenia, in Quindio, where he received two-hour lunch breaks on Thursday and Sunday afternoons. He subsequently began a short-lived relationship with a single mother and beautician named Claudia, with whom he was pleased. However, Claudia soon left him, as Garavito's modest career apparently could not sustain Claudia's desired spending habits, thus he soothed himself by sexually assaulting street children during his lunch breaks, in neighboring Quimbaya and Calarcá. During this period, Garavito emphasized he felt constant urges to molest children, often while working. In the autumn of 1980, he began carrying razor blades, candles, and lighters in order to torture his victims.
Following his crimes, he would write his victims' names in a blue notebook and pray for them while ritually pacing his room nude and beating his chest. Garavito also read the Bible every night, attempting to find an explanation in the Book of Psalms for his deviance. Despite this interest in Christianity and Catholicism, Garavito also developed an avid interest in esoteric study, such as astrology and tarot readings, as well as the study of Satanism, after receiving an esoteric book from a friend. He would visit palm readers and other fortune-tellers, before concluding they, too, knew little regarding the occult. Afflicted with bouts of depression and guilt from his crimes, Garavito alleged that he suffered nightmares about his victims and would wake up crying over the children, before laughing at them.