By the time he was released from prison in 1978, his impulses and fantasies had complete reign over Pedro's actions. He began to travel around Peru, hunting young girls from native tribes all over the region. It has never been verified that Lopez was actually responsible for the 100 murders he claims for this period of time, but later discoveries make it likely that his accounting is accurate.
The tribe who captured him in northern Peru stripped him and spent hours torturing him before the decision was made to bury him alive. Thanks to American missionaries, Lopez was reluctantly turned over to proper authorities who decided it was not worth their time to investigate the complaints of tribesmen. He was released and deported to Ecuador.
Soon afterward, the Ecuadoran authorities began to register an inordinate number of missing persons reports, all of them concerning young girls. Unfortunately, the disappearances of the nation's children were attributed to the South American sex slave trade. Then, in April of 1980, there was a flash flood in Ambato, Ecuador, that prompted the police to re-evaluate the missing children they had written off. Four bodies of young girls were recovered from the flooding. An official cause of death could not be determined, but it was obvious the bodies had been purposely hidden.
As it turned out, these were the gruesome murders of a terrible monster. Pedro had been searching markets in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia for young girls with a "certain look of innocence" about them. He would stalk these girls and their mothers for two or three days looking for a good opportunity to snatch the girl. He used trinkets to lure them away and would get them to follow him with promises of a gift for their mom as well.
Pedro had prepared, ahead of time, a location to conduct the attack and even had graves already waiting for them at the location. In some cases, there were bodies of other victims lying where he took his newest victim. First, he would cuddle with the victim and then, at sunrise, he would rape his her, staring into her eyes as he strangled her. He loved to watch the light and life fade from their face. This ritual of death would sometimes be made to last up to 15 minutes and, on several occasions, he would strangle them repeatedly before they died. After they were dead, he would then have tea parties where he would prop up the lifeless bodies and converse with them.
A break in the case finally came at the local market just a few days later. Pedro Lopez attempted to abduct 12-year-old Marie Poveda, whose mother's screams alerted the merchants. The traders chased down Lopez and held him to the ground while awaiting the authorities. By the time police arrived, Pedro was incoherent.
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