A convicted serial killer is back in the limelight after talking about how he killed his own father and ate his heart while they were both serving time in prison.
Pedro Rodrigues Filho, better known as ‘Pedrinho Matador’ (‘Killer Pete’), is one of Brazil’s most notorious serial killers.
He was first arrested in 1973 and released in 2007, despite having been sentenced to 126 years in prison. While he was in jail, that sentence increased to almost 400 years after he killed an incredible 47 fellow convicts while in jail, including the horrific murder of his dad.
Other convicts included a man who he was being transported to prison with, whom he murdered despite wearing mufflers because the other was a “rapist”, and another who was a cellmate, whom he accused of spying on him during a conjugal visit.
He had the words “I love to kill” tattooed on his arm, yet despite his huge sentence for murders inside and outside of jail, the court decided he was rehabilitated, and he was released in 2007.
He remained free until 2011, when he was arrested again and remained under house arrest until 2018.
His last conviction in 2018 for rioting in prison was short and was finished in the same year, when he was again released.
But despite leading a quiet life in the municipality of Mogi das Cruzes ever since, he hit headlines last week following his appearance on the Cortes do Flow-Verso podcast.
Filho revealed to the podcast’s 172,000 subscribers on YouTube that he killed his father in revenge for him having killed Filho’s mother.
The murder happened while they were both being held in the same prison.
He said: “I killed my father in prison. I was already in prison then, I’ve spent 42 years in prison. My father was in prison. I arranged a well-thought-out plan and I turned up at my father’s cell.
“I had promised revenge on my mother’s coffin.”
He said after stabbing his father 22 times, he ripped out his heart and bit into it. He said: “I just chewed it. I cut the tip of his heart off and chewed it, and I threw it on top of his body.”
Filho, who hails from the municipality of Santa Rita do Sapucai, also revealed that his first crime was to throw his older cousin into a sugar cane press, nearly killing him, when Filho was just 13.
The now-66-year-old told listeners: “I pushed him thinking his whole body would go through, but just his arm went through.”
He did not reveal why he felt the urge to kill, but his skull was left misshapen after his father kicked his pregnant mother during a fight.
A year after the attack on his cousin, he had shot the deputy mayor of the municipality using his grandfather’s gun in front of the City Hall because he had fired his dad, who was working as a school guard.
After that, he shot a security guard whom he believed was the real thief who had let his partner take the blame. He then started targeting drug dens and killing traffickers as he entered a full-time criminal career.
By the time he was 18, he had dozens of killings including a rival gang leader who was attacked at his wedding, whom he suspected of killing his pregnant girlfriend.
When asked if he would kill again, Filho said in another podcast last year: “No. I would only kill again if someone came to take my life or the lives of people I love, who are my family.”
Filho is believed to have over 100 victims.