According to a number of compendia of mass murderers and various web sites, Pedro Lopez is, or was, a serial killer in South America, accused of the murder of over 300 victims. The story was orignally published in The Worlds Most Infamous Murders by Boar and Blundell - Octopus London 1983, subsequent references are derived from this source and an alleged interview with Ron Laytner of the National Examiner published on January 12 1999. Despite the lack of any corroborating evidence for his existence, Lopez is mentioned by many authoritative sources such as the BBC and national papers including the New York Times and Pravda.

A basic version of the story is as follows:

Born in Tolima, Colombia, in 1949 Pedro Lopez became notorious as the Monster of the Andes. According to Lopez his prostitute mother kicked him out of their home at age eight for fondling his younger sister. He was then picked up by a pedophile and sodomized against his will. He was taken in by an American family, but later ran away with a teacher from his school. When he was eighteen he was gang-raped in prison and retaliated by killing three of his assailants.

Upon his release he started killing young girls with glee and impunity. By 1978 he claimed to have killed more than 100 girls in Peru. After a brush with an angry village mob he moved his activities to Colombia and then Ecuador where his bloodlust averaged about three kills a week. He found killing Ecuadorian girls enjoyable because they were "more gentle and trusting, more innocent." Authorities attributed the rash of disappearing girls to active slavery or prostitution rings in the area.

In 1980 a flash flood uncovered the first of his victims in Ecuador. When he was arrested he told his interrogators the frightening tale of his reign of death. At first authorities were skeptical but all doubts disappeared when he quickly produced more than fifty graves. It is widely believed that three hundred is a low estimate.

According to the BBC: "He was arrested in 1980 but was freed by the government in Ecuador at the end of last year [i.e. ] and deported to Colombia. In an interview from his prison cell, he described himself as "the man of the century" and said he was being released for "good behaviour". World's worst killers