Pedro Alonso Lopez is a Colombian serial killer accused of raping and killing more than 300 people, mostly young girls, across South America. 

Better known as "the monster of the Andes," Lopez claimed to have murdered hundreds of victims in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. However, after being released on bail in Colombia in 1998, he disappeared without a trace. Interpol agents are still looking for him to this day, but the Colombian serial killer remains at large.

The Monster of the Andes: Who Exactly is Colombian Serial Killer Pedro Alonso Lopez?

According to the Serial Killer Calendar, Pedro Alonso Lopez himself said that he was born to a poor family in Colombia. He is one of 13 children, and his mother worked as a prostitute to make ends meet. 

During his childhood, Lopez claimed that he was forced out of his home when his mother caught him sexually abusing his younger sister. While living in the streets, the serial killer was reportedly raped by a man who took him to an abandoned building and repeatedly sodomized him. 

When he was 12, Lopez was taken in by an American family and enrolled in a school for orphans. However, he ran away after a male teacher repeatedly molested him. According to History Daily, at 18, Lopez started stealing cars to sell them in chop shops to support himself. He was caught and jailed for the first time. 

There, he was gang raped by three inmates. As he remembered their faces, he hunted them down one by one and killed them before he was released from jail. This was his first taste of murder.

It is unclear if he received additional punishment for killing the inmates, but it was seen as an act of self-defense, so he was soon released. Sources differ on account of his first kills.

Some said he hunted his rapists down one by one, while others noted that it was an act of self-defense. However, he soon developed an appetite for young girls, which was when the monster of the Andes truly began his killing spree.

READ NEXT: Murder Files: 4 Most Notorious Serial Killers in South American History

Colombian Serial Killer and Rapist Operated in Three Countries

Pedro Alonso Lopez is one of history's deadliest serial killers, not because he may have killed over 300 people but because, unlike other serial killers confined to just one city or country, the monster of the Andes operated in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.

Following his release from prison, he traveled to Ayacucho, Peru. There, he started targeting young indigenous girls. According to Infobae, his modus is usually him looking in remote villages to find young girls, forcing them to have sex, and then strangling them to death. 

He also practiced necrophilia on their lifeless bodies after he killed them. Lopez was soon captured by a native tribe in Peru, whose tribal customs required him to be killed for his actions. However, his life was saved by a missionary priest who managed to convince the tribe to turn him over to the police.

While in Peruvian custody, he was soon deported to Ecuador and settled in Ambato. Reports said that in Peru alone, he managed to kill over 100 young girls aged 9 to 12 years old. However, his murder spree did not end after deportation. It merely continued in Ecuador.

Girls disappearing in Colombia and Ecuador became commonplace, with human trafficking and sexual slavery mostly to blame. That made things easy for the serial killer until 1980 when a flood came in Ecuador. The flood managed to unearth the bodies of four missing girls. It alerted authorities, who believed a serial killer might be on the loose.

Lopez made his first mistake when he tried to kidnap a local Ecuadorian girl named Marie in a supermarket. It led to his capture, but he refused to confess. Ecuadorian authorities then devised a plan to make him confess, and they employed the help of Catholic priest Cordoba Gudino.

Gudino would dress up as an inmate and earn Lopez's trust. The serial killer eventually opened up to him and confessed his crimes. He actually told the priest everything, including where he buried some of his victims.

Police went to some of the burial grounds he confessed to and found around 74 girls. Lopez admitted that he murdered more than 300 minors in Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. The Colombian serial killer was sentenced in Ecuador to the maximum allowed prison sentence of 16 years.

After he served his sentence, he was soon extradited to his home country of Colombia in 1994. However, the magistrate found him "insane," and sent him to a psychiatric hospital. Lopez stayed there for four years until he was found to be sane again. 

He was given a fifty-dollar bail, and he managed to pay such a low amount. After he was released on bail in 1998, he disappeared. The Colombian serial killer is still wanted by authorities, but no one knows were is he hiding or if he's still alive.

Based on various reports, no one also knows if he is still continuing his reign of terror somewhere in the world until now. 

READ MORE: Brazil's Deadliest Serial Killer, Who Murdered Over 100, Including His Father, Is Freed | Where Is Pedro Rodrigues Filho Now?

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: Pedro López | SERIAL KILLER FILES - From Rob Gavagan