Pedro Rodrigues Filho, also known as Pedrinho Matador or “Killer Pete,” was a notorious serial killer in his country and served as an inspiration for a complex anti-hero character on television.
He claimed to have ended the lives of more than 100 individuals over a span of five decades, with official convictions for 71 murders. Spending over 40 years in prison, he garnered a reputation akin to a modern-day “Robin Hood,” targeting drug traffickers, gang members, and other criminals.
Born on October 29, 1954, in a rural town in Brazil, Pedro’s life was marred by violence from the outset, as his skull was fractured in the womb when his father assaulted his pregnant mother. This early exposure to violence, as Pedro himself attested, significantly influenced his future actions.
At just nine years old, Pedro ran away from home, initially seeking refuge with relatives before venturing to São Paulo, where he delved into a life of theft and destitution. By his early teens, he purportedly committed his first homicide by pushing a cousin into a sugarcane press and subsequently attacking him with a machete.
Although the first act of violence remained unverified, Pedro’s propensity for brutality soon manifested into verified and well-documented instances. During his teenage years, he gunned down a local drug dealer in São Paulo, purportedly in retaliation for a conflict involving his family. Subsequently, Pedro hunted down and killed the dealer’s brother and brother-in-law.
He openly admitted to journalists that these initial killings bestowed upon him a sense of empowerment, emphasizing that his victims were individuals he deemed as morally corrupt.
In his late teens, Pedro relocated to the outskirts of São Paulo, immersing himself in the narcotics trade of a neighboring town. Living with a woman named Botinha, the widow of a drug dealer, Pedro assumed control of her deceased husband’s criminal operations.
Following Botinha’s demise at the hands of law enforcement, Pedro sought retribution by pursuing those he held accountable for her death. His killing spree persisted until 1973 when he was captured at the age of 18, leaving behind a trail of bodies ranging from drug pushers and gang members to alleged rapists.
Initially sentenced to 128 years in prison, the figure escalated significantly as Pedro continued to eliminate fellow inmates within the prison walls. Behind bars, Pedrinho Matador transformed into a notorious figure, boasting about the murder of numerous prisoners, many of whom were convicted of assault or sexual offenses.
In his twenties, Pedro claimed to have murdered his own father, who had previously been incarcerated for brutally killing his mother. Pedro asserted that he sought vengeance by stabbing his father 22 times and, in a shocking revelation during a television interview, described extracting the man’s heart, biting into it, and spitting it out.
Despite being sentenced to over 400 years, Pedro was released in 2007 due to the legal limit on incarceration in Brazil, after serving 34 years in prison. However, he found himself incarcerated once more for involvement in a prison riot in 2018.
At the age of 64, Pedro Rodrigues Filho professed to have reformed, attributing his transformation to Christianity and proclaiming himself as “reborn through Jesus Christ.” He established a YouTube channel titled “Pedrinho, Former Killer with Jesus,” where he cautioned viewers about the dangers of criminality and the significance of redemption.
Pedro’s channel quickly amassed tens of thousands of subscribers, with videos recounting accounts from his violent past while blending confessions with words of caution. He emphasized the lack of glory in crime, emphasizing its destructive nature.
On March 5, 2023, Pedro was fatally shot outside a relative’s residence in Mogi das Cruzes, the city where he once reigned over the criminal underworld. Two masked gunmen gunned him down before slitting his throat with a kitchen knife. He was 68 years old.
Pedrinho’s narrative, which captured international attention, drew comparisons to fictional characters. His distinct moral code, only targeting those he believed deserved it, served as an inspiration for the creation of the character Dexter in Jeff Lindsay’s novel and subsequent TV series.
