Manuel Delgado Villegas

This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Delgado and the second or maternal family name is Villegas.
Manuel Delgado Villegas

Mugshot taken upon his arrest on January 18, 1971
Born (1943-01-25)January 25, 1943
Seville, Andalusia, Spain
Died February 2, 1998(1998-02-02) (aged 55)
Badalona, Catalonia, Spain
Cause of death Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Other names El Arropiero
El estrangulador del puerto
Criminal penalty Interned in a mental institution for life
Conviction(s) None
Killings
Victims 7–48
Span of killings
 1964–1971
Country Spain; Italy and France (claimed)
Date apprehended
 18 January 1971

Manuel Delgado Villegas (Spanish pronunciation: [manw'el delˈɣaðo βiˈʎeɣas]; 25 January 1943 – 2 February 1998), also known as El Arropiero,[a] was a Spanish serial killer active between 1964 and 1971. Delgado claimed to have carried out 48 murders in Spain, Italy and France – of these cases the Spanish police were only able to investigate twenty-two in Spain only and considered him sure author of seven.[1] He was never brought to trial, as he was diagnosed with a severe mental disorder, and in 1978 the Audiencia Nacional ordered that he be preventively detained at Carabanchel Penitentiary Psychiatric Hospital. He was released into the care of a psychiatric hospital in 1996 and died two years later of a smoking-related lung disease.[2]

Biography

Early life

Manuel Delgado Villegas was born in Seville, Spain on January 25, 1943, the son of José Delgado Martín. His mother died while giving birth to him, at 24,[3] and the itinerant nature of his father's job as a salesman of arrope (a fruit concentrate produced in southern Spain and used to make sweets), hence the nickname El Arropiero, resulted in Delgado and his sister Joaquina being sent to live with their maternal grandmother in Mataró.[4] Delgado and his sister lived with their grandmother in the predominantly Andalusian neighbourhood of La Cirera. He attended school but never learned to read and write. Delgado was bisexual and prostituted himself since early in his adolescence.[5]

In 1961, aged 18, Delgado enlisted in the Spanish Legion. There he learnt hand-to-hand combat techniques, and one in particular, the golpe legionario or golpe mortal (literally "deathly blow"), a strike to the larynx with the knife-edge of the hand that became one of his preferred methods of killing.

After the army, Delgado left Mataró and became a nomad, wandering along the Mediterranean coast begging, stealing and picking fights with prostitutes and homosexuals. He was arrested several times under the Ley de Vagos y Maleantes or Ley de Peligrosidad Social (lit. "Law of Slackers and Crooks" and "Law of Dangerousness to Society") that targeted beggars and homosexuals during the Francoist dictatorship, but was never imprisoned. His odd behavior under arrest always derived him to mental institutions, from where he was released soon after.[6]

Murders

Delgado killed his first confirmed victim in 1964, aged 21, and remained active until his arrest at 28 in 1971. He never killed with premeditation. Sometimes a simple trivial comment by the victim would be taken as an insult and unleash Delgado's rage, who would kill them with great violence using a blunt object, strangling them or with his bare hands; others, Delgado would attack them with the intention of robbing them or, if the victim was female, to rape them, which he did only after they were dead. The wildly different nature of the crimes and the victims (men and women, young and old, Spanish and foreign, heterosexual and homosexual, rich and poor) and the nomadic nature of Delgado made impossible for law enforcement to connect the kills as the work of a single person before Delgado's confession. Only the last two murders happened in the same place and close in time to each other, precipitating Delgado's arrest.[7]

Victims

Confirmed by the investigation

Llorac
Locations of the murders of the confirmed victims
"I saw a sleeping man leaning against a wall. I approached him and very slowly, with a large rock that I had picked up close to the wall, hit him over the head. When I realised that he was dead, I took his wallet and the watch on his wrist. He had barely anything in it and the watch was crap!
— Manuel Delgado Villegas

Possible

Delgado's confirmed crimes are often misreported as eight instead of seven. This probably stems from a 1977 article in the popular weekly newspaper El Caso, that proposed Delgado as possible murderer of Natividad Romero Rodríguez, a prostitute that was found dead in a large clay jar in a country house near Barajas, Madrid in 1969. She had been raped and strangled with great violence by a man using only one hand three days prior, leading the investigators to suspect of someone with military background, possibly an American pilot from the near Torrejón Air Base since the victim had been often seen in their company. The crime, however, remains unsolved and was never linked by the police to Delgado. Another victim often cited is Almudena Sánchez Rus, murdered in El Puerto de Santa María in 1972, but at that time Delgado was already arrested and in custody.

On the other hand, Delgado himself claimed to have killed also a foreign woman in Sant Feliu de Guixols, stabbed another woman in Alicante, strangled a homosexual man with a wire in Barcelona and even of throwing another homosexual, a client, off a cliff in Garraf after the victim said "Such beauty! Such view! I wouldn't mind dying right in this place!", to which Delgado replied "Die then" and pushed him. In another occasion, Delgado manifested his discomfort upon hearing in the police car radio that 80 bodies had been found buried in a man's garden in Mexico; he immediately solicited the police to be freed for 24 hours, promising not to escape, "so this guy doesn't beat me."[13]

Criminal Investigation and Arrest

Following the disappearance of Antonia "Toñi" Rodríguez Relinque, a 38-year-old intellectually disabled woman who had been seen on various occasions in the company of Delgado, the police accompanied Delgado to El Puerto de Santa María police station where he was questioned by Cadiz's Brigada de Investigación Criminal (Criminal Investigation Division) over the disappearance of the person who they now knew to be his girlfriend. He initially denied killing her, but following the discovery of her body in a secluded spot known as Pago Galvecito, on the outskirts of El Puerto de Santa María, on February 21, 1971 he confessed to her murder – Delgado confessed that he had strangled the woman with her own tights whilst they were having sex. The local newspaper, the Diario de Cádiz, dubbed him El estrangulador del Puerto (The Puerto strangler), though this nickname was dropped later at the request of El Puerto's local authorities, who feared the town's name would be tainted.[14] Over the next few days he admitted his culpability in the murders of four others[15] and was considered sure author of seven murders in total (including two that had been originally considered accidents) before the investigation was halted and Delgado put in a mental institution without trial or a proper conviction. While in interrogation, Delgado remained calm and shared multiple details of the crimes with the police.[16]

At the time of his arrest it was widely reported that he was diagnosed as having XYY syndrome which led to claims that this may have been responsible for his violent behaviour. However, the link between XYY syndrome and violent behaviour has been disproven by modern studies of the condition.

In the process of investigating the veracity of his claims the investigating magistrate of El Puerto de Santa María, Conrado Gallardo Ros, along with detectives involved in the cases, accompanied Delgado to the scenes of the crimes for two years where he re-enacted and explained the crimes. One detective in particular, Salvador Ortega, succeed in gaining Delgado's trust and was the one that was told the most information. Photos taken during the investigation show Delgado smiling and even embracing the detectives, who called him with the affectionate form "Manolo" or even "Manolito".[17] On a side note, Delgado became the first serial killer to travel the scenes of his crimes by airplane.

Death

Manuel Delgado Villegas died on February 2, 1998 at the Hospital Can Ruti in Badalona as a result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

TV Programs featuring Delgado Villegas

Notes

a ^ The nickname was first attributed to his father, a travelling salesman of arrope; Delgado Villegas was in turn known as "The Son of El Arropiero" before it was contracted into El Arropiero.[18][19] If Delgado Villegas ever sold arrope himself it was between September 1970 and his arrest in January 1971 only, a time when he had returned to El Puerto de Santa María to live with his father.[20]

References

  1. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  2. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  3. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  4. ↑ "Los crímenes de el Arropiero" [The crimes of the arropiero]. Libertad digital: Fin de semana.
  5. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  6. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  7. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  8. ↑ "Sigue sin descrubirse al que asesino a una joven francesa" [The young Frenchwoman's killer is still unknown] (PDF) (in Spanish). La Vanguardia. 23 June 1967. p. 9.
  9. ↑ "Los bomberos rescatan el cadaver de un hombre ahogado" (PDF) (in Spanish). ABC. 21 July 1968. p. 49.
  10. ↑ (Spanish) http://findesemana.libertaddigital.com/articulo.php/1276230426
  11. ↑ serial killer true crime library * serial killer news * list of serial killers * serial murder * female serial killers * crime scene investigation * tueur en serie * omicidi seriali *
  12. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  13. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  14. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  15. ↑ "Manuel Delgado Villegas se confiesa autor de otra muerte" (in Spanish). ABC. 23 February 1971. p. 31.
  16. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  17. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
  18. ↑ "El Arropiero, historia de un 'psicokiller'" [El Arropiero, the history of a psycho-killer]. Diario de Sevilla.
  19. ↑ "Los crímenes de el Arropiero" [The crimes of the arropiero]. Libertad digital: Fin de semana.
  20. ↑ Catalán-Deus, José (2011) Criminales, Víctimas y Verdugos: Crónica negra de España (1939–1975) Ed. Península
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