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Gregorio CARDENAS HERNANDEZ
A.K.A.: "The
Tacuba Strangler" - "El Goyo Cárdenas"
Classification:
Spree killer
Characteristics: Buried the bodies in his garden
Number of victims: 4
Date of murders: August-September 1942
Date
of arrest:September 4,
1942
Date of birth: 1915
Victims profile: María
de los Ángeles González, 16 (prostitute) / Rosa Reyes, 16
(prostitute) / Raquel Martínez de León, 16 (prostitute) /
Graciela Arias Ávalos, 19 (student)
Method of murder: Ligature strangulation
Location: Mexico,
D. F., Mexico
Status: Pleaded guilty.
Sentenced to life
in prison in 1943. Released on September 8, 1976. Died on August
2, 1999
Gregorio Cárdenas Hernández, (Goyo),
the Tacuba strangler, kills four women, he has sex with the victim,
asphyxia to three and kills the fourth hitting her, and he tries to hide
the bodies in his house on Mar del Norte No. 20.
He is arrested in September 1942, and
released on September 8 of 1976, he dies on August 2, 1999 when he was
82 years old.
During his imprisonment Dr Quiroz
Cuarón diagnosed him from criminológica psychology: neurotic personality,
evolutionary neurosis, organ-neurosis, narcissism and anal sadistic
eroticism.
From the psychiatric point of view,
his neurotic state is esquizo-paranoide. Goyo, who rejected a
scholarship from PEMEX, writes three chronicles of his jail years, and
after his liberation, receives a tribute, by the House of
Representatives: an standing ovation to him.
Inspired by his history, they have
been generated theater plays and cinema: "El Asesino” (the Assassin),
kind of porn short movie, from the years forty. “El profeta Mimí” (Mimí
prophet), film directed by Jose Estrada in 1973. “El Criminal de Tacuba”
(The Tacuba Criminal), work of Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, directed by
Raul Quintanilla, who showed the play in the “Helénico”
Theater in the ninety. Goyo went to
see the play, and as he displeased the references to hispersonality, he
demands to the producers and writers, who are forced to pay 8 million
old pesos. "Raptola, matola, violola" (kidnaped, raped, killed her),
videohome of Benjamín Cann, makes reference to the case in "The
Nativitas strangler". "Goyo", documentary made in 2003 by Verónica de la
Luz, Marco Jalpa, Ricardo Ham y Salvador Méndez.
Gregorio "Goyo" Cárdenas Hernández
(Mexico City, 1915 - Los Angeles, 2 August 1999), also known as the
strangler of Tacuba (estrangulador de Tacuba), was a Mexican
spree killer. He was the first multiple murderer whose case was widely
published in the Mexican media, and became a national celebrity.
Early life
Cárdenas Hernández was born in
Mexico City a family originating from the state of Veracruz. In part due
to an encephalitis infection, he showed abnormal behavior as a child,
including cruelty to animals. Cárdenas received a scholarship from
Petróleos Mexicanos to study chemistry at the Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México (UNAM).
Murders
Cárdenas Hernández
committed his murders in August and September 1942. On 15 August 1942 he
was visited in his house in the Tacuba neighborhood of Mexico City by
16-year-old prostitute María de los Ángeles González. After having sex
with her, Cárdenas strangled De los Ángeles and buried her body in his
garden. In the following weeks he also murdered prostitutes Rosa Reyes
and Raquel Martínez de León, both aged 16, and finally 19-year-old
fellow chemistry student Graciela Arias Ávalos. His neighbors started to
get suspicious and informed the police. Shortly before the police
exhumed the bodies, Cárdenas had himself committed to a psychiatric
hospital, where he was arrested on 7 September 1942.
Cárdenas was incarcerated in the notorious Lecumberri
prison. During his trial Cárdenas pleaded guilty and was given a life
sentence. He escaped prison in 1947 and fled to Oaxaca, but eventually
was rearrested.
Fame
Cárdenas became a celebrity in Mexico, being the
first multiple murderer receiving widespread media attention in that
country. In the years following his murders there were reports of
several copycat murderers imitating his crimes and an (illegal)
pornographic movie based on his story was made. Cárdenas himself wrote
three books while in prison and was regularly questioned and
investigated by the country's top psychiatrists and criminologists.
Cárdenas was allowed to pursue psychiatry and law studies while in
prison. He learned to play the piano, wrote poetry, and even married in
prison. His wife bore him four children.
In 1976 Cárdenas was pardoned by president Luis
Echeverría. He was invited by interior secretary Mario Moya to give a
speech in the Congress of the Union, where he was celebrated as a hero.
He was hailed as a "great example" and a "clear case of rehabilitation".
Cárdenas completed his law studies and worked as a lawyer until his
death in 1999.
A chance meeting with Alejandro Jodorowsky in a
backstreet bar in Mexico City inspired the psycho-magician to create the
1989 film Santa Sangre, based loosely on Cárdenas's life.
