BOGOTA, Dec. 2 (UPI) — A man in Colombia known as the “Monserrate Monster” confessed to killing seven women in Bogota by strangling them, claiming it was in self-defense.
Four decomposing bodies of women ages 18 to 22 were recovered on Tuesday, El Tiempo reports. Bogota’s Metropolitan police identified the “Monserrate Monster” as Fredy Armando Valencia Vargas — a homeless drug addict.
Valencia Vargas, 37, confessed to killing young women who were drug addicts. He would lure them to a makeshift camp he made in the dense forest on Bogota’s Monserrate mountain, near a popular historic church.
He would offer the women comforts and hallucinogens — expecting sexual favors in return.
“I gave them food, clothes, bathed and gave them what they liked,” Valencia toldCityNoticias on Wednesday. “When they were clean, I told them to give me mine but no longer wanted to give me anything. They wanted to go and steal things. So they attacked me.”
Valencia Vargas will undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the prison and could possibly be placed in the prison’s mental health facility.
“I suffocated them by squeezing their neck. It was self-defense because they attacked me to leave without paying,” Valencia Vargas added. “Everything I did, I did in self-defense. They intended to assault me and all I did was defend myself.”
Valencia Vargas studied industrial engineering but began using drugs after his mother’s death about 12 years ago, eventually becoming homeless. He said he had a woman he loved who cheated on him, which devastated him just like his mother’s death.
Newly established anti-femicide hate crime laws in Colombia have increased prison sentences for convicted killers to 22-41 years. But Valencia Vargas could face as little as 15 years behind bars because he confessed.
