.

MundoAndino Home : Colombia Guide at Mundo Andino

Campo Elias Delgado


Campo Elias Delgado was a Colombian Vietnam War veteran who killed 30 people, and wounded 15 more at a luxurious Bogota restaurant called Pozzetto, before apparently being shot dead by police.

Life

Delgado was born 14 May 1934, in Chinacota, Colombia. He was drafted into the Vietnam War as an electrician in 1970. Friends reported that his experience in Vietnam had made him antisocial and bitter. After his return from Vietnam, Delgado lived by teaching private English lessons and was taking graduate studies at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. He was no longer able to develop friendships, for which he blamed his mother, Rita Elisa Morales de Delgado. As the years went by, he grew more and more resentful of his mother. The capstone of this story of loneliness was the murder of his mother on 4 December 1986, after which Delgado embarked on a horrific killing spree.

The murderers path

The restaurant massacre occurred in the evening of 4 December 1986, but the murders started in the afternoon, in the apartment of one of Delgados English students, where he stabbed to death Claudia Rincon (his 15 year old pupil) and her mother, Nora Becerra de Rincon. He went back to his own apartment (where he lived with his mother) and then went to have dinner at an expensive Italian restaurant in the Chapinero district. He carried a .32 revolver, five boxes of ammunition hidden in a briefcase, and a hunting knife, which he discarded while walking to the restaurant.

His apartment

Delgado packed his briefcase full of ammunition and loaded his pistol. He walked up behind his mother and killed her with a single stab to the back of the neck. He then wrapped her corpse in newspapers and set them on fire. He then ran through the apartment complex screaming "Fuego! Fuego!" (Fire! Fire!) and lured people outside into the main hallway one by one and killed them. He killed one man with the knife, then opened up his briefcase and opened fire on them, killing five more people.

The restaurant

Delgado arrived at the restaurant at around 19:30 EST and ordered an expensive meal (spaghetti alla bolognese according to accounts of survivors and Mendoza's book), red wine, and eight vodka tonics. About one hour into the dinner, he opened fire on the diners. A lady was quick to call the police and they got there ten minutes later. Delgado shot twenty-one people to death, mostly women, by the time they had arrived. His method was to corner his victim and shoot them at point-blank range in the forehead and then move on to the next victim. A further fifteen were wounded. Delgado promised himself not to kill any children, but he accidentally killed a six-year-old girl sitting at an adjacent table as a result of his pistol misfiring. When the police arrived, Delgado turned his attention to them and managed to fight them off for one minute. Eventually, he was apparently killed with a shot to the temple by a police officer. However, there is also a belief that Delgado committed suicide before being captured or killed.

Victims

Those killed by Delgado were: La matanza, Conexion Colombia

{| style="background-color: transparent; width: {}"

|width="{}" align="{}" valign="{}" |

Nora Isabel Becerra de Rincon,

Claudia Marcela Rincon, 14, daughter of Nora Becerra

Rita Elisa Morales de Delgado, Delgado's mother

Gloria Isabel Agudelo Leon, 50

Gloria Ines Gordi Galat

Nelsy Patricia Cortes, 26

Matilde Rocio Gonzalez Rojas, 23

Mercedes Gamboa Gonzales, 20

Maria Claudia Bermudez Duran

| width="{}" align="{}" valign="{}" |

Diana Cuevas, 45, executive of Revista Cromos

Carlos Alfredo Cabal Cabal, leader of the Nuevo Liberalismo in Valle

Consuelo Pezantes Andrade

Antonio Maximiliano Pezantes

Hernando Ladino Benavides, 41

Grace Guzman Valenzuela

Giorgio Pindi Vanelli

Judith Glogower Lester

Zulemita Glogower Lester

| width="{}" align="{}" valign="{}" |

Alvaro J. Montes

Jairo Enrique Gomez Remolina, director of Revista Vea

Rita Julia Valenzuela de Guzman, 51

Andres Montano Figueroa

Alvaro Perez Buitrago, major in the Colombian military

Sonia Adriana Alvarado

Guillermo Umana Montoya

Margie Cubillos Garzon, 6

Laureano Bautista Fajardo

Sandra Henao de Lopez

|}

Among the wounded were: Victor Mauricio Perez Serrano, Maribel de Perez, Juliet Robledo, Jose Dario Martinez, Miriam Ortiz de Parrado, Alfonso Cubillos, Yolanda Garzon de Cubillos, Jhon Cubillos Garzon and Pedro Jose Sarmiento

In popular culture

The novel

In 2002, Colombian writer Mario Mendoza published Satanas (Satan), a novel that analyzes the case of Delgado. The book was very successful and received several international awards. Mario Mendoza met Delgado at the university in Bogota when he was a Literature student, and he actually talked to Delgado just a couple of days before the massacre.

The film

In 2006, Colombian film makers Rodrigo Guerrero (Producer) and Andi Baiz (Director), adapted "Satanas" into a film (with the same title). The story is framed in a context of urban solitude in the modern world and sheds some light on the motivations and anxieties of Campo Elias Delgado but avoiding explicit or manichean conclusions.

Bibliography

Molina, Edwin Orlando Olaya. Pozzetto: Tras las Huellas de Campo Elias Delgado. Medellin, Colombia: Libreria Juridica Sanchez, 2007 ISBN 9789588336039

Forero, Jorge Andres. En el fondo del pozo. Colombia, 2004

External links

Spree Killer Scores (Delgado is ranked highest)

Colombia's New Urban Realists (article about Mario Mendoza)

Website in English of the 2007 Colombian film Satanas

A review in English of Satanas - the film

Spanish article with pictures of the crime scene

One-man rampage leaves 26 shot dead, Wilmington Morning Star

Colombian who killed 28 ignored pleas for mercy, Wilmington Morning Star

Sicopata mata a 22 personas, El Tiempo (p.1)

Nadie quiere reclamar cadaver del sicopata, El Tiempo (p.7B)

Campo Elias: un superespia!, El Tiempo (p.1)

Cronica de Campo Elias Delgado

Didn't find what you were looking for.
Need more information for your travel research or homework?
Ask your questions at the forum about Colombian murderers or help others to find answers.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Campo Elias Delgado


Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - 2009