Forensic Science and Psychology

From a criminalistic and legal perspective, we report two cases of homosexual pedophile serial killers who share certain characteristics. Our sources are first-hand accounts only, i.e., a. meetings with Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos / the

investigators in Colombia, and b. the yet unreleased original files of the trials against Jürgen Bartsch, as well as letters written by him. Between 1992 and 1999, Luis Alfredo Garavito killed more than 300 children in the core age span between 8 and 13 years (as an exception: 6 to 16 years). His modus operandi remained stable. The children were tied up, tortured, raped, and killed by at least one cut in the lateral part of the neck, or by decapitation. During the killings, Garavito was drunk. During his confessions, he directed the investigators correctly to the scenes of crime spread over large areas of Columbia. Garavito may be released out of prison within the next 15 years, i.e. even before the maximum sentence of 40 years. In 1966, then 19-year old Jürgen Bartsch (1946-1976) was arrested after an unsuccessful attempt to torture, kill and dismember a young boy. Before, in the years between 1962 and 1966, Bartsch had killed 4 young boys aged 8 to 12. He estimated to have undertaken more than 100 further homicidal attempts. The method of murder was beating and strangulation. He dismembered most of the bodies, pricked out the eyes, decapitated the bodies, and removed the genitals. He also tried but failed to perform anal intercourse with the victims. His goal was to skin the life victims. Bartsch openly discussed his wish for dominance, control, and sexual

gratification but also his strategies of avoiding prosecution. Under the influence of psychiatric consultations, Bartsch's views on his parents, as much as memories of sexual abuse performed by a teacher, became a topic. In a psychiatric hospital, Bartsch managed to marry a heterosexual woman. During a voluntary castration operation, he died due to an error in the anaesthetic procedure.