Data File: Manuel Pardo

Pardo was a former boy scout and Navy veteran. After leaving the military he joined the Florida Highway Patrol in the 1970s and graduated top of his class at police academy. In 1979 he was fired for falsifying traffic tickets. he was then hired as a police officer by Sweetwater PD in Miami-Dade County in Florida. He was fired in 1985 after flying to the Bahamas to give evidence at the trial of a Sweetwater colleague who had been accused of drug smuggling. He perjured himself after telling the court they were undercover agents.

in 1986, during a three-month period, Pardo committed a series of robberies. During these he killed six men and three women. He took photos of his victims and wrote about killing them in his diary. He also kept newspaper clippings on the killings, all of which were found after his arrest.

Pardo was arrested after using credit cards belonging to the victim and accidentally shooting himself in the foot during the final murder. He and his accomplice by the name of Rolando Garcia flew to New York City and told doctors at a hospital that he had been shot in the foot whilst visiting the city. The bullet removed from his foot matched bullets from two of Pardo’s victims. Police obtained a warrant to search his home and located a diary with details of seven murders, plus newspaper cuttings about them.

At his trial in April 1988 Pardo pleaded insanity despite giving evidence at his own trial saying he was sane. He claimed that he was doing society a favour by disposing of drug dealers.

He was executed by lethal injection on 11 December 2012. He wrote a final statement which was distributed to the media in which he claimed he never killed any women but admitted killing six men.  His last words were, “Airborne forever. I love you, Michi baby,” referring to his daughter.