Triston Jay AMERO
AKA "Claudio Lestat" - "Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo"
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Hotel bombings
Number of victims: 2
Date of murder: March 21, 2006
Date of arrest: Same day
Date of birth: 1981
Victims profile: A young man and a young woman
Method of murder: Explosives (dynamite)
Location: La Paz, Bolivia
Status: Sentenced to 30 years in prison on January 23, 2008. Died in prison on April 1, 2008
Triston Jay Amero born in 1982 (died April 1, 2008), a.k.a. Claudio Lestad, a.k.a. Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo (the names Lestat and Claudius coming from two different characters in Anne Rice's novels) and John Scheda, from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, was arrested for the hotel bombings that killed two people and wounded seven others in Bolivia on Wednesday, March 22, 2006. The bombings damaged two low rent hotels. The attack killed two people and injured seven. A third bombing was stopped. He was eventually found guilty of murder.
Amero had reportedly been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment and had been in juvenile prison several times, beginning at the age of seven. He had wandered around Latin America for some years before settling in the Bolivian city of Potosí in 2004. In posts from Colombia to his blog he repeatedly described himself as a loner, a "political refugee" and "the Superman of Loosers" [sic] whose strongest desire was to distance himself from the United States.
Although the Bolivian police were unsure of the motive for the bombings that led to Amero's arrest, President Evo Morales declared: "This American was putting bombs in hotels." "The U.S. government fights terrorism, and they send us terrorists," he said. Morales denounced the bombings as an attack on Bolivia's democracy. He called it "typical of terrorist crime." This caused a brief cooling of U.S.-Bolivian relations.
Deputy Interior Minister Rafael Puente told Radio Fides: "The possible motives behind these attacks are incomprehensible. There don't seem to be any concrete objectives other than causing deaths."
Amero and an accomplice, Alda Ribiero Acosta of Uruguay, were arrested by police in a hotel in the slum of El Alto, formally charged with murder, and were held in a maximum security prison near La Paz. While there, Amero attempted to stab his lawyer and had gasoline hidden in his cell, with plans to set fire to a prison official and a U.S. diplomat. Amero was sentenced to 30 years in prison on January 23, 2008.
At the age of 26, Amero died in a hospital on April 1, 2008, after complaining of stomach pains while in prison.
'Vampire' convict dies in Bolivia
BBC News
April 1, 2008
American who called himself after a fictional vampire and who was serving 30 years for fatal bombings in La Paz has died, Bolivian officials say.
Triston Jay Amero, 26, was sentenced in January for the March 2006 blasts in which two people died.
A prison official said Amero had complained of stomach pains and was taken to hospital, where he died.
He went by the name Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo, derived from the vampire novels by US author Anne Rice.
Amero, originally from California, had been convicted of carrying out the attacks with his Uruguayan ex-girlfriend, Alda Ribeiro Costa, 47, who was also jailed for the maximum 30-year term.
He was serving his sentence in the Chonchocoro maximum security prison.
A post-mortem was being performed, prison officials said.
Amero and Costa were arrested immediately after the blasts at the low-budget hotels, which took place hours apart on 21 March 2006.
The explosions caused extensive damage and killed a young man and young woman.
According to the Associated Press, Amero passed himself off as a Saudi Arabian lawyer, a pagan high priest, a notary public and a vampire during earlier travels around South America.
He had a history of mental illness and had been jailed on several occasions, AP reported.
'Vampire' man jailed in Bolivia
BBC News
January 23, 2008
An American man who took the name of a fictional vampire has been sentenced to 30 years for bombing two hotels in La Paz, according to Bolivian state media.
Triston Jay Amero, 26, carried out the attacks with his Uruguayan ex-girlfriend, Alda Ribeiro Costa, 47.
Two people died in the blasts in March 2006. Costa must also serve 30 years, the maximum penalty, for her part.
Amero goes by the name Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo, a vampire in a novel by American author Anne Rice.
The Californian has a history of mental illness and repeated incarceration, the news agency AP reported.
Petrol plot
While awaiting trial, Amero also plotted to use petrol to attack officials from the US Embassy who visited and the prison superintendant, but the plot was foiled when the petrol was discovered.
According to AP, Amero passed himself off as a Saudi Arabian lawyer, a pagan high priest, a notary public and the vampire during earlier travels around South America.
He will serve his sentence in the Chonchocoro maximum security prison, reported state news agency ABI.
Amero and Costa were arrested immediately after the blasts at the low-budget hotels, which took place hours apart on 21 March 2006.
The explosions caused extensive damage and killed a young man and young woman.
U.S. Man Charged In Bolivian Bombings
By Fiona Smith - CBS News
February 11, 2009?
(AP) A mentally disturbed American accused of killing two people and wounding seven by setting off bombs in Bolivian hotels said Thursday that he had "done nothing" wrong as a Bolivian judge formally charged him and his Uruguayan lover with murder and falsifying documents.
Triston Jay Amero, 24, and his pregnant partner, Alda Ribeiro, 45, were ordered held in "preventive detention" pending trial by Judge Williams Davila, who said he would evaluate Amero's request for a psychiatric evaluation as well as the pregnant Ribeiro's request for a medical exam.
The bombings were denounced as "terrorist" by an angry President Evo Morales, prompting an equally emphatic response from the U.S. State Department, which said the Bolivian leader's remark harmed their governments' efforts to cooperate against terrorism.
As it turns out, Amero has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals since he was 7 years old after making constant threats of suicide and violence against authorities, according to court documents obtained by the Associated Press. He also spent years in California's juvenile prisons after being convicted of fleeing the scene of an accident and spitting on a judge and court clerk.
He even created lists of people he would kill when released — including his mother, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
"Amero keeps to himself and appears to like to be seen as a rebel and outlaw," corrections officials wrote in court documents.
Bolivian authorities have struggled to understand the motives of a man who has described himself as a Saudi Arabian lawyer, a pagan high priest, a notary public and even a vampire, having adopted "Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo" as his name, a variation on the character in Anne Rice's dark novels, played on film by Tom Cruise.
But this "Lestat" isn't the Hollywood type — in a blog from Colombia two years ago, he described himself as "so repulsive in apearance and dress and religeous practice to the women of Colombia that even prostitutes wilnot take My Money."(sic)
Amero did eventually find a woman — Ribeiro — who said Thursday that her "husband" was alone responsible for the bombings. Police said they weren't sure if the two were formally married.
"He has done something very bad against Bolivia and against these innocent people," Ribeiro said in a television interview from jail. "He did all this behind my back, I didn't know anything about this."
Amero also was interviewed — saying "I am sorry about the victims," but denying he was guilty.
Amero obtained a "world passport" under his given name in 2003 and changed it in 2004 to Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo, said David Gallup, president and general counsel of the World Service Authority, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group. The group's Web site says it "represents the inalienable human right of freedom of travel on planet Earth."
Amero regularly updated Gallup on his exploits, and the group has kept an extensive file, documenting his travel to Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia, as well as his efforts to renounce his U.S. citizenship and his time in jail in Argentina, where police said he tried to bomb an ATM machine.
"It's been a while that he's been trying to get out of the U.S. system," Gallup said. "Finally he made it to Latin America."
The couple also perpetrated attacks in other Bolivian cities that left no victims, La Paz district attorney Jorge Gutierrez said.
Amero applied for Bolivian residency in January, and told Gallup he was passing the New Year in Potosi, Bolivia, a mining community where sticks of dynamite are sold out of stalls at a market open to all.
In La Paz, Ribeiro was giving away calendars — with a nude picture of herself holding a cardboard box of explosives — promoting "the sale and export of explosives, fireworks and liquor," said Marta Silva, who owns a store across from one of the bombed hotels.
The bombings Tuesday night and Wednesday morning killed two Bolivians. The injured included a U.S. citizen identified as Jessica Wilson, who was treated and released. Police said they used 110 dynamite cartridges in each attack, hoping to kill 150 people, and were planning a third bombing of the Chilean consulate — a charge denied by Amero.
Police said the motive may have been "religious" — Amero told them he was a practicing pagan high priest — and that Amero had hoped the bombings would gain him allies through media coverage, district attorney Carlos Fiorilo Thursday.
Morales denounced the crimes as an attack on Bolivia's democracy, and angrily blamed the United States: "This American was putting bombs in hotels," Morales said. "The U.S. government fights terrorism, and they send us terrorists."
U.S. diplomats countered with a statement Thursday condemning the bombings and expressing "concern" and "surprise" over Morales' remarks. "Declarations such as these impede our efforts and block our capacity to cooperate" in anti-terrorism efforts, the U.S. Embassy in La Paz said in a statement Thursday.
In his blog from Colombia and in his communications to the advocacy group, Amero repeatedly describes himself as a loner, a "political refugee" and "the Superman of Loosers" whose strongest desire is to distance himself from the United States.
His aunt, Paula Amero of Forest Ranch, California, told the AP Thursday that "he didn't need to be locked up" in California.
And Amero's mother, Dawna Scheda of Placerville, California, told the AP that "Of course we don't believe he would do something like this. He's my son."
But Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe said they had concluded he was a danger to himself and others. "He is a very disturbed man, and given his past, I think he would be fully capable of doing this."
Associated Press writers Kimberly Chase in Mexico City and Jordan Robertson in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Two killed in Bolivia explosions
BBC News
March 22, 2006
Two people have been killed in an explosion in a hotel in Bolivia's main city, La Paz.
The blast, close to government headquarters, occurred late on Tuesday. Hours later, another hotel in the city was rocked by an explosion.
Several buildings were damaged and at least five people are known to have been injured in the two explosions.
Officials said two foreigners had been detained over the blasts, believed to have been caused by explosives.
Attorney General Jorge Gutierrez said a Uruguayan woman and an American man had been arrested at a hotel in El Alto, 12km (seven miles) outside La Paz.
The first explosion rocked the Linares hotel on Wednesday at 2150 local time (0150 GMT).
Local media say the fatal victims were a young couple. The man was killed instantly, and the woman died later in hospital.
The blast destroyed two floors of the hotel and the windows of surrounding buildings.
The second explosion reportedly occurred at 0145 local time (0545 GMT) at the Riosinho hotel and also caused extensive damage to properties in the area.
Police suspect plastic explosives may have been used.
