Francisco García Escalero was a homeless man in Madrid who, between 1987 and 1993, killed people living on the city's streets, most of them men who slept rough as he did. He had been admitted to psychiatric hospitals since his teens. Police took him to one more than once during those years, and in 1990 he told doctors there that he felt the need to kill. Each time he was released. He was caught only after he threw himself in front of a car in 1993, broke a leg and told the nurses who treated him what he had done.
He confessed to 14 killings, and police were able to attribute 11 of them to him, El Independiente reported in 2023. In February 1996 the Audiencia Provincial de Madrid, the provincial court, held that he had committed eleven murders, a sexual assault and an abduction, according to a 2022 account in the Oaxaca newspaper NVI Noticias. The same court acquitted him on grounds of mental illness and ordered him held in the prison psychiatric hospital at Fontcalent, near Alicante. He was never convicted. He died there in August 2014, at the age of 60.
The Spanish press called him "el matamendigos", the beggar killer. The case drew attention less for its numbers than for the warnings that went unheeded.
García Escalero was born in Madrid on May 24, 1954, according to El Independiente and El Cierre Digital. His parents were farm workers who had moved to Madrid from the province of Zamora, NVI Noticias reported; in the city his father worked as a bricklayer and his mother as a cleaner. El Cierre Digital wrote that he grew up with his father and an older brother in a settlement of about 200 shacks beside the Almudena cemetery.
The reports describe a withdrawn, solitary boy. He skipped school and spent hours walking among the graves, sometimes at night, and his father beat him for it, El Independiente and NVI Noticias reported. Several accounts describe suicidal behavior from an early age. El Cierre Digital dates it to about the age of 12, when, it says, he began stepping in front of cars in the hope of being hit, and NVI Noticias reported that he was struck by a car at 12. His father answered with severe beatings, according to El Cierre Digital.
At 14 he left home, NVI Noticias reported, and began drinking about a liter of wine a day. He carried a knife and committed small thefts. A 2023 report distributed by the Argentine agency Noticias Argentinas said he was first admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1970, at the age of 16, and that he committed minor thefts while there.
Years later, El Cierre Digital quoted him describing those years in an interview: "Me gustaba ir a sitios solitarios y me pasaba la idea de matarme" ("I liked going to lonely places, and the idea of killing myself would come to me"). He also said that voices had called to him: "me decían que hiciese cosas raras, que tenía que ir a los cementerios y que tenía que matar" ("they told me to do strange things, that I had to go to the cemeteries and that I had to kill").
The theft of a motorcycle brought his first serious arrest. NVI Noticias reported that he was sent to a reformatory; El Independiente wrote that he spent four years there, and El Cierre Digital and the Argentine newspaper Crónica said he was held in Madrid's Carabanchel prison. NVI Noticias put his release in 1973.
Soon afterward, according to every account, he and other young men attacked a couple at night near the Almudena cemetery, beat the man and sexually assaulted the woman. The sentence is reported differently: twelve years in El Independiente, El Cierre Digital and the Noticias Argentinas report, eleven years in NVI Noticias, and ten years in Crónica. El Cierre Digital wrote that he served the sentence in full and regained his liberty at about the age of 30.
In prison he covered himself in tattoos. One, on his arm, read "Naciste para sufrir" ("You were born to suffer"), according to NVI Noticias and the Noticias Argentinas report. NVI Noticias described it as an epitaph beneath a drawing of a tomb. He also collected dead animals and birds in his cell, NVI Noticias reported.
Out of prison at about the age of 30, García Escalero found no steady work. Crónica wrote that he tried to look after his ailing father and to work as a truck driver, but that lapses of memory brought traffic fines and cost him the job. He drank heavily and took pills.
His father died in 1985, according to NVI Noticias, which describes it as the event after which his violence grew. El Independiente wrote that his father died while he was still in prison. After the death, the reports agree, he lived on the streets and his drinking worsened.
He told psychiatrists that he heard voices. El Independiente quoted him: "Las voces me lo decían" ("The voices told me to"). Crónica wrote that he called them voices from beyond and that they told him to commit crimes.
The reports describe a man without close relationships. El Independiente wrote that he had no emotional ties to anyone and that his psychiatric picture included schizophrenia and manic depression, compounded by alcohol and psychiatric drugs.
The reports agree that the killings began in 1987 and continued until 1993, and that his victims were mostly people living rough in Madrid, whose deaths drew little notice at the time and were not connected for years. The reports differ on several names and dates, and none of them lists the eleven killings the court accepted.
The first victim named in later reporting was Paula Martínez, a young woman. Her body was found on the outskirts of Madrid in August 1987, according to the Noticias Argentinas report, and El Independiente and El Cierre Digital also date her killing to 1987. NVI Noticias gives a different first case: a homeless woman killed on November 11, 1987, whom it does not name.
NVI Noticias, in 2022, published a list of victims with names. It includes:
Mario Román González, killed in 1987.
Juan Cámara Baeza, stabbed to death in 1988.
Ángel Heredero Vallejo, killed in 1989. The Noticias Argentinas report describes a man named Ángel found in March 1989.
Julio Santiesteban, killed in May 1989, according to NVI Noticias. The Noticias Argentinas report describes a homeless man named Julio, 65, found in May 1989.
Crónica, in 2022, named Mario González, Juan Baeza, Ángel Vallejo and Julio Santiesteban among the victims, shortened forms that match the names in the longer list. The press gave few details of the victims' lives beyond the fact that most of them had nowhere to live.
He killed with a knife or a stone, often after drinking with the victim, according to NVI Noticias.
The police picked García Escalero up several times during these years and took him to the Hospital Psiquiátrico Provincial de Madrid, and each time he was released, NVI Noticias reported. On December 15, 1990, he was admitted there and told doctors that he felt the need to kill, according to NVI Noticias. They did not believe him. Telling the same story, El Cierre Digital wrote that he had at one point described thirteen killings and that no one took him seriously.
NVI Noticias quoted the forensic doctor Juan José Carrasco: "el problema de Escalero es que no estaba ingresado ni recibía tratamiento" ("Escalero's problem is that he was not admitted to hospital and was not receiving treatment"). Carrasco added, in the paper's summary, that society and the health system had failed to prevent the crimes.
In 1993, El Independiente and El Cierre Digital reported, García Escalero admitted himself voluntarily to the Alonso Vega psychiatric hospital. There he met a fellow patient, named by NVI Noticias as Víctor Criado Martí, 34. The 2023 Noticias Argentinas report names him Víctor Luis Criado and calls him García Escalero's companion.
The two men left the hospital together. Criado was found dead about 48 hours later, after the two had been drinking, according to the Noticias Argentinas report; El Cierre Digital wrote that he was found days after the escape. El Independiente wrote that the police inquiry into the death of a man who had left the hospital with a companion is what led investigators to García Escalero.
Before the police reached him, he threw himself in front of a moving car. He broke a leg and was taken to Ramón y Cajal hospital in Madrid, according to NVI Noticias. There he told the nurses that he was a killer and would kill again if he stayed free, and asked them to have him arrested at once, El Cierre Digital and El Independiente reported. El Independiente wrote that he did not want to go on killing. NVI Noticias dated the suicide attempt to September 1993 and wrote that the hospital called the police, who arrested him. Crónica wrote that hospital psychiatrists examined him first and the police questioned him afterward.
Once in custody he went through the killings one by one. El Independiente wrote that he gave details only the killer could have known, that he confessed to 14 killings, and that the police could attribute 11 to him. The Noticias Argentinas report said that in April 1994 the Madrid press described a homeless man of 39 accused of killing eleven people, who had confessed to 14 crimes.
To the forensic doctor Carrasco, after his hospital admission in 1993, he said: "Las voces siguen. Se ríen de mí. Me dicen que quieren sangre" ("The voices go on. They laugh at me. They tell me they want blood"), as NVI Noticias quoted him.
The case was heard by the Audiencia Provincial de Madrid, with José Manuel Maza presiding, according to El Independiente and NVI Noticias. NVI Noticias dates the trial to February 1996; the Noticias Argentinas report dates it to February 1995.
The forensic experts agreed that he remained dangerous but was not responsible for his acts, the Noticias Argentinas report said, attributing his condition to chronic alcoholism and schizophrenia.
In February 1996, NVI Noticias reported, the court held that he had committed eleven murders, a sexual assault and an abduction. It declared him "enajenado mental", of unsound mind, acquitted him on that ground and ordered him confined for treatment at the prison psychiatric hospital at Fontcalent in Alicante, with his condition to be reviewed every six months. El Independiente wrote that Maza found him dangerous and unfit to live among other prisoners and ordered him held in a psychiatric center until he could be released. He remained there until his death.
At Fontcalent, El Independiente reported, he was never violent again. The medication the court had ordered worked, it wrote, and staff described him as friendly. The Noticias Argentinas report said staff found him courteous.
In custody he claimed several dozen more killings, El Independiente reported. Given his mental state, the authorities did not believe him. In an interview some years before his death, El Cierre Digital reported, he said: "Yo pienso en la muerte, la muerte me atrae. Me gustaría morirme, sí" ("I think about death, death attracts me. I would like to die, yes").
García Escalero died at Fontcalent on August 19, 2014, according to the Noticias Argentinas report and NVI Noticias. That evening, the Noticias Argentinas report said, he went into a side area of the common room with a plum from his supper and was later found dead. The autopsy could not establish whether his heart had stopped or he had choked. NVI Noticias and Crónica wrote that he choked on the stone of the plum. He was 60, El Independiente reported, and had died in the institution he entered in 1996.
The first victim. Most later reports name Paula Martínez, found in August 1987. NVI Noticias instead places the first killing on November 11, 1987, and describes the victim as a homeless woman. The reporting does not make clear whether these are two accounts of one case or two different cases.
The number of victims. The figure the court accepted is reported as eleven. He confessed to 14, according to El Independiente and the Noticias Argentinas report. His later claims of several dozen more were not believed.
The arrest date. NVI Noticias puts the suicide attempt and arrest in September 1993. The Noticias Argentinas report says the Madrid press described the accused man in April 1994. The two are not necessarily in conflict: the reports may describe an arrest in 1993 and a public naming in 1994, but no report states that sequence.
The last victim's name. NVI Noticias gives Víctor Criado Martí; the Noticias Argentinas report gives Víctor Luis Criado; Crónica writes Víctor Martí.
The trial date. NVI Noticias gives February 1996; the Noticias Argentinas report gives February 1995.
The outcome. NVI Noticias, El Independiente and the Noticias Argentinas report all describe an acquittal on grounds of mental illness and a committal to Fontcalent. El Cierre Digital, in 2025, wrote instead that he was sentenced to 30 years for the eleven murders and that the sentence was later revoked when he was declared insane, and Crónica, in 2022, wrote of a conviction and a 30-year term while also describing an acquittal. The Noticias Argentinas report itself used the word "condenado" in one passage. The ruling as NVI Noticias summarized it, a finding that he committed the acts with an acquittal on grounds of mental illness, is the version most of the reports support.
The earlier sentence. The term for the 1970s sexual assault is given as ten, eleven or twelve years.
The cause of death. The autopsy could not settle whether he died of a cardiac arrest or of choking, according to the Noticias Argentinas report and Crónica.
May 24, 1954: Francisco García Escalero is born in Madrid.
1970: First admission to a psychiatric hospital, at 16, according to the Noticias Argentinas report.
1973: Released from a reformatory, according to NVI Noticias; soon afterward he takes part in an attack on a couple and is sent to prison.
1985: His father dies, according to NVI Noticias.
1987: The killings begin; Paula Martínez is found on the outskirts of Madrid in August 1987, according to the Noticias Argentinas report. NVI Noticias dates a first killing to November 11, 1987.
1988 to 1989: Juan Cámara Baeza, Ángel Heredero Vallejo and Julio Santiesteban are killed, according to NVI Noticias.
December 15, 1990: Admitted to the Hospital Psiquiátrico Provincial de Madrid, he tells doctors he feels the need to kill and is not believed, according to NVI Noticias.
1993: He admits himself to the Alonso Vega psychiatric hospital and leaves with a fellow patient, Víctor Criado Martí, who is found dead soon afterward.
September 1993: He throws himself in front of a car, breaks a leg and confesses to nurses at Ramón y Cajal hospital, according to NVI Noticias; police arrest him.
April 1994: The Madrid press reports a homeless man of 39 accused of eleven killings, according to the Noticias Argentinas report.
February 1996: The Audiencia Provincial de Madrid, presided over by José Manuel Maza, holds that he committed eleven murders, acquits him on grounds of mental illness and orders him committed to Fontcalent, according to NVI Noticias.
August 19, 2014: He dies at Fontcalent, aged 60.