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by birth and who is nine years and five months old. Fiore Godino contends that his son is uncontrollable and rebellious and does not respond in any way at all to any discipline of any kind and so he formally requests that the police take charge of his son and place him in whatever institution they see fit and for as long as they see appropriate.’

      Godino spent two months in the reform school but was soon back to his usual tricks – and some new ones. At the age of ten, he discovered the wonders of masturbation and started masturbating three times a day. Meanwhile, he continued to attack children.

      In 1908, now 12 years old, he tried to burn a girl’s eyes out of her sockets by setting light to her eyelashes and also tried to drown 22-month-old Severino González Caló in a water trough. Luckily, the farmer heard screaming and came to her aid. Santos blamed the crime on a short woman dressed in black, explaining that he had actually come to the little girl’s assistance and – luckily – arrived just in time to save her.

      After another two months had elapsed, his parents simply couldn’t stand him any longer and put him into another, much tougher reform school; he would stay there for the next three years, until he was 15. It was on his release that his true reign of terror began.

      Reform school had only made Godino worse. He had been able to escape out of there most nights anyway and, along with his only friend, had begun stealing watches and selling them to buy alcohol. He was soon drinking almost as much as his old man and had also discovered another new hobby.

      Maybe it was the sight of the rubbish burning constantly on the horizon at night, but Godino was now unable to resist setting fire to something if it looked like it would go up in flames fast enough. Thief, murderer and now pyromaniac, he set alight a wine cellar – creating a conflagration that took firemen three hours to put out – a lumber mill, a shop, a tramway station and two warehouses.

      By this time, even the tough residents of Parque Patricios were giving him a wide berth, but children, he soon discovered, could be easily lured away from their protective gaze with sweets. He had also begun carrying a homemade garrotte.

      In 1912, he committed three murders. In January, he tempted 13-year-old Arturo Laurora to an empty house, tied him to the floor, removed his trousers and underpants and then strangled him to death. A month later, he crept up behind a five-year-old girl as she was looking in a shoe-shop window and set light to her dress, leaving her to die.

      Just before Christmas, he encountered 18-month-year-old Jesualdo Giordano, asked the boy where the nearest sweetshop was; when the boy told him, Godino said he wanted to reward him for showing him the way. They went together to the sweetshop and Godino told the boy that he would walk him home. He then led him to an abandoned house.

      As the boy didn’t want to go into the house, Godino dragged him by his leg, stretched the boy out on the floor and tried to strangle him with a rope. But the boy kept on struggling, so Godino tied him up then decided to drive a nail through his skull. While looking for a nail, he left the building and ran into the boy’s father who asked him if he had seen his son.

      Godino told him that he had not, then helpfully suggested that he should go to the police station. He then went back into the house, finished the job and went home.

      The boy’s father, meanwhile, carried on looking. He looked all over the area until he entered an abandoned building and there, among the rubble and rubbish, was his son. At first, he thought he had found him hiding, and called his name but received no reply. He moved closer to the toddler, then, according to a report in Argentine tabloid La Razón, ‘He took him in his arms and with desperation and grief started running with the boy to his house that was a short distance away. To begin with Giordano didn’t realise that he was carrying a corpse in his arms, as the body was still warm but once inside his house and surrounded by his wife and neighbours it was confirmed that his son had been horribly murdered.’

      That night, the boy’s father held a wake for his son. Among those who attended it was Santos Godino, who approached the coffin and touched the skull, curious to know if the nail, which he had driven into the toddler’s skull that morning, was still there. He didn’t know it, but he was already under police surveillance. A girl who had been playing with Jesualdo when he had been abducted had clearly remembered his murderer and described him to police.

      After the wake, Godino returned home for a while then went out to buy the evening edition of the local paper. As he was illiterate, he went to his friend’s house and got him to read aloud an article about the murder, then tore it out and put it in his pocket. The press, who were having an absolute field day with the crime, were already hinting that an arrest was imminent, but that didn’t bother Godino; he simply went home. He was drinking tea when police arrested him and took him in for questioning.

      Using a very limited vocabulary, and with a soft, childlike way of expressing himself, Godino initially gave the impression of being utterly harmless and even vulnerable. Then he confessed to the murder.

      As La Razón reported at the time, ‘The subject said that the boy went with him to the store on Progreso and Jujuy where he bought two cents worth of sweets two of which he gave to the minor… as the boy started to ask for his father he gave the boy three more sweets and so managed to get him as far as the corner of Catamarca and 15 November where he approached a deserted house.’

      Then, with an empty expression, he calmly told police that he had killed another three children and tried to kill another seven. He complained to his interrogators that he suffered from terrible headaches and said that, while being in the grip of an overpowering urge to kill, besides the three murders he had committed that year, he had also lured two other girls from their homes and tried beating them to death – in the last week. He also confessed that he had tried to strangle two-year-old Roberto Russo to death in an abandoned house in November. According to police records, ‘Godino confesses that he did all of it for fun and for entertainment, that it was purely the desire to kill that was the motivation to carry out his acts due to the fact that it gave him pleasure.’

      And why not? He had been acting well within his rights, he told police. After all, plenty of other people did it too and, he added, ‘It would really cheer me up to kill kids from the local hospital.’ As well as confessing to all of his crimes against children and his frequent arson attacks, police records reveal that Godino also confessed to having stabbed a horse to death. ‘As he recounts these incidents,’ the official report reads, ‘he does so with the utmost indifference affirming that he found pleasure in harming and killing animals. Indeed he shows not the slightest remorse for his acts, talks lucidly and shows satisfaction while recounting them. He says that he masturbates frequently and that he has had no dealings at all with women but that the sight of them he finds quite agreeable. He drinks strong alcohol on a regular basis and has done so ever since he was 12 when he started drinking four glasses of whisky per day. He has had little or no formal schooling. He is illiterate but is capable of signing his own name. He has a good memory. He has many interesting physical characteristics and would be an interesting subject for further study.’

      La Razón also managed to interview Godino, shortly after his confession. ‘Many mornings,’ he told them ‘after the usual moaning from my father and brothers and sisters I would leave my house with the idea of finding work and as I never found any I found myself feeling that I wanted to kill someone. So I would look for someone to kill. If I found some kid I would take him somewhere and strangle him.’

      The journalist asked if he felt any remorse for his crimes. ‘I felt some regret but only for a moment. Last night I went to Jesualdo’s house and when I saw the boy in the box I felt like crying then I ran out of there because I was afraid.’

      As Godino awaited trial, some of the most eminent doctors and physiatrists in the country examined him. One of their conclusions was that Godino was driven by an almost primeval animal instinct to kill. They declared that he felt absolutely no remorse for his crimes, was extremely dangerous and should spend the rest of his days in a lunatic asylum.

      Some argued that his crimes were the result of systematic abuse, while others pointed to numerous physical and mental anomalies about the boy and argued that he

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