Juan Diaz de Garayo

Juan Diaz de Garayo dubbed as “The Sacamantecas” or the fat extractor is a serial-killer who was held responsible for strangling 5 women to death and killing a 13-year-old girl.  He also attacked other women in different instances.  Garayo would kill prostitutes at first but eventually grew disorganized and started attacking and raping random women.  Some of the bodies of his victim were also mutilated in way that only animal can do.

Garayo was born on the 17th of October, 1821.  He was illiterate but despite of that he is known to be a hardworking man.  He worked as a farm helper, coal miner and a shepherd.  He had a wife wherein they had 5 children. Two of them died and the marriage ended in the year 1863 with the death of his wife. 

Garayo decided to get married again but unlike his first marriage that is happy, the second marriage is full of complication especially on the relationship between his new wife and his children.  His second wife also died allegedly from smallpox.  Shortly after the death of his second wife he married a third time, this time it is more complicated since her wife is alcoholic.  After five years Garayo found his wife in bed suffering he called the doctor but the doctor told him that nothing could be done on his wife’s current state.  Garayo claimed that he did not kill any of his wives especially on the third one, where the death is a little suspicious.

His first victim was a popular woman from the area of Vitoria; the woman resulted to prostitution after her husband was sent to jail.  They went to a steam to have sexual intercourse.  Garayo strangled her using his bare hands and submerged her head into the steam until she was drowned.  He would then commit a series of murder up to June 1874.  After that period, Garayo went into a hiatus due to an unexplainable reason.

He returned to his killing spree on 1878, where he disemboweled one of his victims.  He was arrested and executed on 11th of May 1881.  The Sacamantecas is the boogeyman in the Spanish folklore.