Jairo Humberto Giraldo

Giraldo was born in 1987 in Bogotá, Colombia, but was abandoned at an early age by both parents, with his father completely disappearing and his mother moving to Medellín. With nobody to look after him, he took to the streets, where he survived by begging and stealing from passers-by, sometimes using the money to buy drugs. At the age of 8, he was raped by a man in the streets, leaving him traumatized by the event afterwards.^[1] This, coupled with his unstable social life and financial difficulties, made him plunge into a state of constant depression, with a growing resentment against gay men, whom he blamed for his tragic life.^[2]

At the age of 18, while prostituting himself around the streets of Bogotá, Giraldo met 28-year-old Javier Fernando Guanga Villegas, an Ecuadorian transvestite visiting from Guayaquil. The pair became romantically involved, and in February 2002, Guanga took Giraldo with him to Quito, where he was planning to undergo plastic surgery. Not long after their arrival there, a series of murders began to plague the city's gay community.^[1]

Since arriving in the country, Giraldo offered sexual services to gay men in Parque El Ejido, where he agreed to have sex under the sole condition that he was the "man" in the relationship.^[2] On April 6, he was hired by a local bank manager, Fidel Assad Buenaño Carriel, and brought to the latter's apartment. There, Buenaño wanted to engage in intercourse with Giraldo, but insisted that he take on the role of the "woman", to which Giraldo vehemently refused. After Buenaño insisted, Giraldo, blinded by sudden rage, proceeded to strangle his client.^[1] After realizing that he was dead, Giraldo took all the valuables from his apartment and fled, but soon after, went back to Parque El Ejido.^[2]

On April 12, Giraldo was hired by Carlos Abel Ponce Ponce, a Mexican agricultural scientist who was working in Quito. He was taken to his apartment, where, presumably under the same circumstances, he proceeded to strangle Ponce to death. A day later, the same pattern emerged in the killing of Pablo Alejandro Garcés Calero, a well-respected chaplain for the Santa Rita neighborhood. In an effort to forget the murders, Giraldo and Guanga left for Colombia, where they resided for a few months, but returned to Ecuador in September of that year.^[1]

By that time, alarms were raised in Quito's gay community about recent killings of homosexual men, which began in January with the death of an older man who was strangled to death in his apartment, naked, with his feet tied to the chair.^[1] While there were claims in online forums that some had seen the killer and even knew his identity, nobody contacted the police, fearing it would damage the community's reputation. The killings resumed on September 20, when 26-year-old Carlos Jorge Zavala Barona, a shareholder in an insurance company, was found strangled in his apartment, which had also been robbed.^[1]