Roberto José Carmona
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Aggravated robbery
Kidnapping
Rape
16 years (Bolea)
20 years (1982 robbery)
Roberto José Carmona | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1963 (age 61–62) |
| Other names | "The Human Hyena" |
| Convictions | Murder x4 Aggravated robbery Kidnapping Rape |
| Criminal penalty | Life sentence without parole x3 (Ceppi, Pérez and Bocalón) 16 years (Bolea) 20 years (1982 robbery) |
| Details | |
| Victims | 4 (3 convictions) |
Span of crimes | 1986–2022 |
| Country | Argentina |
| States | Córdoba Province, Chaco Province |
Date apprehended | most recently on December 13, 2022 |
| Imprisoned at | Cruz del Eje Prison, Cruz del Eje |
Roberto José Carmona (born 1963), known as The Human Hyena (Spanish: La Hiena Humana), is an Argentine thief, rapist and serial killer. Initially imprisoned for killing a teenage girl in 1986, Carmona proceeded to kill two inmates in separate incidents and culminating with the murder of a taxi driver during an escape attempt in 2022.
Carmona is considered one of the most dangerous murderers in the country's history, and is the second longest serving prisoner after Robledo Puch.
Early life
Roberto José Carmona was born in 1963 in Buenos Aires Province, the only son of an unknown father and a woman named Magdalena Bonet.[1] Lacking the financial resources to support her son, Bonet left him at the Villa Elisa home in La Plata, where Carmona claimed he had been abused by other children and authorities who constantly beat him and left him without food.[1][2] He was then moved to a convent, where he also claimed to have suffered physical abuse.[3]
When he was seven years old, his mother took him in again, but as she was absent for much of the day, Carmona grew resentful of her.[1] In his youth, he began to use drugs such as marijuana and pills, and at the age of ten, he committed his first robbery when he broke into a police car and escaped with a .45 caliber pistol.[3][4]
During his teen years, Carmona was transferred between several juvenile institutions. As an adult, he was imprisoned on multiple occasions for robbery, passing through the prisons in Olmos, Sierra Chica, San Nicólas, La Plata and Junín.[4] In 1982, he was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for aggravated robbery, deprivation of liberty and drug usage, but was released on parole on January 10, 1986.[5]
Murders
Gabriela Ceppi
On the night of January 14, 1986, Carmona was driving his Ford Taunus through Villa Carlos Paz when he saw three young people on the side of Route 20. They were 16-year-old Gabriela Ceppi and her friends, Guillermo Elena and Alejandro del Campillo, who were returning home from a dance club and whose car had a flat tire. Carmona stopped and helped them change the tire, but after they were done, he pointed a gun at them and stole their belongings. He then forced Ceppi into his car and drove away. After driving for several kilometers, he stopped alongside a dirt road and raped her.[3]
He continued on his way with the girl to Toledo, where he sexually abused her once more. Once this was done, Carmona forced her out of the car and shot her in the head. He then drove towards Villa María, where he picked up hitchhikers Norberto Ortiz and Sergio Pieroni. After claiming to them that he was an army corporal, he threatened the hitchikers and forced them to assist him in the armed robbery of two fishermen they came across.[3][4]
After Gabriela's abduction was reported to the police, Carmona was arrested on February 11, 1986, in General Pacheco, just after he had kidnapped a cab driver and a family in order to rob them.[3] He was put on trial and swiftly convicted, receiving a life sentence for murder, multiple counts of aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping.[5]
Prison attacks and murders
Carmona was transferred to the San Martín Prison in Córdoba to serve his sentence. In 1988, he stabbed fellow inmate Martín Castro after, in his words, he did not "lend him his wife for sex". Castro survived, but hours later, while he was sleeping, Carmona threw boiling water on his face, permanently disfiguring him.[4][6]
In 1994, Carmona stabbed to death Héctor Vicente Bolea, the leader of a group of prisoners who had tried to lynch him after Carmona got into a fight. The exact murder weapon was never found, but he was nonetheless convicted and sentenced to a further 16 years imprisonment.[4][6]
After this incident, Carmona was transferred to the Chaco Regional Prison, but due to his violent nature, he was transferred again - this time to a maximum security prison in Resistencia. In 1997, he killed another inmate, Demetrio Pérez Araujo, by stabbing him in the chest with the sharpened end of a broomstick. For this and other crimes committed beforehand, he was given a second life sentence without the possibility of parole.[4][6]