Suffering from an abusive childhood, Luis Alfredo Gavarito grew up to be an alcoholic who molested and murdered children. Police officials in Bogota, Columbia, said Gavarito's crimes were unprecedented in the history of that South American nation. By the time he was sentenced to 52 years in prison in December of 1999 for murdering an 11-year-old boy in 1996 in the north-central Columbian city of Tunja, Gavarito had confessed to molesting and killing 140 children during a seven-year period.

The oldest of seven children, Gavarito (also known as "Goofy," "the priest," or "El Loco") was born in the western, coffee-growing region of Colombia. According to police, he suffered continual physical abuse at the hands of his father and was raped by two male neighbors. With five years of schooling, Gavarito left home at the age of 16 and worked as a store clerk and as a street vendor selling religious cards and icons...