Pedro Rodrigues Filho, known as Pedrinho Matador, claimed to have killed more than 100 people in a five-decade murder spree that saw him target drug dealers, gang members and other criminals
Maria Leticia Gomes GAU Writer
08:00, 31 Oct 2025
He was Brazil’s most infamous serial killer – a figure whose twisted tale would eventually inspire one of TV’s most complicated anti-heroes.
Pedro Rodrigues Filho, dubbed Pedrinho Matador (“Killer Pete”), boasted of slaying over 100 victims across five decades.
Officially found guilty of 71 murders, he spent more than four decades behind bars, becoming known as a “Robin Hood” character who hunted drug dealers, gang members and fellow criminals.
Born on October 29, 1954, in a remote Brazilian village, his skull was damaged in the womb when his father lashed out at his expectant mother during a row.
According to his own testimony, this prenatal trauma set the course for everything that followed, reports the Express.
At just nine, Pedro fled his family home. Initially he sought refuge with relatives before drifting towards São Paulo, where he turned to theft and rough sleeping.
Pedrinho spent 34 years behind bars(Image: G1)
By his early teenage years, he claimed his first kill – allegedly shoving a cousin into a sugarcane crusher before later attacking him with a machete.
This initial murder was never confirmed, but his violent streak soon became both genuine and well-documented.
During his adolescence, he had already gunned down a local drug pusher in São Paulo, apparently seeking vengeance for a family feud.
Pedro subsequently hunted down and killed the dealer’s sibling and brother-in-law too.
He revealed to reporters these early slayings gave him a “feeling of power” and insisted his victims were always those who had “done wrong.”
In his late teens, Pedro relocated to the fringes of São Paulo and got entangled in the local drug trade of a nearby town. He shared a home with Botinha, a trafficker’s widow, and took over her deceased husband’s illicit business.
When she was later slain by the police, Pedro sought revenge by tracking down those he held responsible for her death.
The killer is said to have inspired Dexter(Image: Showtime/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)
His killing spree lasted until 1973 when he was apprehended at the tender age of 18. By then, he had already left a grisly trail of victims – from drug dealers and gang members to alleged sexual offenders and betrayers.
He received a prison sentence of 128 years, a figure that would significantly increase as he continued his murderous rampage behind bars.
Inside the prison walls, Pedrinho Matador became a notorious figure. He boasted about having killed dozens of inmates, many of whom were convicted of assault or sexual crimes.
“I only kill people who don’t deserve to live,” he declared to journalists. He even had the chilling phrase “I kill for pleasure” inked on his arm.
In his twenties, Pedro confessed to murdering his own father, who had been imprisoned for fatally stabbing his mother 21 times. Pedro avenged his mother’s death by stabbing his father 22 times and, as per his own account in a TV interview, ripped out his father’s heart, bit into it, and spat it out.
“It was vengeance, not hunger,” he said.
By the mid-1980s, it was reported that he had murdered over 40 fellow inmates within Brazil’s most secure prison. Journalists who encountered him described him as composed, eloquent, and oddly confident.
Despite receiving a sentence totalling over 400 years, Pedro walked free in 2007 thanks to Brazil’s maximum prison term restrictions.
Pedrinho Matador later found faith in Christianity and led a Youtube channel against crime(Image: G1)
By that stage, he had served 34 years behind bars. Just a few years later, he found himself back in custody for his involvement in a jail uprising, only to be freed again in 2018.
At 64, Pedro Rodrigues Filho insisted he was a transformed individual.
He declared his conversion to Christianity, branding himself as “reborn through Jesus Christ.”
He created a YouTube channel titled “Pedrinho, Former Killer with Jesus”, using it to warn audiences about crime’s perils and the importance of redemption.
“The crime is not a game,” he stated in a 2018 chat with Folha de S.Paulo. “Many enter it because they see fame and money. But they don’t see the roots – prison and death. It’s like the devil: gives with one hand and takes with the other.”
His channel rapidly attracted tens of thousands of subscribers.
Through his videos, he recounted tales from his violent past, consistently mixing admission with caution.
“There is no glory in crime,” he warned his audience. “Only destruction.”
On March 5, 2023, Pedro was ambushed and murdered outside a family member’s residence in Mogi das Cruzes – the very city where he had once dominated the criminal scene.
Two hooded attackers riddled him with bullets before slicing his throat with a kitchen blade.
He was 68. Pedrinho’s tale has drawn international parallels to characters of fiction.
His ethical code – only murdering those he deemed deserving – served as one of the influences for Jeff Lindsay’s 2004 novel ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ and its television adaptation ‘Dexter’, featuring Michael C. Hall.
