{"id":690414,"date":"2026-05-23T23:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690414\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T23:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:41:14","slug":"today-in-history-may-24-teen-who-murdered-other-criminals-arrested-after-71-slayings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690414\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History &#8211; May 24: Teen who murdered other criminals arrested after 71 slayings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/world\/today-in-history-may-24-what-happened-on-this-day\/5b612a99-16d8-4782-8709-02bbb8502548#7\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Pedro Rodrigues Filho\">Pedro Rodrigues Filho<\/a>, a notorious vigilante from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/brazil\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Brazil\">Brazil<\/a> who hunted down serial killers and other criminals, had his first taste of jail on May 24, 1973, at the age of 18.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/27bf3073-dbd0-49de-ae2e-4596c363cf68.jpeg\"   alt=\"\"\/>Pedro Rodrigues Filho was a vigilante from Brazil who hunted down serial killers and other criminals, (Wikipedia)<\/p>\n<p>Rodrigues was handcuffed in the back of a police car alongside\ufeff a convicted rapist on that day.<\/p>\n<p>Rodrigues killed the rapist in the back without the police officers noticing.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>He was initially sentenced to 126 years behind bars, but he was released in 2003 after Brazil instituted a 30-year maximum prison sentence, regardless of the crime.<\/p>\n<p>Following his release, his history would inspire the book series Dexter, about a serial killer who killed other killers.<\/p>\n<p>The series later became a popular television show.<\/p>\n<p>Rodrigues would be re-arrested in 2011 and spent another seven years behind bars.<\/p>\n<p>Though he spent most of his life behind bars, he managed to kill at least 71 drug dealers, rapists or murderers.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>He claimed to have killed far more people than he was actually convicted of.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the crimes were committed while he was a teenager.<\/p>\n<p>Rodrigues spent 40 years behind bars until his release from a final prison term in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>He then became a popular YouTube commentator on crime.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>But his violent past caught up with him when he was killed in a drive-by shooting in March 2023.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/d757e2b2-ff8c-4092-bfdc-0d89de605760.jpeg\"   alt=\"Dexter, Showtime, series, reboot, Michael C. Hall \"\/>Rodrigues inspired the popular show Dexter. (Showtime)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pedro Rodrigues Filho, a notorious vigilante from Brazil who hunted down serial killers and other criminals, had his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-690414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}