Police in Argentina have apprehended an infamous serial killer who escaped last month from a La Plata jail where he was serving a life term for murdering his family.
After 11 days on the run, Luis Iribarren Longevin – better known as the “El carnicero de Giles,” or “The Butcher of San Andrés de Giles” – was arrested in Villa Atamisqui, a small town located in Santiago del Estero Province on Sunday (September 8).
Government officials said a “major operation” had helped locate the serial killer, who murdered and buried his parents, two siblings (aged nine and 15) and an aunt over a nine-year period between 1986 and 1995.
Longevin, 59, escaped from Penitentiary Unit No. 26 of La Plata at the end of August. He was serving a life term at the prison, which he received in 2002, when he was found guilty of five homicides, aggravated by familial bond and malice aforethought.
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich welcomed the news that Iribarren had been apprehended, though few details were shared.
“One of the biggest killers in Argentine criminal history, behind bars,” she wrote in capital letters in a post on the X social network.
“He is Luis Iribarren Longevin, 'the butcher of San Andrés de Giles.' He had been in custody in the Buenos Aires Province Penitentiary Service, serving a life imprisonment sentence since 1995," stated Bullrich of the arrest by officers from the PFA’s Fugitive Search Division.
“He escaped from there, but through the Federal Police, and after a major operation, we recaptured him in Santiago del Estero. This extremely dangerous killer murdered his parents and two brothers, who were minors, with a shotgun while they were sleeping, and his aunt with an axe.”
“Law and order. Society is free and not the prey of these monsters. Now he will continue to pay for everything he has done,” declared Bullrich, accompanied by a video showing the moment the murderer was re-apprehended.
Iribarren escaped from custody on August 28 during an educational outing to the National University of La Plata’s Economic Sciences School. He had been granted the right to attend classes without custody by a court in Mercedes and managed to remove his electronic bracelet.
Sources close to the case said Iribarren had no contact with his two children and his ex-wife and in fact, the authorities feared for their safety. Special protection was provided while the killer was out of custody.
Court sources told the Noticias Argentinas news agency that Iribarren had shown no sign of attempting escape in his previous 29 years in custody. In fact they said he had an exemplary record and earned a law degree, had written two books and was taking a journalism course from the University of La Plata.
Iribarren posted on social media, describing himself as “criminal lawyer, management of penitentiary adjustment for detainees, novel writer and journalism student [at] UNLP.” He shared videos on TikTok and posted extracts from his novels and details about his case on the Scribd platform.
During his time incarcerated, he had spent time in five different jails in Buenos Aires Province: Unit 31 in Florencio Varela, Unit 5 in Mercedes, Unit 10 in Mechor Romero, Unit 12 in Gorina and Unit 26 in Olmos.
Fellow convicts reported Iribarren to a quiet person, who avoided conflict and had no visits from friends or family members.
In 1995, during his trial, Iribarren confessed to the murders of his five victims, though he later attempted to retract parts of his story.
“I don’t remember exactly. It might have been 3am and I decided to go into the family home, noticing my whole family was in bed and apparently asleep,” he said in his testimony to the court quoted by Noticias Argentinas.
“I went directly into my bedroom I shared with my brother,” he said, referring to 15-year-old Marcelo.
“I curse the time I went in and saw the rifle against the window. Without thinking, I took the weapon, noticing it was loaded.
“I went into the room where my parents and my sister María Cecilia (9) slept. I closed my eyes, having already located the bodies so I wouldn’t have to look and I shot, I don’t know, two or three times against each one,” he said.
Iribarren continued: “I don’t know what I did when I left my parents’ room, but the first thing I remember is I went into the bedroom where my brother was sleeping, taking the rifle in my right hand.
“I remember I went in and I unintentionally hit Marcelo, my brother, with the tip of the barrel and, without thinking, I immediately fired the gun once again.”
Iribarren's murders did not stop with the murders of his parents and siblings. Nine years later, he murdered his aunt, striking her with an axe to the head.
"I didn't have the courage to shoot my aunt with the gun because I remembered what I had done to my parents and my brothers, and I couldn't bear to do it again. So I kept looking for another object. When I reached the courtyard I saw the axe,” his court testimony reads.
“Actually, there were two axes. I took the one with the longer handle and went to my aunt's room. I stood on the side of the bed and hit her twice on the left side of her head," reads the statement.
– TIMES/PERFIL/NA
related news
Image Gallery
Comments