The Little Big-Eared Boy: Seven Years Old, First Crime

Father Begs Police to Lock Up His Nine-Year-Old Son Before He Kills Again: The Serial Murders of Cayetano Santos Godino

A father walks into a police station in early 1900s Buenos Aires and tells officers his young son is dangerous. He asks them to lock him away. They refuse. Within months, children begin disappearing-some found strangled, one set on fire, another with a nail driven through her skull. The system ignored every warning sign.

In this episode, we examine the forensic evidence, the interrogation transcripts, and the impossible contradiction at the heart of Argentine criminal history: a boy with twenty-seven skull scars from systematic abuse, confessing to murder with calculated precision. We explore the father's desperate plea in 1906, the quick releases from reform schools, the victims whose names were buried with them, and the question that criminology still debates-was this a failure of the system, or a failure to recognize what was right in front of them?

Victim: María Rosa Fase, Reina Bonita Vainikoff, Jesualdo Giordano, others
Date: 1904-1912
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Status: Convicted of four documented murders; acquitted due to insanity at age 18

- Father explicitly told police his son was dangerous and requested incarceration in 1906; boy was released and reoffended within months
- Forensic doctors documented twenty-seven cranial scars indicating severe brain damage from childhood abuse, yet interrogation transcripts show calculated, anticipatory language about killing inmates
- Godino returned to the wake of victim Jesualdo Giordano and manually exposed the nail wound in the corpse's temple in front of the child's father
- Police found a newspaper clipping in Godino's pocket about one victim's murder with his photograph; when asked why he kept it, he said it made him feel important

Cayetano Santos Godino, Buenos Aires serial killer 1904-1912, Argentina first documented serial killer, child murders, forensic evidence, system failure, criminal psychology, unsolved mysteries, true crime English

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