10 Serial Killers Who Got Away With It

2. The Rainbow Maniac

Murders: 13

Dates active: 2007 – 2008

São Paulo is the annual stage for the largest gay pride march on earth. It has an enormous, vibrant gay community which is consistently celebrated, until a reign of homophobic terror flooded the streets back in 2007.

A short six months after 3.5 million people gathered in the streets to celebrate gay pride, police announced they were on the hunt for a serial killer who had been killing homosexual men between the ages of 20 and 40, known as 'the rainbow maniac'.

13 innocent men were murdered in Paturis Park, which was apparently a gay meeting point, beginning on 4 July 2007. Each victim was shot in the head and their half-naked bodies were all found in similar circumstances, dumped in undergrowth, trousers around their knees, and a bullet in their heads.

One local newspaper suggested the killer may have arranged meetings with his victims over the internet, using the social networking service Orkut, which is popular around this area.

On the 10 December 2008, a retired state police sergeant, Jairo Francisco Franco, was taken into custody after a witness identified him as the killer of a man on the 19 August. Other witnesses have said that he used to ‘go to the park at night time to look for gay men and victims’, although Franco was released in 2011 after his trial, since the jury voted him not guilty.

So, is the rainbow killer still out there? Was it Franco? The case remains unsolved.