10 Crazy Wrestling Scandals You've Never Heard Of
5. The Lucha Libre Serial Killer
Juana Barraza lived an early life of unfathomably bleak torment.
Attributed to more than one author, the very nature of humankind may never have been summed up in as few words as "hurt people hurt people". The concise wordplay and brutally accurate economy is devastating.
Barraza's biological mother, an alcoholic, sold her as a child to a man who raped her while in his care. He gave her three cans of beer in exchange.
Whether born evil, or having lived a life in which goodness as a value was impossible to fathom, Barraza embodied and conducted evil. After a brief career in lucha libre, working only the most remote outposts of the scene to very little recognition, Barraza devised a different means of making money. Devious and reprehensible, she targeted elderly women - perhaps conflating them with her mother in a grim exercise in projection - and was suspected to have posed as a government official and preyed on their desperation for welfare.
After earning their trust, and being allowed entry into their homes, she robbed and bludgeoned or strangled to death an official number of 16 - although estimates put the number in the range of 40.
Tragically, as the murders unfolded, authorities were accused of incorrectly focused on sex workers - delaying the investigation and enabling the killing spree to continue.