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José Antonio Rodríguez Vega (December 3, 1957 - October 24, 2002) was a Spanish serial killer that killed over 16 women ages 61 to 93 years old. Because of his tendency to murder older women, he was given the nickname, "El Mataviejas", which translates to "The Old Lady Killer".
Background
Rodriguez Vega lived a devious and heinous childhood, assaulting his terminally ill father as a child. He was thrown out and abandoned by his mother from doing so. Eventually, his resentment towards his mother was shown from his actions of killing elderly women, which he mainly did via rape and suffocation.
Known Victims
- Margarita González (82 years old),
- Carmen González Fernández (80 years old)
- Natividad Robledo Espinosa (66 years old)
- Carmen Martínez González (61 years old)
- Julia Paz Fernández (66 years old)
The other victims' identites were never publicly revealed, but it is assumed that he murdered at least 16 different women in his lifetime.
Arrests and Death
He was first arrested in 1978 for raping other women. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison, but was released early after just 8 years due to good behavior. His first wife left him after his arrest. He was later remarried, but started to torture and humiliate his second wife, who was mentally disabled. He later continued to go down his life of crime afterwards, continuing to rape and murder other women.
Rodriguez Vega was later arrested for a second time on May 19, 1988. He confessed to the murders upon arrest and was mentally diagnosed as a psychopath. Despite the confession, he denied the charges upon trial and claimed that his victims died from natural causes, which was seen as plausible given the age range of the women that were murdered in his hands. He was sentenced to 440 years in prison.
He later died while incarcerated on October 24, 2002, when he was stabbed to death by two other inmates.