11. "Dog Killer"

by Benji

So there have been a number of fanciful criminals who’ve made the news over the years. For example there was the “Screwdriver Maniac,” a taxi driver who attacked female passengers (with a screwdriver), and was never detained. Some criminals have crossed over into mythical territory, like the “Devil of San Blas,” who would seduce women at nightclubs in the district, and was allegedly the actual Devil. The “Dog Killer” was something like that. It must have taken place around ‘93, though Tati knows the exact year. Around that time dogs in Barrancón started turning up dead. Most had been strangled, but later he took on more grisly methods, like crushing their heads with a spade. The killing of family dogs in homes was most alarming, though many strays were also slaughtered, and some others were poisoned. But it’s hard to attribute all those deaths to one culprit: there was a stray-culling campaign going on as well, and cruel neighbors are known to poison obnoxious dogs, given time.

The Dog Killer really piqued the interest of the media when he began to branch out of his neighborhood. House pets were turning up dead by the same methods all over town. They came in all breeds and sizes, and sometimes there’d be multiple victims. The motivation behind these killings was a total mystery. Since they were random, the man was probably insane, and very much not a dog person. But more importantly, since the killings involved breaking and entering, it was implied that he could move on to people whenever he felt like it. He didn’t steal any valuables either, which wasn’t rational. I remember my parents setting up a home alarm system for the first time. They also moved my brother’s crib up to their bedroom. We didn’t even have a dog so I have to question this level of circumspection, but I understand that everything about this country was sort of scary at the time.

The Dog Killer remained at large for something like six months and was never far from the papers, but didn’t make headlines either. He was perfect tabloid fodder. Some people moved their pets inside the house, but many others set them free or quietly sacrificed them. Tati says that, walking down the streets of Barrancón at the time, you’d see packs of newly-released roaming Labradors and Great Danes, many still wearing their collars. A number of people also came forward and claimed to be the Dog Killer. Some of these were publicity stunts arranged for TV shows and others were eccentric stabs at fame, but none lasted. The most striking eyewitness testimony of the actual Dog Killer came from an old lady whose Shih Tzu or Pomeranian (I forget) had been brutalized. It was “her only friend.” In an interview she claimed to have seen a black presence move into her yard like smoke and stare at her with glowing red eyes through the windowpane. This whipped the news stations into a frenzy. They were already airing hours-long reports on UFOs and possessions at the time, so this wasn’t much of a reach. And the late-night ads began soon after.

I only saw them once myself. I don’t think any of you did. I’d stayed up very late watching X-Men re-runs on the weekend when all of a sudden the TV lost its signal. After seconds of harsh static a grainy image turned up. It was a slow-motion, close-up montage of dogs lying dead. In the background they played choir music the likes of which you’d hear in televangelism shows. The camera flashlight panned over these bodies whose wounds bore the work of the killer. It wasn’t clear whether this was news footage or some kind of forensic record, it looked like neither. Finally, superimposed in white lettering, came the message: “Please, Stop.”

The whole thing lasted about thirty seconds. After it ended there was another period of static and then it was back to X-Men.

Over the coming weeks I learned from classmates that the ads were showing up in every public channel, interrupting cartoons, soap operas, and softcore porn without discrimination, between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. The kicker was that nobody knew where they were coming from. I didn’t understand what that meant at the time, but now it’s clear that in every instance the broadcast signal was being jammed; they weren’t paid ads. This new development unleashed a more intense wave of discussion around the Dog Killer as a whole, though I only witnessed it at the level of schoolyard rumor. The adults seemed to regard the ordeal as curious but not immediately-threatening. And the ads disappeared after a few weeks.

And soon after, so did the Dog Killer. People had more or less gotten tired of him anyway. I think after the old lady’s account he came off as a villain in a cartoon. It’s hard to say exactly when he stopped, because dogs turn up dead every day in any big city, but there were no more signs of his M.O. We assumed that he had returned to the depths of hell until he felt like crawling back out. The Dog Killer’s identity is unknown to this day, and for that matter so is the origin of those ads. It’s an enduring discussion topic among local conspiracy theorists, along with other classics like the “Terranova Portal Tunnel,” the “Núñez Family Doll,” and the “Black Sedan of the Pan-Am Highway.” You know I love that stuff.

As for the ads themselves, I’ve tried tracking down a recording a couple times and failed. Alejo assured me that he saw one in a YouTube compilation of nineties LatAm ads, but I never found it. After asking around it’s become clear that I’m not the first to go looking around in vain, but no one else seems to be aware of their true importance. The thing that I still wonder about, with my shaky memory of the ad, is who could have recorded it. The footage seemed to be taken at night, but nearly all the bodies were discovered in the morning.