José Antonio Rodríguez Vega

"All men wish to rape their mother at some point."

José Antonio Rodríguez Vega, a.k.a. "The Old Lady Killer", was a gerontophilic serial rapist, killer and necrophiliac active in Santander, Spain during the 1970s and 1980s.

Background
Rodríguez Vega was born in a dysfunctional family of Santander, Spain in 1957. His grandfather was rumoured to have poisoned his grandmother, his father and elder brother were jealous, violent alcoholics; and his mother was aggressive, dominant and violent as well. When Rodríguez Vega was 8, he was molested by a 50-year old widow that he considered a friend. He became a compulsive masturbator and from age 12 he began to have sexual impulses towards his mother, that he found disconcerting and kept secret. By age 18, Rodríguez Vega had also become violent and was expelled from the family home after throwing his now wheelchair-bound father down the stairs.

He married a high school mate with the opposition of both families and had a son, but the marriage was a failure because of his jealousy and constant arguments about their sex life. At age 20 he was arrested for raping two women and attempting it with three others and was sentenced to 27 years in prison; he showed no remorse and said that he did it because he was bored. Since the Spanish penal code of the time allowed the nullification of a sentence in some cases where the victim pardoned their aggressor, he wrote to his victims asking for forgiveness, and his mother also talked to them in his behalf. All but one agreed, and his sentence was reduced to 8 years. The year before his release, his wife divorced him and moved out of town.

Freed in 1986, Rodríguez Vega began a relationship with another woman and attempted to move back into the family home with her, but his mother refused because she didn't approve of her son living with a woman he wasn't married to. Rodríguez Vega never forgave his mother for this and considered it the reason he began to kill old women.

Murders, Arrest and Incarceration
Rodríguez Vega's first victim was Victoria Rodríguez (no relation), a 61-year old prostitute that he slept with regularly. They were talking after sex when he suddenly had a desire to put his hands over her nose and mouth, until she suffocated. His other victims, all raped and killed the same way, were planned and selected beforehand. They were lone women that had hired him to do construction work in their homes, or that he convinced to let him in with a ruse, and in many cases their bodies were not discovered until several days after they died. Despite the concerns of some families and the victims being found bruised and with no underwear, the deaths were attributed to natural causes and not investigated, even after a morgue employee told police and the press that three women had vaginal injuries.

On April 19, 1988 Rodríguez Vega murdered Julia Paz Fernández in Muriedas, a village 6 km (3,7 miles) from Santander, and jurisdiction fell to the Spanish Civil Guard rather than the police. The civil guard learned that Paz had just hired a worker to reinforce her entry door, Rodríguez Vega, and that he had been in prison for rape. They shared their suspicions with the police, who realized that two other recently deceased women had also reinforced their doors just before their death. Rodríguez Vega was arrested and nonchalantly admitted to have killed nine women because he saw them as surrogates of his hatred mother and mother-in-law. Meanwhile, a search of his rented home found a room painted bright red, where 30 to 40 items were displayed. Some were recognized by relatives of the nine women, and seven more families recognized others when they were shown on TV. Around 10% of the objects remained unclaimed, implying the existence of other victims.

In 1991 Rodríguez Vega was sentenced to 440 years in prison, though he could not serve more than 30 by law. Delusional and narcissistic, he conceded several interviews while incarcerated, always stating his belief that he was going to be pardoned soon and make millions from his memories. Along with his proximity to the guards, this made him unpopular with other inmates and made him change prison frequently. On October 24, 2002 he was seized by two prisoners who accused him of being a snitch and was stabbed 113 times. Had he lived, he would have been released in 2008.

Modus Operandi
Rodríguez Vega's early crimes were opportunistic. He would drive around on his scooter, assault a woman walking alone using his own strength only, and flee on the same vehicle.

His later murders displayed more organization. He targeted women that lived alone, were between 65 and 93 years of age (although he had trouble telling ages and described the victims as being in their 50s and 60s, closer to his own mother's age), and that he came across during his time working as a freelance construction worker specialized on reinforcing doors. If the victim was a client, he'd return after completing the work with the excuse of checking if it was working correctly; if not, he'd introduce himself as a handyman looking for work or an insurance salesman. Once in the interior he would converse with his victims, fondle them, and when they screamed him to stop, proceed to rape and suffocate them by placing his hand over their nose and mouth. He is considered a necrophiliac because he killed his victims while in the process of raping them, although he insisted that they were alive and only unconscious. Sometimes he penetrated the victims himself but others he'd use an object, and having obtained a thrill, he would return home and have sex with his girlfriend. Before leaving, he would carry his victims to bed, cross their arms over their heart, and tuck them in. He would also take one or more objects, mostly jewelry, and place them in his 'red room' to relive the crimes.

Profile
"That son of a bitch made a report on me without knowing me nor talking to me. This is why I'm going after that bastard when I get out."

The forensic psychiatrist team that examined Rodríguez Vega before his trial declared that "he is a heartless psychopath and a sexual pervert with capacity to distinguish between what is licit and what is not. He has no sense of guilt and lacks compassion and shame. He may repeat similar acts in the future." Crime psychiatrist José Antonio García-Andrade added that "[t]he subject experiences great anxiety before sex, which results in enormous insecurity, with a reduced theshold for frustration. The neurotic traits of the subject are related to his sexual anomalies" and that "the incest element was an unconscious trigger determinant to the succession of events."

Victims

 * 1977: Numerous unnamed women assaulted, only five aged 18 to 55 were identified
 * 1987-1988: At least 16 elderly women, all raped and suffocated:
 * 1987:
 * April 15: Victoria Rodríguez Morales, 61
 * June 13: Simona Salas Menéndez, 84
 * August 6: Margarita González Sánchez, 82
 * September 17: Josefina López Gutiérrez del Anillo, 86
 * September 30: Manuela González Fernández, 80
 * October 6: Josefina Martínez, 84
 * October 31: Natividad Robledo Espinosa, 86
 * December 18: Catalina Fernández, 93
 * December 29: María Isabel Fernández, 82
 * 1988:
 * January 6: María Landazábal, 72
 * January 30: Carmen Martínez González, 65
 * February 11: Engracia González Aranada, 65
 * February 23: Josefa Quirós Llano, 82
 * March 16: Florinda Fernández Valliciervo, 84
 * April 2: Serena Soto Arguelles, 85
 * April 19: Julia Paz Fernández, 71

On Criminal Minds
Though Rodríguez Vega has not been mentioned or referenced directly in Criminal Minds, he might have provided some inspiration for Pablo Vargas, the unsub in Machismo. Both Pablo and Rodríguez Vega acted in Spanish-speaking countries, were serial rapists of younger women before switching to raping and killing elderly women (though Pablo was unable to consummate during his second spree), took mementos from their victims, had difficult relationships with their mothers, and remained active for longer because law enforcement did not recognize the presence of a serial killer earlier. Pablo's murder of his mother may have also been a reference to Rodríguez Vega wishing he did the same to his own mother.