Vigilante Justice - What Goes Around Comes Around. Sort Of.

The Midnight Train Podcast

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Imagine the scene:

A serial murderer is guided by a specific “code” that kills only those who are guilty. He has access to crime scenes as a blood splatter analyst for the Miami police, gathering information and analyzing DNA to confirm a target’s guilt before killing them.

Sound familiar? It should, it’s the premise of the TV show, “Dexter.”

Ah, yes, Dexter. I love that show. We figured we would talk about the life of Dexter even though Logan, of course, has never seen it. Jk.

Obviously, murder is never acceptable, right? It’s the worst crime we can commit against one another, right? But what if, someone who didn’t believe in the “thou shall not kill” premise decided to murder someone you love? What if someone raped or beat someone you love? What if a child was purposefully abused, raped, or arguably worse, murdered? Does that horrendous situation change the narrative? Would you, COULD YOU, take the life of the person or persons responsible for your now substantial and debilitating loss? I want you to honestly think about that as we go through today’s episode.

Bottom line, do specific human piles of shit DESERVE TO DIE?

Pedro Rodrigues Filho, or Killer Petey, is a Brazilian serial murderer. He was convicted and is notorious for hunting out and murdering only criminals as a teenager, between the ages of 14 and 19, particularly an entire gang in retaliation for the killing of his pregnant girlfriend.

He served 34 years in prison before being released in 2007, having been formally imprisoned for 71 murders but claimed to have killed over 100 drug traffickers, rapists, and murderers. Filho was initially sentenced to eight more years in jail in 2011 on accusations of inciting violence and deprivation of liberty. However, he was released in 2018 after serving seven years on the condition that he behaved himself. Nevertheless, he murdered 47 inmates inside the prisons where he was held captive, most of whom were rapists.

Since his second release from prison in 2018, when he declared himself to be reformed from his self-declared vigilantism as a youth and committed to not committing any more crimes, Filho has gained notoriety as a YouTube personality in Brazil. He runs the channel Pedrinho EX Matador, later renamed 2P Entretenimento, where he comments on current crimes and teaches the general public that committing crimes is not something to be proud of.

South of Minas Gerais in Santa Rita do Sapuca, on a farm, Rodrigues was born. His father was abusive and, all in all, a piece of shit and had kicked his mother’s belly during a fight while she was pregnant, leaving the poor unborn child with a bruised skull.

In a quarrel with an older relative at age 13, he shoved the young man into a sugar cane press, nearly killing him, and had pondered leaving him there to die before deciding to save him. He claimed that this was the first time he had felt the urge to kill.

When Filho was fourteen years old, his father was accused of stealing food from the high school kitchen where he worked as a security guard, resulting in him losing his job. In vengeance, Filho killed the vice-mayor of Alfenas with Filho’s Grandfather’s shotgun, as he was the one who fired his father. A month later, he killed another guard at the school whom he believed to be the real thief.

On the run, Rodrigues took refuge in Mogi das Cruzes, Greater São Paulo, where he began robbing drug dens and killing drug traffickers, making him a celebrity in the news media as the vigilante “Pedrinho Matador” (Lil’ Petey Killer). Filho killed one of the gang leaders in the area he was ransacking. After killing the gang leader, he took over his role and began running the same gang, almost like a Riddick moment where you keep what you kill.

During this time, he met a woman named Maria Aparecida Olympia, nicknamed Botinha. After they found out they were pregnant, Filho proposed! So awesome to see that this man, with what could be perceived as a savage beast-like mentality, actually has a pretty big heart.

Unfortunately, a rival gang leader brutally murdered Filho’s fiancee during Olympia’s pregnancy.

After finding out about the murder, Filho kind of went full John Wick. He and a few of his friends went to the wedding of the rival gang member. The hit squad brutally massacred all involved in the death of his soon-to-be wife and the mother of his child. He killed 7 at the wedding and injured 16 more. All of this came after Filho went on a torture spree to find out who was involved initially. We don’t know precisely how many were killed or hurt leading up to this point. Dudes an absolute monster and gave zero fucks.

Speaking of giving zero fucks, the boyfriend of Filho's favorite cousin knocked her up! Pretty exciting news. Except for the fact that the boyfriend refused to marry her, so… Filho shot and killed him.

Remember how we mentioned that Filho’s Father was a piece of shit? Well, it gets worse. A few months after the massacre at the wedding, Filho found out that his mother had been killed. By his father. Who had butchered and dismembered her with a machete. After his father was committed to prison, Filho went and paid him a visit! While at the conjugal, Filho stabbed him 22 times! Not only did he kill his father, but he carved his heart out of him and took a rather large bite out of it. Amazing that he still somehow doesn’t have any jail time or was even caught! Brazil, what’s up down there?

Well, after a few years of Filho continuing his lifestyle of a gang leader, it’s known that he killed a few more before good old Johnny Law caught up to him in 1973. After he was sentenced to 126 years in prison, he was transported in a police car with another inmate, where he supposedly murdered him in the police car.

Filho served only 34 years, however, while in prison. This is because the maximum time a criminal can serve is thirty years when convicted, according to Brazilian law. This was later changed to 40 years in 2019.

While in prison, he didn’t slow down much on the killing. He murdered 47 other criminals serving time in the same prison as him. They were the worst of the worst, though. Murderers, rapists, sex traffickers, etc. That’s valiant, right?

But being a killer of killers creates a pretty strong and bad reputation among other criminals. Especially when most of the prison population has that on their rap sheet. So he made some enemies while there.

He was ambushed by some of these people. During the ambush, he killed three of his attackers and injured the other two. One bad motherfucker.

He was up for release in 2003 but because of the murders within the prison, he was given an extra four years. But he only murdered bad guys. I mean, there was just the one-off murder of his cellmate because he snored too loud, but I mean, come on, who hasn't thought about that? No? Just me? Hmm. Anyways. He did mention that he enjoyed a few of the murders just because they were terrible people, and he wanted to kill them.

He was formally let free on April 24, 2007, but on September 15, 2011, he was detained at his home and later found guilty of riot and false imprisonment. He acknowledged that the fact that his girlfriend was not in jail was his primary reason for wanting to be released. However, he was ultimately sentenced to 128 years for these offenses.

Filho was released in 2018 due to Brazil’s repeal of the law stating that those with a diagnosis of psychopathy can be imprisoned indefinitely and that the country’s maximum penalty is 30 years. Since then, he has created a YouTube channel where he shares his experiences. In addition, he tries to teach others to not follow in his footsteps.

So let’s sum this guy up:

Most of the time, Filho hunted down the various types of offenders he wanted to kill by looking up their names and addresses. He then brutally killed them in several methods. However, he admitted that his preferred method was to hack or stab them to death with swords. Usually, when he learned of a crime, that prompted him to take action. When driven by rage rather than thrill, he would occasionally capture criminals (usually professional criminals and drug dealers) and torture them to death. He sometimes modified his approach by following the path taken by his victims when they committed their own crimes, such as when he murdered his father or when he murdered seven people in one day.

Now how about we look at some other folks with the same motifs? Now they may not have as extensive of a rap sheet as Filho, but these following people had decided to make it known for taking justice into their own hands when the Justice system didn’t seem to do enough for them.

Marianne Bachmeier

She was a struggling single mother who learned with horror that her daughter Anna, age 7, had died. The girl missed school on May 5, 1980, and somehow ended up at the home of Klaus Grabowski, a 35-year-old butcher who lived next door. Later, a cardboard box containing Anna’s remains was discovered on the side of a nearby canal. Grabowski was detained very quickly after his fiancée called the police to report the incident since he already had a criminal record for child abuse. Grabowski argued that he hadn’t sexually molested the little girl before killing her, even after confessing to the crime.

Instead, Grabowski made the strange claim that the young girl had attempted to “blackmail” him by saying she would tell her mother he had assaulted her if he didn’t give her money. Grabowski further claimed that the primary motivation for his decision to kill the kid in the first place was this alleged “blackmailing.”

The murder of Marianne Bachmeier’s daughter had already infuriated her. But when the murderer related this tale, she grew even more irate. She was determined to get retribution when the man was put on trial a year later.

At Grabowski’s 1981 trial in the Lübeck district court, his defense claimed that since he had been deliberately castrated for his crimes years earlier, he had only committed the offense due to a hormone imbalance.

The third day of the trial was Bachmeier’s breaking point. She concealed a .22-caliber Beretta handgun in her handbag, took it out in the courtroom, and fired eight shots at the murderer. Grabowski received six rounds of fire before passing away in a pool of blood on the courthouse floor. Bachmeier reportedly responded, “I wanted to kill him,” according to Judge Guenther Kroeger.

Although it was evident from the several witnesses and Bachmeier’s comments that it was indeed her who killed Grabowski, she was shortly placed on trial for the crime. She said, “He killed my daughter... I meant to shoot him in the face but I shot him in the back... I hope he’s dead.”

With some celebrating Bachmeier as a hero and others denouncing her conduct, the “Revenge Mother” case swiftly gained notoriety in Germany. Before shooting Grabowski, Bachmeier said that she saw visions of Anna in the trial and could no longer stand for him to misrepresent her daughter. She allegedly sold her story to Stern magazine to pay her defense lawyers for $158,000.

In the end, the courts found Bachmeier guilty in 1983 of deliberate manslaughter. For her acts, she received a six-year prison term.

Jason Vukovich

Unlike other real-life vigilantes, Jason Vukovich’s search for justice began years before he set out to pursue it. Vukovich, born to a single mother in Anchorage, Alaska, on June 25, 1975, was quickly adopted by his mother’s new husband, Larry Fulton. Fulton seemed devout in public, but in reality, he molested Vukovich during his nightly “prayer sessions.”

Vukovich and his brother were often beaten with belts and pieces of wood in addition to sexual torture. And to make matters worse, Fulton got away with all these horrific offenses, which infuriated Vukovich. As a result, Vukovich, who fled terrified at 16, spent years getting by on narcotics and small-time thievery.

He returned to Alaska in 2008, but his desire to get revenge on pedophiles like Fulton didn’t go away. It culminated in 2016. Vukovich started by browsing the neighborhood sex offenders list. He then attacked and stole from three of the guys on the list as the last act.

In June 2016, Vukovich went after the three guys. Targeting Albee first, he drove to the residences of Andres Barbosa, Charles Albee, and Wesley Demarest. Then, on the morning of June 24, Vukovich broke into the man’s house and smacked the 68-year-old before robbing him and fleeing.

Two days later, he approached Barbosa in a very identical manner. However, he arrived at the door at 4 a.m. this time. He assaulted Barbosa with a punch to the face, stole his truck, and fled the scene with two female accomplices and a hammer. Demarest was instructed to get on his knees as Vukovich struck him in the fucking face with a hammer.

Vukovich claimed, “I am an angel of vengeance. “I’m going to administer justice to those you injured.”

Shortly after, the hammer, stolen items, and a notepad with the names of the persons in it were all discovered by police on Vukovich who was hiding in a nearby car. As a result, 18 charges of assault, robbery, burglary, and theft were brought against him. He decidedly took a plea deal.

According to allthatsintersting.com, in 2018, Vukovich was sentenced to 28 years in prison, after which the judge stated that “vigilantism won’t be accepted in our society.”

Vukovich has since expressed regret for his actions and urged others in his position not to follow in his footsteps: “I began my life sentence many, many years ago, it was handed down to me by an ignorant, hateful, poor substitute for a father. I now face losing most of the rest of my life due to a decision to lash out at people like him. To all those who have suffered like I have, love yourself and those around you, this is truly the only way forward.”

Gary Plauché

Now I’m pretty sure we all already know this story, but it fits the agenda of what we share.

Jeff Doucet, a 25-year-old karate teacher in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, enjoyed the total confidence of his young pupils and their parents. But on February 19, 1984, when Doucet took Jody Plauché, then 11 years old, for what was intended to be a 15-minute automobile journey, that confidence was horribly betrayed.

When their son didn’t come home that day, Gary and June Plauché became quite concerned—and with good reason. Doucet had taken their small boy hostage and was transporting him to the West Coast. Before booking a room at a hotel in Anaheim, California, Doucet shaved his beard and colored Jody’s hair to ward off suspicion.

The youngster was repeatedly assaulted there by Doucet until he eventually gave Jody permission to phone his parents. Jody was returned to his family after the police quickly tracked down the call and apprehended Doucet. In the meantime, Gary Plauché, Jody’s father, traveled to the Baton Rouge airport to meet Doucet at arrivals and murder him.

Plauché drew a .38 pistol from his boot on March 16, 1984, as soon as he spotted Doucet at the airport. He had been talking to a friend on the other end of a payphone while waiting for Doucet to show up. Even saying, “Look out, he’s coming. A shot is soon to be heard. The subsequent gunshot was recorded on tape since television cameras were filming.

Plauché had murdered the abuser of his kid, shooting a hollow-point bullet into Doucet’s head from three feet away. Later, he was put on trial for murder, but the judge sitting on the opposing side of the courtroom was lenient. As a result, Plauché was shortly released after receiving a sentence of seven years with a suspended term, five years of probation, and 300 hours of community service.

Jody Plauché, on the other hand, took a while to comprehend all the trauma that had occurred to him at a young age. "I was outraged with what my father did after the incident," Jody said. “I did not want Jeff killed. I felt like he was going to go to jail, and that was enough for me.”

He continued, “But my parents, they didn’t force me into recovery. They kind of let me recover at my own pace, and it took a while… but I was able to work through it and eventually accept my dad back in my life.” Jody eventually turned his experience into a book titled Why, Gary, Why?.

Tityana Coppage

Tityana Coppage is a woman from Kansas City, Missouri. She was known as a strong woman who tried to help and lead her family as a young adult.

She was only 21 when she lost her brother – and it wasn’t the first loss her family had to come to terms with.

Her family was extended to several younger brothers with different last names who she cared for equally and passionately.

The brother she lost was Jayson Ugwuh Jr. He was a 16-year-old high school student who loved basketball and rap. He was a bright, cheerful kid despite knowing personal tragedies from mere years beforehand.

He was gunned down in public on January 10 while walking with some of his friends.

A car came up, opened fire, and then sped away. What provoked the incident remained a mystery. The only solid fact was that Jayson Jr. was the primary victim.

Tityana and Jayson both endured a shocking loss in 2016 when a drive-by shooting claimed the lives of her young brother Jayden Ugwuh and younger cousin Montell Ross.

The boys were just 9 and 8, respectively, at the time of death. Jayson was present for the shooting and held his little brother Jayden as he faded and died from the bullet wounds.

The killer was never found. Tityana was only 16 when the incident occurred, leaving her mentally changed.

A few days before the killing of Lars, Coppage posted a tribute to her brother on Facebook.

The post read: “I tried to shield y’all from everything I had to witness as a kid. I supported anything and everything you wanted to do in life. I tried to give you the best so you wouldn’t have to look for fake love in the streets,” she wrote in the January 11 post. “I worked hard and long hours to keep a roof over y’all head, nice clothes and shoes on y’all feet refrigerator full of groceries. The streets didn’t rise y’all I did this sh*t 10 toes down. I was at those games as much as I could, I was paying for your studio time for your trips no matter the cost. All I wanted is to see you happy finish school and make it to the top. But some how I still failed you. This wasn’t you Jayson you was so sweet so quite a honorable young man why didn’t you just hear me out I only wanted more time with you that’s all.”

The object of Tityana’s vengeance was Keith Lars. Just two days after her brother's death and burial, she gathered as much evidence as possible to affirm the identity of her brother’s murderer.

She traced him as the car owner that carried the gunman who killed her brother and armed herself before they met. Lars didn’t go down quietly.

They exchanged gunfire, but Tityana came alive and left Lars dead in his car in the parking lot in the city’s northeast section.

Court records state that Lars was found in the back of a Toyota near Virginia Avenue and Admiral Boulevard in Kansas City on January 13, with officers determining that the shooting had occurred close to the 500 block of Benton Boulevard.

At that scene, police found 23 shell casings from two types of bullets. 8

were .45 caliber, and 15 were 9mm.

Was Tityana just an ordinary woman pushed beyond the brink to perform such a murderous act?

She had already seen injustice win with the still-unsolved deaths of her young siblings, and she didn’t have enough trust in the system to properly avenge her brother’s death.

She assumed the guilt of Lars and got in contact with someone called “Auntie” to arm herself with a .45 pistol, saying “I used to many on Bro!”

The fact that multiple gunshots were fired proves she was an amateur with a firearm.

Thanks to witnesses who came forward and surveillance footage in the parking lot where the murder took place, authorities quickly identified Coppage. They arrested her for the murder, booking her into Jackson County Jail on a $200,000 bond.

Evidence was quickly collected against Coppage, and she did not deny the charges.

She insisted that she got justice for her dead brother, even going as far as to text his cell phone to assure him that she was sending his killer to him.

At the time, no formal evidence was collected, or investigations were pending towards Lars as the suspect, though he was armed and did drive the same, or very similar, truck seen at Jayson’s murder scene.

She admitted during questioning that she knew Lars would be in the parking lot when she shot him. However, Tityana initially claimed that the murder was accidental and that she only shot him in self-defense because he fired his weapon at her first.

Coppage was spurred toward Lars by members of her community who seemed to indicate a shared but hushed knowledge of events that led to her brother’s death.

The police weren’t able to corroborate as much in their reporting. So all anyone seemed to know was that Lars may as well have been guilty and could have had his own criminal history.

Therefore, the extended family of the community assisted Coppage’s vigilante act she grew up around.

Coppage does not deny what she did or why and is charged with second-degree murder, which is murder without premeditation or planning.

By her admission, she fired her gun at the vehicle with Lars in it, but she claimed that he fired first and her weapon was meant for protection.

She was celebratory over his death, particularly over vengeance, meaning she went there assuming he was guilty and was armed to act.

Coppage contacted Lars before the meeting to tell him she was coming to ask questions.

She claimed to call him to try and settle differences between him and her father, knowing that if she didn’t take action, he absolutely would.

COPPAGE TEXTED HER DECEASED BROTHER AFTER KILLING LARS AS WELL.

The message sent to Her brother’s phone read: “I owe em that body,” according to an affidavit. This message and the ones sent to “Auntie” led authorities to file murder charges.

Rap artists DaBaby and 42 Dugg made public posts on Instagram voicing solidarity and have reached out to pay $20,000 each of her bond as support.

She is currently awaiting trial.

Jorge Porto-Sierra

Ok, so here we have someone that TECHNICALLY didn’t kill anyone, but that wasn’t for lack of trying.

When authorities responded to the scene at the Friendly Village Inn & Motel on U.S. Route 192 in Florida in 2018, witnesses recalled seeing Jorge shout, “I’m going to kill you, child molester,” as he drenched the property in gasoline with a cigarette in his hand.

Porto-Sierra then returned to the parking lot and attacked two individuals sitting in their car. After that, he rammed his Ford Focus into their vehicle and poured gasoline into it through an open window.

Just as Porto-Sierra was preparing to set the car on fire, police arrived on the scene. He was quickly surrounded and told to surrender.

The 50-year-old Porto-Sierra admitted that he had planned to “barbecue all the child molesters on fire and kill them.” However, when police asked him why he didn’t, Porto-Sierra claimed that the police had arrived too fast for him to do so.

Authorities soon discovered that at least two of the men Porto-Sierra targeted were indeed convicted, sex offenders. One man had been standing outside his room when Porto-Sierra leaped out of his car and launched into a tirade, prompting him to rush inside his room.

“They raped kids, they are all child molesters that all live here and deserve to die,” Porto-Sierra later said as he justified his actions to the police.

While the Friendly Village Inn & Motel is indeed a popular place for convicted sex offenders (because it’s far away from schools and playgrounds), and at least two of Porto-Sierra’s targets were known sex offenders, the real-life vigilante still broke the law and thus found himself arrested for his actions.

As of 2020, Porto-Sierra is being held on no bond at the Osceola County Jail and charged with 4 counts of attempted murder.

André Bamberski

Andre was born to Polish immigrants in France in the 1930s. He was in the thick of the war that affected him growing up. Later, Andre became a chartered accountant and married Danièle Gonnin, having two kids. However, at the time of the incident, Andre and Danièle were divorced, and the latter was married to Dieter Krombach, a doctor, in Lindau, Germany.

Danièle initially told Andre that Dieter believed Kalinka died due to a heat stroke or the effects of a concussion from a few years prior. However, Andre wasn’t so sure. Dieter had stated that on the morning of Kalinka’s death, he had found her in bed, unresponsive; rigor mortis had already set in. However, Dieter tried to revive her by injecting her with a nervous system stimulant and two other stimulants. But that didn’t work, and Kalinka was dead.

The autopsy report read by Andre later showed that Kalinka had blood around her torn vagina. Inside, there was a whitish substance that was never tested. Besides injection marks on her arms, Kalinka had undigested food in her stomach. Experts later believed she died from asphyxiation from regurgitating her own food. All of this left Andre with only one theory: Dieter was responsible for the death.

Andre believed Dieter raped and then killed Kalinka with an injection, possibly to keep her from talking about it. While the German prosecution closed the case, saying Kalinka died of natural causes, Andre didn’t give up, following Dieter across Europe for years to bring him to justice. About a year after Kalinka’s death, Andre went to Lindau, handing out fliers accusing Dieter of murder. He was arrested and then fined and sentenced in absentia.

However, that didn’t stop Andre. He then prodded the French authorities, eventually leading to Kalinka’s body’s exhumation; she was a French citizen. This time, it was revealed that her genitals had been missing since the autopsy, and there was no trace of them. Andre’s work paid off when a French court convicted Dieter in absentia of violence, bringing on death without intention to do so, and sentenced him to 15 years.

But with Germany refusing extradition, Dieter essentially remained a free man for many years. Then, in 1997, Dieter was convicted of raping a 16-year-old in his clinic. He received a two-year suspended sentence in addition to his license being revoked. But a couple of years later, Dieter moved around and worked in several clinics by providing a photocopy of his license as proof.

Andre didn’t give up, even hiring private detectives to find out what Dieter was up to. He said, “All my friends and family, including my father, told me to quit it at this point. They said, ‘You’re not going to achieve anything.’ But I’m a Slav, you see, and the Slavs are very emotional. I cried all the time when I thought about Kalinka. It was a question for me of moral duty. That was the most important thing: to get the truth.”

While Dieter received a 26-month prison sentence, he was released early, and Andre learned he was back to work yet again. Andre then resolved to bring Dieter to France in any way possible. He was in Bregenz, Austria, hoping to look for more information about Dieter in Scheidegg, Germany. Andre talked about kidnapping Dieter and eventually heard from Anton Krasniqi, who agreed to help him. In October 2009, Dieter was taken from his house by Anton and two other accomplices and left outside a building in Mulhouse, France, paving the way for Dieter’s trial.

While Dieter’s pattern of drugging and raping women came to light, he was sentenced to 15 years behind bars. As for Andre, he admitted to knowing about the kidnapping plot but insisted he wasn’t involved in the actual act. In June 2014, he was found guilty of ordering the kidnap and received a one-year suspended sentence. In the end, Andre was happy with the result. He believed that he had kept his promise to Kalinka about giving her justice.

Regarding why Dieter would kill Kalinka, Andre said, “Kalinka had asked to move back to Toulouse, and to no longer stay with Krombach. She was about to escape from him: That could have been a motive. But one will never know. One can never know.” Andre quit his full-time job in 1999 to dedicate himself to bringing Dieter to justice. Through it all, he was supported by his partner (also called Danièle) for several years. Now in his 80s, Andre seems to live in Toulouse, France, and enjoying some much-needed time off.

This one is a DOOZY!

Drąsius Kedys was born on September 4, 1972, in Garliava, Lithuania. He and his former girlfriend Laimutė Stankūnaitė had a daughter in February 2004. Stankūnaitė was underage when she gave birth to Kedys’ daughter. The couple split in 2006, and the parents got embroiled in a bitter custody battle. His former girlfriend, with the help of Andrius Ūsas, a politician and advisor to the former Speaker of the Seimas Viktoras Muntianas, obtained custody in November 2006. Kedys had visitation rights every other weekend, But later Stankunaite gave up her custody rights, giving them to the father.

On November 29, 2008, Kedys submitted a formal complaint to the police, claiming Ūsas paid Stankūnaitė to sexually molest his daughter. In December 2008, Kedys obtained full custody of his daughter with no visitation rights for Stankūnaitė. The courts repeatedly confirmed that Stankūnaitė had no case to answer, thus dismissing Kedys’ allegations against his former girlfriend as unsubstantiated. Nevertheless, the pre-trial investigation against Ūsas continued. In February 2009, Kedys further pressed accusations against Violeta Naruševičienė, Stankūnaitė’s sister, claiming the former had participated in allowing men to molest her 4-year-old daughter. Finally, in July 2009, Kedys accused Jonas Furmanavičius, a district judge, and an individual known as Aidas of partaking in the molestation. All those people (except for Aidas) professed their innocence and accused Kedys of slander, criminal libel, and death threats.

Kedys was frustrated with the apparent lack of progress in official investigations and convinced that the case was being deliberately stonewalled. So, he sent out 200 DVDs to Lithuanian politicians, media outlets, and law-enforcement agencies, featuring homemade video footage of his daughter’s explicit testimony against three “uncles.” In addition, he promised to send the subtitled version to Members of the European Parliament. However, many sources criticized Kedys, who acted as the cameraman, for asking his daughter leading questions and heavily editing the film (it contained 50 segments filmed across nine occasions).

On October 5, 2009, Furmanavičius and Naruševičienė were shot dead in Kaunas. Kedys became the prime suspect. On the same day, a national search of Kedys was announced, soon followed by an announcement of an international investigation, as he was thought to have left the country shortly after the murders. Kedys' friends Raimundas Ivanauskas and Eglė Barauskaitė were charged with accessory to murder. The story caused an uproar in Lithuania, with much of the public siding with Kedys. In the public mind, the case was seen as a father’s futile attempts to pursue justice and protect his daughter and being driven to desperate measures by anger at the injustice. Others questioned whether the killings were actually commissioned by Kedys himself. On April 17, 2010, at 6:49 a.m., after six months of a police search, a man fishing found Drąsius Kedys' body near Kaunas Reservoir. An autopsy concluded he had died between the evening of April 15 and the morning of the 16th. According to the official report, the cause of death was “choking on vomit” while being heavily intoxicated. However, his relatives were convinced that Kedys was murdered, pointing out wounds on his body. Kedys’ relatives demanded a second opinion from independent experts. Finally, in April 2011, a report was received from the Swedish National Forensic Service confirming Kedys had died from alcohol and drug poisoning and that he choked on the contents of his own stomach. The Swedish report differed from the Lithuanian experts in determining “the injuries on the body appeared before his death” and that the “possibility of drowning is not excluded.” On April 24, Kedys was buried in Jonučiai cemetery. According to media reports, 6-10,000 people from across the country attended the ceremony. Ūsas, the main suspect in the pedophilia case, was officially charged with the sexual molestation of a minor. However, he was found drowned in a swamp in June 2010. The death was ruled an accident. Nevertheless, the court case against Ūsas continued, and the court found him innocent in November 2012.

Mirriam Rodriguez

Miriam’s 20-year-old daughter mysteriously disappeared in 2012. Her daughter had been kidnapped and subsequently murdered, and several men were perpetrators of the crime. Dissatisfied with the Mexican justice system, Miriam decided to take matters into her own hands. To fool authorities and her daughter’s kidnappers, Miriam changed her appearance as best she could and used fake identification to make it more difficult to trace her.

One of Miriam’s first “victims” was a member of a Mexican cartel who was implicit in the kidnapping and murder of her daughter. She cornered him, held him at gunpoint, and told him, “If you move, I’ll shoot you.”

But she was just getting started. She eventually tracked down her daughter’s killers one by one all across the country. But unfortunately, her vigilantism led to her ultimate downfall when multiple gunmen managed to kill her outside her home.

Becoming a vigilante against organized criminals is a considerable risk, but it was one that Miriam was willing to take to seek justice for her daughter.

Speaking of people standing up against gangs…

El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha gang is better known as MS-13. Formed in Los Angeles in the 1980s, many members were deported for vicious crimes. However, several of them continued their criminal activity back home. The gang terrorized a nation plagued by a high poverty rate and a virtually helpless police force — until real-life vigilantes stepped up to help.

Spanish for “Black Shadow,” Sombra Negra was first formed around the early 1990s due to El Salvador’s authorities being glaringly overpowered by MS-13. Frustrated by the situation, Sombra Negra started targeting gang members for execution — especially MS-13 members.

Sombra Negra members come dressed in black with bandanas over their faces. They patrol the streets in unlicensed vehicles and with tinted windows. And one of their primary missions is to capture MS-13 members — and make them “disappear.” As Sombra Negra has grown more powerful over the years, so have the legends of their brutal retribution against the gang members.

From sexual torture to dismemberment, the paramilitary group of vigilantes became more of a death squad than a traditional band of crimefighters. In El Salvador, it seemed that only extreme measures would stop MS-13.

“Most of the victims were blindfolded, their hands or thumbs tied behind their backs, and they had received tiros de gracia (a coup de grâce), shots to the base of the skull at close range by weapons such as assault rifles and machine guns,” a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services report said.

From home invasions to sudden killings in the streets, Sombra Negra carries out its mission ruthlessly and describes it as a “social cleansing.” And some authorities are grateful. Even El Salvador’s head of National Assembly Guillermo Gallegos has admitted: “Morally I support this type of expression because people are tired of the way of delinquency.”

In the end, it’s worth noting that many people have mixed feelings about real-life vigilantes. While they may sympathize with their motives in some cases, they may also find some of their choices reckless or unnecessarily dangerous. But there’s no question that these vigilantes have left a massive impression on the world — for better or worse.

And there’s another set of gang-fighting vigilantes…

Pablo Escobar needs little, if any, introduction. One of the most infamous drug lords in modern history, the Colombian kingpin ran a colossal cocaine empire that saw thousands of people killed. Yet, with corrupt authority figures in his pocket, Escobar’s reign appeared resolute — until it wasn’t.

In the early 1990s, Escobar had two rival cartel members murdered when they visited him in an opulent prison (which he had built for himself). Fidel Castano, the other cartel’s boss, was none too pleased. And so he helped form Los Pepes. Short for “Perseguidos por Pablos Escobar,” the paramilitary group welcomed “People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar.”

Escobar was marked after he walked out of his prison in July 1992. At this point, even the U.S. government and CIA were aiding Los Pepes in their quest to find the kingpin. But unfortunately, Los Pepes also engaged in bloody bombings against Escobar that killed and injured civilians.

Some of these nearly killed their target, including a car bomb that injured Escobar’s daughter. For more than a year, Los Pepes ruthlessly attacked anyone in Escobar’s circle — from friends and relatives to public supporters and officials. Finally, it was in 1993 when they closed in on the man himself.

After Los Pepes forced Escobar into hiding, Colombian intelligence intercepted a phone call from Escobar to his son. Now confident of his whereabouts, Colombian police and military forces headed for Escobar’s newfound hiding place in the neighborhood of Los Olivos — ready for retribution after years of brutal violence in the country.

Whether Los Pepes members played an active role in killing him remains hotly contested, but one thing is sure: Without their vigilant quest to find Escobar, he would likely lead many more to their deaths. Ultimately, he was chased across rooftops and gunned down while on the run.

And lastly, what happens when an ENTIRE TOWN decides a lousy guy needs to die?

It didn’t take long for Ken McElroy to become the resident “bully” of Skidmore, Missouri. And considering his crimes, the “bully” label was putting things lightly. For years after he dropped out of school, he was accused of everything from theft and arson to child molestation and statutory rape. But despite being indicted 21 times, he dodged convictions at every turn.

After McElroy raped a 12-year-old girl, he divorced his wife and married the child when she was 14 to avoid a statutory rape charge. When her parents objected, he shot their dog and burned down their house. And after he shot a farmer in 1976, he somehow produced two witnesses who claimed that McElroy was nowhere near the scene of the crime that day.

Ken McElroy was a true terror for Skidmore residents, who wanted him removed immediately. McElroy’s downfall was a long time coming, but it truly fell into motion in 1980 after he shot the town’s elderly grocer in the neck. Though McElroy was charged with attempted murder and eventually convicted, he appealed the case and was released on bond.

Soon afterward, it seemed the entire town was present at a gathering on July 10, 1981, to discuss Ken McElroy. Though exactly what they said is unclear, there’s no question that they decided McElroy had to go.

Residents heard that McElroy had gone to the D&G Tavern for a drink. In a prime example of real-life vigilantes in action, the community walked to the bar to confront him. And with no warning, someone began shooting.

Some accounts describe up to 50 vigilantes involved in the onslaught. In the end, McElroy was shot multiple times and struck by at least two firearms. He succumbed to the wounds in his truck. No one called an ambulance — or agreed to testify against another person in court.

To this day, no one has ever been charged with his death.

Top 10 Vigilante Films

https://screenrant.com/best-vigilante-films/