Manuel Delgado Villegas

Manuel Delgado Villegas, also known as El Arropiero,[a] was a Spanish serial killer active between 1964 and 1971. Delgado claimed to have carried out 48 murders in Spain, Italy and France – of these cases the Spanish police were only able to investigate twenty-two in Spain and considered him the definite perpetrator of seven. He was never brought to trial, as he was diagnosed with a severe mental disorder. In 1978 the Audiencia Nacional ordered that he be preventively detained at Carabanchel Penitentiary Psychiatric Hospital. He was released into the care of a psychiatric hospital in 1996 and died two years later of a smoking-related lung disease.