Here, in Portugal, we have a case of a serial killer who was active in 1992 and 1993, who killed 3 women, in the metropolitan area of Lisbon. I believe it is the only case of an unidentified serial killer in Portugal which was never caught, but I might be wrong.
He was dubbed "The Lisbon Ripper", because his killings were simmilar to that of Jack The Ripper – the victims were all female prostitutes,they all had the same first name and were beaten to death by the killer, which then followed to disembowel them by using a cuting object that he grabbed from the scene. This acts were so savage, and were even more gruesome than most of Jack´s killings (if you discount Mary Jane Kelly, of course). The killer would end up removing most of the organs of the victims, but I am not sure if some of them were taken by the killer or were just all left at the scene.
There is a belief that the unidentified New Bedford Highway Killer (Massachusetts) – which claimed around 10 victims during 1988 and 1989 – and The Lisbon Ripper are the same individual. The city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, is the home to the largest Portuguese-American community in the USA – that led some people to belief that the perpetrator of the killings in Lisbon was an immigrant which lived in New Bedford at the time of the Highway killings. I have my doubts about the two being the same individual, since the MO of the two cases were different.
Some years ago, a guy in a recorded interview had "confessed" to a journalist that he was the "Lisbon Ripper" and even tryed to describe the killings (this was shown on portuguese TV). But after he was arrested and investigated, it was concluded that he could not have been the killer – he latter confessed that it all had been a "joke of poor taste".
But what is even more creepy is that in 1986, years before the killings in Lisbon occured, a book of fiction titled "The Lisbon Ripper" had been published – in this work of fiction, there was a killer in Lisbon who killed prostitutes and disembowelled them in a simmilar way to Jack The Ripper – just like the killings of 1992 and 1993! The simmilarities between fiction and reality were so suspicious that the author of this book became a suspect and was investigated, but ended being ruled out. It appears that the real killer red the book and was "inspired".
I have not red any books about the case, except what I have red about it on the net (there is a book about the case published in 2013, by someone who is involved in the realm of criminal investigation, and I might buy it to get more info).
