Manuel Pardo was the 74th person executed by Florida since 1976. An ex-police officer with the Sweetwater PD and the Florida Highway Patrol, he murdered nine people in 1986. Pardo, who was of Latinx heritage, was born in New York City on September 24, 1956. After high school, he enlisted in the Marines and after finishing his service there, moved to Florida and joined the FHP. Pardo graduated with honors from the state police academy but was fired in 1979 for falsifying traffic tickets. He soon found a new job with the Sweetwater PD in Miami-Dade County.
Pardo got in trouble a couple of times, including an accusation of lying to investigators, and was fired from the department. He began selling drugs for a living and in January 1986 killed two men, Mario Amador and Roberto Alonso, with a .22 pistol during a robbery. A few weeks later, Pardo killed Michael Millot, a Haitian political dissident, whom he suspected of being a police informant. Millot had previously supplied Pardo with silencers for his handguns. Pardo's partner from the Sweetwater police, Rolando Garcia, lured Millot to a car belonging to the former's wife, while Pardo himself waited in the back seat. Millot sat in the front of the car and Pardo shot him in the head with a 9mm pistol--it was later found that the car was re-upholstered.In February, Pardo murdered Luis Robledo and Ulpiano Ledo during a robbery. In April, he killed four different people--Fara Quintero and Sara Musa were killed in a dispute over a pawned ring and for refusing to buy Pardo a VCR with stolen credit cards. Pardo later claimed he thought Quintero marked him for death by dialing him number 8s on a pager, a numerical sign for death in the Santeria religion. Ramon Alvero and his girlfriend Daisy Ricard were shot to death because Alvero had failed to show up to several drug deals.
Pardo was apprehended in a New York City hospital in late April after being treated there for a gunshot wound to the foot. The bullet matched ones removed from his final victims--when he shot Ricard, his pistol jammed, so he pistol-whipped her to death, causing the jammed round to discharge in Pardo's foot. A police search of his home found a collection of Nazi memorabilia and evidence was presented at his trial that he held racist and anti-Semitic beliefs. Pardo's defense was that he wanted to rid Florida of drug dealers by killing as many as he could.At his trial, he took the stand in his own defense, saying "I am a soldier. I accomplished my mission and I humbly ask you to give me the glory of ending my life and not send me to spend the rest of my days in state prison." The prosecution countered that Pardo only killed the victims to eliminate competition in the drug trade. Rolando Garcia, whom Pardo said wasn't involved in the murders, was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death, but he appealed his conviction and got a new trial in 2002. In the second trial, Garcia plead guilty to second degree murder, got 25 years, and was released from prison in September 2022.
Pardo was executed by lethal injection on December 11, 2012 after a final meal consisting of rice, red beans, roast pork, plantains, sliced avocados, tomato slices with olive oil, pumpkin pie, egg nog, and coffee.
>>18764220>Pardo graduated with honors from the state police academy but was fired in 1979 for falsifying traffic ticketsall pigs do this btw, only sometimes do they get caught
>>18764220apparently his daughter was running for some elected office in FL
>>18764220I heard he had thick skin, and was investigating the most dangerous criminal of all time, the Miami Mutilator.
>>18764246State police tend to have higher standards of professionalism than metro departments so it's more likely that you'd get in trouble for lying about traffic tickets.
>Pardo graduated high school in 1974. He served honorably in the Navy for four years and was discharged in early 1978; after briefly working as a bank clerk, he joined the Florida state police, was class valedictorian, and possessed two college degrees. Serving on the FHP, he was investigated for falsifying traffic tickets and voluntarily resigned in January 1980.>Pardo joined the Sweetwater Police Department and at times gained praise for his work, including once when he resuscitated an infant that had stopped breathing. In 1981, he was one of four officers accused of police brutality, but the charges were dismissed. In early 1985, Pardo flew to the Bahamas to testify in the trial of a former colleague who was accused of drug trafficking. He gave false testimony on the witness stand by claiming he and the colleague were international undercover narco cops, which led to his being fired from the Sweetwater PD.>In Pardo's apartment, along with his collection of Nazi memorabilia, were photographs of the victims and newspaper clippings about their murders. He also had a calendar book denoting the dates of each murder.
>>18764220I saw this mugshot and thought I was on /v/ for a second
