On April 23, 1986, the 92-day killing spree of a former police officer turned serial killer came to a violent end in Miami-Dade County. The final victims in this terrifying chapter were Ramon Alvero Cruz, a 40-year-old man, and his girlfriend, Daisy Josefina Ricard, 38. Their murders were the last of nine committed by Manuel "Manny" Pardo Jr., a man who claimed he was on a vigilante mission to clean the streets of drug dealers.
Pardo had a background that seemed to defy his later actions. He was a former Boy Scout, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and had graduated as valedictorian from the Florida Highway Patrol academy. However, his law enforcement career was tarnished. He was fired from the Highway Patrol in 1979 for falsifying traffic tickets and was later dismissed from the Sweetwater Police Department in 1985 after lying to investigators about a trip to the Bahamas to testify for a colleague accused of drug smuggling. Cast out from the world of law enforcement, Pardo became enmeshed in the very drug culture he would later claim to despise.
Beginning in January 1986, Pardo, often with his accomplice Rolando Garcia, began a series of robberies and murders. He targeted individuals he believed were involved in drug trafficking, later telling jurors they were "parasites" who had "no right to live." His victims over the three-month span included Mario Amador, Roberto Alonso, Michael Millot, Luis Robledo, Ulpiano Ledo, Sara Musa, and Fara Quintero. Pardo meticulously documented his crimes, keeping a diary with newspaper clippings of the murders.
The final act of his spree unfolded on April 23. Pardo targeted Ramon Alvero, who was reportedly his boss in a drug enterprise, because Alvero had failed to show up for two drug deals. Pardo and Garcia located Alvero and Daisy Ricard and drove them to an isolated area. There, Pardo shot Alvero multiple times. He then turned his .22 caliber Ruger pistol on Ricard. After shooting her once, the gun jammed. In a moment of brutal violence that would prove to be his undoing, Pardo bludgeoned Ricard with the handgun to clear the jam, causing the stuck round to discharge and strike him in the foot. He then shot her several more times.
That evening, at around 6:30 p.m., Daisy Ricard's body was discovered in a wooded area in Hialeah. She was a medical lab owner whom detectives believe was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The next morning, construction workers found Ramon Alvero's body in the trunk of a car about a mile away. Investigators found Pardo’s fingerprint on the watch Alvero was wearing.
Following the murders, Pardo and Garcia flew to New York City, where Pardo sought treatment for his gunshot wound. The bullet that doctors removed from his foot was a crucial piece of evidence, matching those recovered from the bodies of Alvero and Ricard. This link, along with the fingerprint and other evidence found in Pardo's apartment—including his diary and a collection of Nazi memorabilia—led to his arrest in May 1986.
During his 1988 trial, Pardo’s defense argued insanity, but Pardo himself sabotaged the strategy. Against his lawyer's advice, he took the stand and testified, "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 jury found him guilty on nine counts of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to death. For over two decades, he sat on Florida's death row, sometimes referred to as the "Death Row Romeo" for his correspondence with female admirers. Manuel Pardo Jr. was executed by lethal injection on December 11, 2012. His accomplice, Rolando Garcia, was also sentenced to death, but his sentence was later overturned, and he was eventually paroled in 2002. The case remains a chilling example of a man who once swore to uphold the law, only to twist his sense of justice into a murderous crusade.
