Nelson David Moreno convicted of three serial murders in the Basque Country with further trials pending
A lay jury has convicted Colombian Nelson David Moreno Bolaños for his third murder in the Basque Country, making him the region's most prolific serial killer.
The 'dating app killer' accumulates convictions and faces three more trials in autumn
Nelson David Moreno Bolaños has this week become the most prolific serial killer in the history of Euskadi, according to Ideal. A lay jury has found him guilty for the second time of the murder of a man, with double aggravating factors, and he already has a previous conviction for attempted murder. Once the latest sentence is fixed, he will exceed fifty years in prison in total. He still faces trial for three more murders and another attempted murder.
Upon hearing the guilty verdict—for doubly aggravated murder and continued fraud—the defendant reacted with a smile: "Another one!", he said, and bid farewell to the Biscay provincial court with a "see you in September", the date scheduled for the next trial. After the summer, two more proceedings will take place, for which the Public Prosecutor is seeking 16 and 17 years imprisonment respectively, whilst the private and public prosecutors are requesting 30 and 33 years.
Known as the 'dating app killer', Moreno Bolaños has been linked to up to seven deaths of gay men and two further cases in which the victims survived, all occurring in 2021. Two of those episodes were never formally investigated.
A criminal record that surpasses the most violent offenders in the Basque Country
Moreno Bolaños's profile eclipses that of other criminals considered among the most dangerous in the region. Juan Carlos Aguilar, known as the fake Shaolin, was sentenced to 38 years imprisonment for killing two women and dismembering one of them. The Gipuzkoan Koldo Larrañaga was convicted of the murders of a businessman and a lawyer, although he was linked to more victims where evidence was insufficient.
The previous record was held by Joaquín Ferrandiz, convicted of the murder of five women during the nineteen-nineties in Castellón. After serving 25 years of his sentence, Ferrandiz settled in Irún and Andoain. Last December, Ideal reported that the Ertzaintza had spotted him in the vicinity of several nightclubs acting suspiciously and that an ex-partner had filed a complaint against him for harassment. Since then, the regional police have not located him again.
He arrived in Bilbao in 2019, was denied asylum and began committing crimes
Moreno Bolaños arrived in Bilbao in 2019 from Colombia. He requested asylum and was denied. He identifies as bisexual: he had several female partners—with one of whom he has a daughter, and he left two other children in Colombia—and lived with at least one man, whom he defrauded by using his bank card without consent. That partner's complaint resulted in his first conviction for fraud, an experience which, according to the prosecution's account, taught him that leaving victims alive involved the risk of being discovered.
From that point on, he repeated a systematic pattern in all subsequent homicides attributed to him. He would contact his victims—gay men aged between 40 and 73, single, living alone and with some financial means—through the dating applications Wapo and Grindr. He would select profiles closest to his residence on Cantera Street, in the Bilbao neighbourhood of San Francisco, as he had no vehicle. All victims lived within a radius of less than one kilometre, in the vicinity of the Old Town.
Psychological profile: "psychopath, antisocial and sadistic"
With the promise of sexual contact, Moreno Bolaños—who was then 24 years old and of a physique which experts describe as striking—would present himself at his victims' homes. Psychiatrists specialising in forensic medicine have described him as an "affable" and "likeable" person, easy to get on with. "I get along well," he himself claims. "He makes friends quickly," his ex-girlfriend agrees.
However, beneath that appearance, experts detected "coldness", an inability to feel "distress" or "remorse" and, according to their conclusions, pleasure in others' suffering. The expert diagnosis qualifies him as a "psychopath, antisocial and sadistic" person.
The method: the sleeper hold technique to leave no marks
The primary motive was financial. When he exhausted the money taken from a victim—a maximum of 8,000 euros which he spent on restaurants, designer clothing, perfumes and drugs—he would act again. Except in the case of one of the survivors, with whom he actually had sexual contact and made a return visit, the procedure was always the same: he would surprise his victims from behind, grab them by the neck and apply the technique known as a sleeper hold.
This technique consists of applying pressure to the neck with the forearm, simultaneously compressing both sternocleidomastoid muscles and, with it, the underlying carotid artery. The elbow forms an acute angle against the trachea, whilst the attacker increases pressure by leaning on his own biceps. The result is the interruption of blood supply to the brain, causing loss of consciousness within seconds and capable of causing death within minutes, without leaving visible marks on the body.
The deaths were initially deemed to be of natural or accidental cause, which allowed the criminal pattern to continue for months before investigations pointed to a single perpetrator.
Source: Ideal