The Giant-Eared Baby
Cayetano Santo Godino was born in a slum in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 31, 1896. Without a doubt, everybody considered him to be a rather peculiar baby ever since the day he was born.
While there are contrasting theories whether or not he was born with mental disabilities, one thing's for sure: his physical features really made him stand out. He was rather short yet boasted extremely long arms and legs, but above all, he had giant, protruding ears, which earned him the nickname "Big-Eared Midget".
Alcoholic Parents
The Big-Eared Midget had a rough childhood from the very start. His mother was a severe alcoholic, and as a consequence, Godino suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome as a baby.
As regards his father, not only was he an alcoholic too, but he would always take it out on his wife and son, beating them up in all sorts of ways. He also allegedly suffered from syphilis, which may have been the reason behind Godino's physical oddities.
Tough Neighborhood
Because of his abusive parents, Godino would spend as much time away from home as he could, but violence followed him everywhere. Gang violence and theft were always rampant in the streets of his neighborhood, Parque Patricios, so it was hardly the best place for a kid to grow up in.
On top of that, he lived just a few blocks away from the capital's infamous Caseros prison as well as from one of the biggest slaughterhouses. In other words, cattle would be slaughtered right in front of his eyes as he ran around the streets. As you can see, violence and death were basically part of his daily life...
Outbursts Of Rage
Ever since Godino turned five, he began displaying constant outbursts of violence and would always throw tantrums at his parents. It wasn't long before he started misbehaving at school, where he would always get expelled from.
Without a doubt, being exposed to so much violence had started taking a toll on his mental health. However, what began as episodes of unwarranted rage gradually evolved into something way more creepy...
He Took It On The Animals
By the time he was five, the Big-Eared Midget had found himself a secret hobby that he only confessed as an adult: he would catch stray animals, torture them, and once dead, he would mutilate their bodies.
As if this weren't creepy enough, he would then keep the remains of the mutilated bodies in boxes under his bed. By the time he turned seven, however, he decided to take things one step further...
His First Attack
The Big-Eared Midget was not even eight years old by the time he started torturing children. His first attempted murder involved the beating of a 1-year-old baby named Miguel de Poli.
Just as he threw the beaten baby into a thorned bush, a policeman showed up in the scene. Godino claimed that he had just found the injured baby and was trying to help him, which the officer totally bought (why would anyone even suspect of a 7-year-old boy?). The following year, after turning 8, he did this...
Grisly Scene
In 1904, Godino attacked a 2-year-old girl named Ana Neri after carving her skull with a rock. The toddler was saved by a miracle, as she survived after having immediate brain surgery.
Once again, Godino found his way out by telling the officers that he had found the baby lying in the ground with her head bleeding. However, people started growing suspicious of the fact that gruesome things always happened whenever the Big-Eared Midget was around...
The First Victim
Godino committed his first homicide when he was only nine years old. While he claims to have forgotten the details of the murder, he does recall that her victim was still too young to walk.
Godino allegedly beat the baby up and then buried her alive in a ditch nearby. However, the baby girl was never found, neither dead or alive. Once again, he got away with it, but it wasn't long before he was targeted by the police...
Reporting To The Police
At this point, Godino's father, Fiore, decided he had had enough. He just didn't know how to handle his kid's peculiar behavior. Not only would he regularly assault his own parents and siblings, but he would also masturbate in front of his family. Not knowing what else to do, Fiore filed a complaint to the police.
"Fiore Godino contends that his son is uncontrollable and rebellious and does not respond in any way at all to any discipline of any kind and so he formally requests that the police take charge of his son and place him in whatever institution they see fit and for as long as they see appropriate", the complaint read.
Back To His Old Ways
The police decided to send the young boy to a reform school, but he was sent back home only two months later. Unsurprisingly, it was only a matter of days before he went back to his old ways.
Even though he went on to attack other toddlers, he was always shrewd enough to convince the police officers otherwise. Eventually, his parents sent him to another reform school in southern Buenos Aires, where he was kept until he turned 15. But the horror story had barely started...
A New Hobby
A few weeks after being released from his second reform school, Godino came up with a new "hobby": setting buildings on fire. On January, 1912, at age 16, he was caught by the police as he burned a warehouse into flames.
Luckily, the warehouse was empty and nobody was injured, which is why he avoided prison time. However, his passion for fires didn't end there. "I like to see firemen working. It's nice to see how they fall into the fire", he reportedly said. Undoubtedly, the worst was yet to come...
Another Strangled Kid
Shortly after setting the warehouse on fire, the Big-Eared Midget committed the first of a series of three murders. After taking 13-year-old Arturo Laurora inside an abandoned house, he stripped him naked and strangled him to death.
One month later, he burned a 5-year-old girl to death by setting her dress on fire. It wasn't until his third murder, however, that Godino was finally caught, when an officer witnessed him strangling an 8-year-old kid to death. While he was initially charged with attempted murder, he was released by November. Never did anyone imagine what he would do next...
The Fifth And Last
On December, 1912, Godino committed his fifth and last murder that we know of. He took an 18-month-old toddler named Jesualdo Giordano to an empty building. While he initially meant to strangle him, he decided to drive a nail across his skull instead.
As he headed back home in search for a nail, he came across the baby's father, who was desperately looking for him. Godino suggested that he go to the police to report him missing, and so he did. A few minutes later, Godino went back to the abandoned house to finish his business.
Main Suspect
Giordano's body was discovered by his father a few hours later, and when word of the killing spread, the whole town turned into a state of frenzy. The police interrogated one of Giordano's mates, and guess what?
It so happened to be that the boy had witnessed his friend being kidnapped by a teenager. While he had never seen him before, the physical description he gave of the stranger totally matched with Godino's unmistakable features. To be specific, he remembered the kidnapper having enormous ears.
The Confession
Far from cautious, the Big-Eared Midget attended his own victim's funeral. In fact, he even approached the body and touched its skull. He later admitted that he was checking whether the nail was still there.
Later that day, he went back home for some tea, when the police showed up to question him. Not only did the teenager confess to Giordano's crime, but also to three others! Slide next to find out exactly what he told the police.
An Infamous Legend
According to one of the police statements, "Godino confesses that he did all of it for fun and for entertainment, that it was purely the desire to kill that was the motivation to carry out his acts due to the fact that it gave him pleasure".
On top of that, the boy confessed to several attempted murders, to the beating and slaying of many animals, and even to having stabbed a horse to death. Rumors of his confessions soon spread throughout the entire city, and it wasn't long before the Big-Eared Midget became Argentina's most famous living legend.
Hair-Raising Interviews
Following his arrest, Godino was interviewed by several journalists, and he really seemed to enjoy confessing to his barbarian crimes. He was diagnosed a psychopath, as he showed no remorse for his actions.
"Many mornings, after the usual moaning from my father and brothers and sisters I would leave my house with the idea of finding work and as I never found any I found myself feeling that I wanted to kill someone. So I would look for someone to kill. If I found some kid I would take him somewhere and strangle him", he said in an interview.
Behind Closed Doors
After getting the boy to confessed, the local authorities now faced the dilemma of what to do with the kid. Being an underage 16-year-old boy, he was still too young to be sent to prison. However, all of the country's most prestigious psychiatrists agreed that he was a threat to society and should therefore spend the rest of his life in a lunatic asylum.
In the end, the judge agreed with the medical experts and ordered for him to be transferred to the high-security wing of one of the city's hospitals. However, the Big-Eared Midget's crimes hadn't ended just yet...
New Trial, New Sentence
Not only did Godino attempt to escape the asylum on repeated occasions, but he also made several attempts of assault towards other patients. It wasn't long before the general public started demanding a harsher sentence.
It was only a matter of time before the prosecutor decided to initiate a new trial. While Godino was still too young for death sentence, this time he was sentenced to life imprisonment. But did this finally put an end to his assaults?
The Prison Of The End Of The World
The Big-Eared Midget was initially transfered to a prison in Buenos Aires, but in 1923, at age 27, he was sent off to Argentina's highest-security prison located in the city of Ushuaia.
Apart from its reputation of being one of the world's toughest prisons, it's also the world's southernmost penitentiary facility, thus being dubbed as "the prison of the end of the world". But the serial killer's story didn't end there!
Still The Same Serial Killer
While Godino received education at prison, he continued tormenting his prison mates as well as the security guards. Apart from his repeated attempts of escape, his killer instincts seemed stronger than ever.
In 1933, he strangled a cat to death and set him on fire. This sparked the rage of the rest of the inmates, as they all regarded the cat as their mascot. After being nearly beat up to death as a revenge, Godino applied for parole, which was obviously refused. But how long did he spend in the prison of the end of the world?
The Death Of A Villain
Godino spent the rest of his life locked up in Ushuaia's high-security prison, until one day in 1944, he was found dead inside his cell. While he reportedly died from bleeding as a result of an ulcer, it is believed that he was beat up to death by other prisoners.
Three years following his death, the prison closed down and the bodies of the dead inmates were buried. However, the Big-Eared Midget's remains mysteriously disappeared. To this day, Godino's wax figure displayed at the prison's museum is the only real legacy of one of history's youngest and creepiest serial killers.