“The Big-Eared Midget” — Argentina’s Teenage Serial Killer
Cayetano Santos Godino had killed at least three children and assaulted more than eleven more by the age of sixteen
Those familiar with the history of Cayetano Santos Godino might tell you that he was a serial killer who terrorized Argentina at the early age of fifteen. The truth is that Godino, best known by his nickname “El Petiso Orejudo” — which translates to “The Big-Eared Midget” — was terrorizing those around him long before that.
Godino was born in Buenos Aires to an alcoholic father known for his cruelty to his wife and the eight sons they spawned. A later medical exam by Godino’s doctors revealed more than twenty-seven scars on his head from the beatings he suffered at his father’s hands. It isn’t a stretch of the imagination to surmise that a young Godino decided to inflict the same misery he had suffered on others over the years that followed.
His father had contracted syphilis and passed it on to his wife before Godino’s birth, leaving his youngest son to suffer a host of maladies from an early age, including enteritis that left him afflicted with rickets due to malnutrition. He was described as skinny, with large protruding ears and small stature.
