Eduardo Gallo: The Real-Life Vigilante Who Put His Daughter’s Killer Behind Bars
Ted McGrath/FlickrEduardo Gallo’s daughter was kidnapped from his weekend home in Tepoztlan, Mexico.
It was July 2000 when Eduardo Gallo’s 25-year-old daughter Paola disappeared from his weekend home in Tepoztlan, Mexico. Worried sick, Gallo was soon contacted by gang members who wanted him to pay a hefty ransom for her return. Gallo scrounged up $18,500 and jewelry and swiftly paid those who took her — only to find her dead body a week later.
Gallo’s pain was unspeakable. His daughter had been shot in the back and the neck — and he knew that her final moments must have been terrifying. And while three suspects had been quickly arrested, the actual gunman was still on the loose. Determined to find the man himself, Gallo abruptly shut down his consulting firm and became a gumshoe sleuth.
“I will always love you, my adored child,” Gallo said at his daughter’s funeral. “Thank you for your smile and your caresses. Thank you for your songs and your happiness and your love of life… You always lighted the path so I could distinguish between justice and vengeance.”
PixabayPolice arrested the killer of Paola Gallo after her father tracked the man to a payphone.
For the next year, Gallo chased physical leads on the streets and analyzed phone records. Perhaps most ominously, he found in his research that up to 90 percent of kidnappings are never even reported in Mexico — as those closest to the victim are often terrified to their bones of violent reprisal.
As for Paola, she had been kidnapped from her parents’ home by men who brazenly broke in. After robbing the house, they grabbed Paola and fled in two cars that they stole from the driveway. Remarkably, her father not only found the gunman behind her death — but also led authorities to him.
The resourceful sleuth had tracked one of the kidnappers to a payphone he had used after the kidnapping. Police then engaged in a stakeout that saw 28-year-old Francisco Zamora Arellano arrested. And in a testament to the work of a real-life vigilante, Arellano confessed to the crime.
