True Crime Cases in Chile

Chile holds a small but striking place in the true-crime record I've assembled here. The case I've mapped from this country reaches back to 1960, when a farm laborer named Jose del Carmen Valenzuela killed a widow and her five children near Chillan, in the Nuble Region. He became known as the Jackal of Nahueltoro.

What sets the case apart is what followed. After years in prison, Valenzuela was rehabilitated and then executed, a contradiction that troubled the country and inspired a landmark Chilean film. You can find it on the map below, with the details I've documented about where and when it happened.