Ricardo Caputo

Ricardo Caputo
Born	1949 Mendoza, Argentina
Died	1997 (aged 47–48) Attica State Prison in Attica, New York
Other names	The Lady Killer
Killings
Victims	4
Span of killings	1971–1977
Country	United States and Mexico
State(s)	New York, California
Date apprehended	March 1994

Ricardo Caputo (1949–1997) was an Argentine American serial killer during the 1970s who was known as "The Lady Killer."^[1] Caputo was born in 1949 in Mendoza, Argentina. In 1970, he moved to the United States and settled in New York City.^[2]

At times, he was #1 on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. Though he was not definitively linked to any murders after 1977, he remained a fugitive throughout the 1980s, and finally surrendered to police in 1994.

Incarcerated at Attica State Prison in New York, Caputo suffered a fatal heart attack in 1997, at the age of 48.^[3]

Victims

• Nathalie Brown, 19, Flower Hill, New York (1971)
• Judith Becker, 26, Yonkers, New York (1974)
• Barbara Ann Taylor, 28, San Francisco (1975)
• Laura Gomez, Mexico City (1977)

Suspected victims

• Devon Green, 23, Los Angeles (1981) - Caputo became a suspect in Green's death when a former coworker of hers spotted him on a crime show and identified Caputo as having worked at a Los Angeles restaurant where Green was a chef. Already imprisoned at the time this information came to light in 1994, Caputo was neither charged with nor admitted to her murder.
• Jacqueline Bernard, 64, New York City (1983) - Caputo was a suspect in this murder but was never charged. A friend of the victim's, Linda Wolfe, published a book called Love Me to Death in 1998 in which she conjected that Caputo was Bernard's killer.

References

1. "Ricardo Caputo". Frances Farmers Revenge. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
2. McQuiston, John (17 March 1994). "Slaying Suspect's Grim Youth Recalled by His Brother". New York Times. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
3. Friedman, Bruce Jay (15 February 1998). "A Real Lady Killer". New York Times. Retrieved 2 April 2013.