{{Short description|Unidentified serial killer}} {{Use American English|date=December 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2025}} {{Infobox serial killer | name = Charlie Chop-off | image = Charlie_Chop-off.png | caption = One of several composite sketches released by the NYPD of Charlie Chop-off | birth_name = | other_names = The Mad Barber<br />The Pied Piper of Manhattan | birth_date = | birth_place = | death_date = | cause = | victims = 4 killed; 1 survived | country = United States | states = New York | beginyear = March 9, 1972 | endyear = August 17, 1973 | apprehended = | conviction = Never convicted | sentence = Never sentenced }}
'''Charlie Chop-off''' is the pseudonym given to an unidentified American serial killer known to have killed three black children and one Puerto Rican child in Manhattan between 1972 and 1973. The assailant is also known to have attempted to murder one other child.
All the victims of Charlie Chop-off were male, and all but one of the attacks involved genital mutilation or attempted genital mutilation of the victims.{{sfn|Newton|2006|p=320–321}}
While the case is still considered an open one, Ernesto "Erno" Soto was held as a suspect and confessed to one of the murders, but was considered unfit for trial in December 1976 and returned to a mental institution.<ref name="newton">{{Cite book |last=Newton |first=Michael |title=The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers |publisher=Checkmark Books |date=2000 |location=New York |isbn=0-8160-3978-X}}</ref><ref name="Ernesto">{{Cite news |date=January 29, 1993 |title=A 'monster' may win freedom |last=Herbert |first=Bob |author-link=Bob Herbert |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/470532561 |via=newspapers.com |access-date=August 23, 2024}}</ref>
==Murders== On March 9, 1972, eight-year-old Douglas Owens was found dead, stabbed 38 times. His penis had been cut but not severed from his body.{{sfn|Newton|2006|p=320}} On April 20, another black youth was repeatedly stabbed; his genitals were severed from his body, although he survived his injuries. On October 23, ten-year-old Wendell Hubbard was stabbed to death on the roof of an East Harlem tenement block. His penis had also been severed from his body.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Link Hinted in Harlem and East Side Slayings |last=Spiegel |first=Irving |date=August 20, 1973 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/20/archives/link-hinted-in-harlem-and-east-side-slayings-neighbors-of-boy.html |work=The New York Times |page=28 |access-date=September 3, 2018}}</ref>
On March 6, 1973, a nine-year-old Puerto Rican child named Luis Ortiz was stabbed 38 times and likewise mutilated. Finally, on August 17, 1973, eight-year-old Steven Cropper was repeatedly slashed with a razor on the roof of a tenement block.{{sfn|Newton|2006|p=320}} He bled to death from an injury to his arm, although his penis was left intact.<ref name="newton" />
==Erno Soto== [[File:ErnestoSoto.png|thumb|left|120px|Soto leaving the New York County Courthouse, January 1993]] After the botched abduction of a Puerto Rican boy on May 15, 1974, Ernesto Soto,<ref name="Ernesto" /> 33, was arrested by the police while "babbling a religious slogan." He had been an intermittent patient at the Manhattan State Hospital since 1968 and was described as an unemployed former drug addict.<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 27, 1974 |title=Slaying Suspect Is Tied to Deaths Of 3 More Boys |last=Lombardi |first=Frank |work=New York Daily News |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/464366883 |via=newspapers.com |access-date=March 31, 2024}}</ref> Soto confessed to the 1973 slaying of Cropper. His only surviving victim did say that Soto looked like his attacker but refused to positively identify him. Manhattan State Hospital officials stated that Soto was in their custody at the time of the murder but also later confirmed that he might have escaped confinement, as it had happened before.<ref name="newton" />
Despite a lack of evidence, investigators still believe that he is a likely suspect, citing the fact that the murders ceased after his arrest and that an anonymous source placed him as a potential culprit on the first killing. However, due to his acute mental instability, he is unlikely to stand trial.{{sfn|Newton|2006|p=321}}
In 1993, Soto's lawyers requested that he be released from Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center and placed in a "non-secure hospital," despite continued violent behavior and Soto claiming he still felt the need to "sacrifice someone to God."<ref name="Kirby1993">{{Cite news |date=February 2, 1993 |title=The nightmare is back |last=Herbert |first=Bob |author-link=Bob Herbert |work=New York Daily News |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/470543515 |via=newspapers.com |access-date=August 22, 2024}}</ref>
==="Miguel Rivera"=== In 1975, Barbara Gelb published ''On the Track of Murder'' and used Miguel Rivera as a pseudonym for Soto. Since then, numerous authors, such as Peter Vronsky or Lane and Gregg, have erroneously cited the name as being that of the killer.<ref name="newton" />{{sfn|Vronsky|2004}}<ref name="ramsland">{{Cite web |last=Ramsland |first=Katherine |author-link=Katherine Ramsland |title=The Mysterious Charlie Chop-off |work=TruTV Crime Library |url=http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/erno_soto/1_index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605154333/http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/erno_soto/1_index.html |archive-date=June 5, 2008}}</ref>
==See also== * List of fugitives from justice who disappeared * List of serial killers in the United States
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Cited works and further reading== * {{Cite book |last=Vronsky |first=Peter |title=Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters |year=2004 |publisher=Penguin Group (USA) Inc. |location=New York |isbn=978-1-101-20462-7}} * {{Cite book |last=Newton |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Newton (author) |title=The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers |year=2006 |publisher=Infobase |location=New York |isbn=0-8160-6195-5}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Charlie Chop-off}} Category:20th-century American murderers Category:American murderers of children Category:Child abduction in the United States Category:Serial killers from New York City Category:Unidentified American serial killers Category:Unsolved murders in New York City Category:Violence against men in the United States Category:Year of birth unknown