The Pozzetto Massacre

A Teacher, a Veteran and a Quiet Neighbourhood

On 4 December 1986, Bogotá lived through one of the darkest nights in its modern history. Over a matter of hours, Campo Elías Delgado, a 52-year-old private English tutor, killed people in three separate places: a family home in the La Alhambra neighbourhood, the apartment building where he lived with his mother, and finally Pozzetto, a well-known Italian restaurant on Carrera Séptima at Calle 61. Colombian media most often give the total number of dead as 29.

Delgado was born in 1934 in Chinácota, in the department of Norte de Santander. As a young man he moved to the United States, joined the US Army and served in the Vietnam War. Back in Bogotá he earned a living teaching English and enrolled in the modern languages programme at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. The writer Mario Mendoza, a fellow student, has recalled him as highly intelligent and widely read.

The victims were overwhelmingly ordinary people with no connection to him beyond chance: a teenage student he tutored and her mother, his own mother, people who lived in his building, and people who happened to be at Pozzetto that evening. The restaurant had been founded in 1973 by Gino Surace, an Italian immigrant.

The Day of the Killings

According to reporting, the sequence began the previous day, when Delgado withdrew all his savings. He then went to the home of a 15-year-old girl he tutored, where he killed both the girl and her mother. At the apartment he shared with his mother, Rita, he killed her and set fire to her body. He then confronted residents of the building, and several neighbours were shot dead. Accounts differ on the precise order of events and on some names and details.

At around 7 p.m. he arrived at Pozzetto, where, by a waiter's account, he ate and drank before opening fire on the people around him. The attack inside the restaurant was the deadliest phase. The number killed there is given differently: El Tiempo and El Espectador put it at 19, while a 2025 Noticias Caracol report gives 21.

How the Gunman Died

Police entered the restaurant firing, and Delgado died at the scene. Exactly how has never been settled. Some investigators and journalists have said he shot himself in the head; others maintain he was struck by police gunfire. Mendoza has said he believes suicide is the more likely explanation. Because Delgado died that night, there was no arrest, no charge and no trial, so the official record rests on police and forensic investigation and on witness testimony rather than on any court ruling.

The Investigation and Unanswered Questions

Investigators and journalists later reconstructed Delgado's movements. One striking detail is that, on the day of the massacre, he went looking for Mendoza but did not find him; what he wanted remains unknown. His motive has never been fully explained. Coverage has often linked the crimes to his war experience and to a man who never found his place in society, but no definitive account exists.

Satanás and Later Retellings

Mendoza turned the case into his novel Satanás, which earned him Seix Barral's prize in 2002. In 2007 the book became the feature film Satanás, the directing debut of Andrés Baiz, with Mexican actor Damián Alcázar playing a character based on Delgado under a different name. A graphic-novel version followed in 2018.

Interest revived sharply in late 2025. On 4 December 2025, exactly 39 years after the killings, Netflix released Estado de fuga: 1986, an eight-episode fictional series inspired by the massacre, told through a young writer rather than the killer and starring Andrés Parra. The release prompted renewed coverage in Colombia, including interviews with Mendoza.

The Fate of the Restaurant

Pozzetto kept trading for decades after the attack. The property was sold in 2018, and in January 2019 El Tiempo reported that the corner house was expected to be demolished for a building project, with the restaurant planning to move. According to El Espectador, its last opening at the original address was in July 2019; it then relocated to a nearby address but closed on 2 February 2020, citing the deaths of family members and the impact of pandemic restrictions. Noticias Caracol, by contrast, dates its definitive closure to 2022. No reopening has been reported.

Why the Case Still Matters

The Pozzetto massacre is remembered in Colombia as one of the most painful episodes in Bogotá's recent history, carried out by a lone individual rather than an armed group. Because the perpetrator died, the justice system never tested the evidence in court, which helps explain why basic details such as the restaurant death toll and the manner of his death remain disputed nearly forty years later. Literature, film and television have instead shaped how later generations of Colombians understand it.