6 OctOber 2-8, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? New video confronts Miami Beach Commission candidate Monique Pardo Pope with her father’s notorious past. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN I t is not unusual for the children of politicians to enter the political sphere. Look at the Bush family, for instance. President George W. Bush and Jeb Bush followed in the footsteps of their father, President George H.W. Bush. But how about the daughter of a late Hit- ler-obsessed serial killer who had a dog with a swastika tattoo? Monique Pardo Pope, a Hialeah-born law- yer, is running to succeed Kristen Rosen Gon- zalez on the City of Miami Beach Commission. Unbeknownst to perhaps most voters, the 44-year-old is the daughter of Manuel Pardo, a former police officer who also happens to have expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and killed nine people over 92 days between Janu- ary and April of 1986. (There is even specula- tion that Pardo’s story inspired the hit TV show Dexter.) Convicted of murder in 1988, Pardo lingered on Death Row until 2012, when then-Gov. Rick Scott signed his death warrant. He was executed in December of that year. Yet to read Monique Pardo Pope’s social media tributes to her dad over the years, you’d never guess he was a notorious serial killer. “My daddy, my hero...Michi girl loves you eternally. Happy Father’s Day Papi,” she posted on Instagram in 2013. A year later, she celebrated her father and stepfather on Instagram, writing, “To the best daddies I have ever dreamed of — both past & present. Thank you each for representing what a true hero in both life and love should repre- sent to a little girl. My heart is full of love for both my fathers. Happy Father’s Day Manuel Pardo & William Lorenzo. #daddyslittlegirl.” In September 2016, Pardo Pope wished her late father a happy birthday in a Facebook post. “Today, you turn the big 60, and surely we would have celebrated over honey buns and apple strudels,” the post reads. “I miss you and an incomprehensible amount, but I find solace in knowing you never truly left. You undoubtedly have remained by my side each step of the way — my hero, my guardian an- gel, my Daddy eternally.” Prior to becoming a serial killer who noto- riously stashed away newspaper clippings about his murders, Pardo had a bright future in law enforcement, as detailed in news arti- cles from the 1980s. (New Times retrieved previous reporting on Pardo through ar- chived news articles, some of which are in- cluded as images in this story.) Manuel Pardo grew up in New York City, then joined the Navy, receiving honors for good conduct and sharpshooting. Following his honorable discharge in 1978, he settled down in Hialeah with his wife and daughter and joined the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), where he continued to earn praise; he was named Trooper of the Month in June 1979 and received the Meritorious Service Award in December of the same year. But in January 1980, he abruptly quit the highway patrol while he was under internal investigation for allegedly submitting 100 “fictitious and fraudulent” warning tickets and other falsified records, according to pre- vious reporting. Pardo was also cited for dat- ing a single woman though he was a married man, and for allegedly soliciting dates with women during traffic stops. He joined the Sweetwater Police Depart- ment in 1980 but was fired five years later, for “conduct unbecoming a police officer.” During the trial of a fellow Sweetwater officer accused of drug smuggling in the Ba- hamas, Pardo had falsely testified that he had sanctioned the accused officer’s ac- tivities as part of an international narcot- ics investigation. He attempted to join the Hialeah Police Department following his dismissal but failed the polygraph and psychological tests. Pardo started committing drug “rip-offs” and killed his first two known victims, Mario Amador and Roberto Alonso, during a drug robbery in 1986. Later that month, Pardo shot and killed Michael Millot, a Haitian gunsmith and outspoken critic of Haitian dictator Jean- Claude Duvalier. Pardo, who believed that Millot was a federal informant trying to get him arrested, killed Millot in his wife’s Honda, which was reupholstered and cleaned. (Pardo and his wife divorced in June 1981, and she was granted custody of their baby girl.) In February 1986, Pardo killed a Santería priest and another man during a robbery in West Miami-Dade. Two months later, during an argument over a $50 pawned ring, Pardo killed two others. Previous reporting revealed that Pardo believed one of the men had marked him for death by messaging him with multiple 8s on a pager — a coded reference to the Santeria religion. His final victims were Daisy Ricard and her boyfriend, Roman Al- vero Cruz, whom he targeted because Cruz didn’t show up to a drug deal. When police searched Pardo’s home follow- ing his arrest in May 1986, they found news clippings about the murders and a diary in which he detailed the killings. They also dis- covered his collection of Nazi memorabilia and a swastika tattoo on his dog, a Doberman pin- scher. In an episode of Confessions of Crime, a documentary TV series from the 1990s, Ronald Guralnick, Pardo’s defense attorney, said his client didn’t like Jews, the gay community, peo- ple who used narcotics, or Black people. “And he believed that Hitler was correct by killing all of those people that he did in the Holocaust,” Guralnick added. Although Miami-Dade prosecutors ar- gued that Pardo was motivated by greed and involved in the drug trade, the defendant maintained that he was a vigilante on a mis- sion to rid society of drug dealers. While awaiting trial, Pardo allegedly admitted to a fellow detainee that he committed three ad- ditional murders in Homestead. (He was never charged with additional murders.) “I killed each and every one of these individ- uals because they were drug dealers. I object to the word ‘killed these people’ because when you say kill, you are denoting a human being, and these to me were not human beings,” he said on the stand in a clip preserved in an ar- chived video from Miami Dade College’s Wolf- son Archives. “These were people who lived off the misery of other people. They are parasites and leeches, and they have no right to be alive.” Rather than deny his crimes, Pardo said he hoped to have killed more. “The only regret that I have is that instead of nine I wish I could have been up here for 99,” he told the jury. But at least nine is a sub- stantial message.” At a news conference following his convic- tion, Pardo said he could have admired lead- ers like Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy instead of Hitler. “But they were pacifists,” he said. “I’m an activist.” In another archived video, he told a news reporter that he hoped others would follow in his footsteps. “As a child, we used to have to say the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning and pray in the classroom. Nowadays, that’s illegal, unconstitu- tional. But it is legal to allow homosexuals to teach our children and allow communists to teach our children,” he said. “What does that tell you? We are being destroyed internally. I had to send a message, and I just hope some other people carry out my work.” In the end, he pleaded with jurors for the death sentence. “What I’m begging you to do is let me have a glorious ending,” he told jurors in a 1988 sentencing, “and not condemn me to a state institution for the rest of my life.” “I’m not a criminal. I’m a soldier. As a sol- dier, I ask to be given the death penalty. I ac- complished my mission.” He was sentenced to death. While await- ing execution, he became known as “Death Row Romeo” for running tabloid ads for pen pals and persuading women to send him thousands of dollars. Then-Gov. Rick Scott signed his death warrant in October 2012. Pardo was put to death by lethal injection on December 11, 2012, for murdering nine people — six men and three women. Prison officials said Pardo’s last words were, “Airborne forever. I love you, Michi baby,” in reference to his daughter. In a state- ment distributed after his execution, Pardo wrote to Monique, “I will always be a part of you and live in your heart, mind, and soul. May God bless and protect you and everyone affected by this. I am now ready to ride the midnight train to Georgia.” Pardo Pope routinely referenced his last written and spoken statements in her social media posts, particularly “Midnight Train to Georgia” and “Airborne Forever.” “Even under the most unimaginable cir- cumstances, there’s no one better suited to have been my Daddy and I will forever be proud to have been your little girl,” she wrote in a September 2017 Instagram post alongside a collection of childhood photos. I love you forever papi, Happy Birthday. #Mid- nightTraintoGeorgia.” In a press release announcing her candi- dacy for the Miami Beach commis- Miami Beach Commission candidate Monique Pardo Pope is the daughter of notorious Miami serial killer Manuel Pardo, AKA “Death Row Romeo.” Photos by Florida Department of Corrections, via Facebook/MoniquePardoPope | METRO | “ I HAD TO SEND A MESSAGE, AND I JUST HOPE SOME OTHER PEOPLE CARRY OUT MY WORK.” >> p7
