`Death Row Romeo' A Manipulative Lady Killer -- Condemned Murderer Uses Ads, Letters To Scam Women

STARKE, Fla. - They call him the Death Row Romeo.

Manuel Pardo Jr., the former Sweetwater, Fla., cop awaiting execution for nine savage murders in Dade County, is profiting from those long, empty hours on Florida's Death Row.

He places lonely-hearts ads in tabloids and carries on torrid correspondence with lonely, vulnerable women. Then, they say, he scams them of hundreds - sometimes thousands - of dollars.

Often, he mails nearly identical handwritten letters proclaiming devotion and fidelity to each of his lady loves. Thirty-two people have sent Pardo money since January 1995, 26 of them women unrelated to him, according to prison records.

At one point, Pardo had $3,530.08 in his prison canteen account, which buys a lot of snacks, sodas - and stamps. Prison officials say they are powerless to stop him. That infuriates the women scorned, who are mustering a hellish fury.

"What kind of people are you in Florida?" asked Barbara Ford of Findlay, Ohio, who cleans houses for a living and was one of Pardo's many "true" loves. "You have a guy on Death Row, and he still hurts people."

No rules broken

Debbie Buchanan, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said prison officers are aware of Pardo's activities but that he has a constitutional right to send and receive letters.

(Veltry Johnson, spokesman for the Washington Department of Corrections, said the rights of inmates to use the mail service here are the same as in Florida.

(Washington prison officials cannot stop an inmate using the postal service unless there is evidence of illegal activity, Johnson said. Inmate mail is screened for security purposes, and inmates can be stopped from corresponding with people who don't want it, he said.)

"I know it sounds cruel, but basically our hands are tied," Buchanan said of Pardo. "He has broken no rules."

But he has broken many hearts.

Ford, 46, sent him $430 from May to November last year, all in $10, $15 and $50 money orders she bought at the Dairy Mart in Findlay, a farming and industrial town 50 miles south of Toledo.

Ford was enticed by an ad she saw April 17 in The Globe, one of several tabloids that have published Pardo's come-ons since at least July 1994:

"FLA. 116-156 CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTE INMATE. Ex-cop Vietnam vet. Took law into own hands and ended up on Death Row. He needs letters from sensitive/understanding female, for real/honest relationship."

After some hesitation, Ford responded. She said it was the first time she ever answered a lonely-hearts ad.

About three weeks later, a response arrived from Pardo, along with some favorable news clippings from his early career as a Sweetwater cop.

"Dear Barb," his letter began, "Hi and thank you for your sweet letter."

He wrote: "I want one special lady in my life."

He wrote: "I don't play emotional games cause I hate emotional games. I also hate liars and users."

He wrote: "I believe in honesty and I've laid all my cards on the table."

Well, not exactly.

Ten months earlier, he had written pretty much the same thing to Betty Ihem, 54, of Chickasha, Okla.: "You will see I'm very direct, open, honest and I do not play games or play with anyone's feelings."

By the time Ford answered Pardo's ad, he and Ihem were calling each other "husband" and "wife," though they had never met face to face or heard each other's voices.

By last November, Ihem had received 275 letters from Pardo - and sent him $1,200, sometimes in money orders of $3 because she worked only part time and was impoverished.

Unfortunately for Pardo, a letter he sent Ford in October mysteriously ended up in Ihem's mailbox. They contacted each other, then prison officials, who explained that they were in good though unenviable company.

Pardo, 39, has deposited checks or money orders from as many as four women in a single day, according to records at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford.

Ford and Ihem concede that they were foolish to fall for a man they knew was awaiting execution. But they said Pardo is a master manipulator who preys on women desperate for a friend and lover.

As angry as she is, Ford still keeps Pardo's letters in a neat stack, wrapped in a silver bow. Over seven months last year, she received 74 letters from him.

"I'm sure a lot of people think we're bimbos who fell for some Romeo on Death Row," Ford said, "but we're not the criminals here.

"He plays these mind games. He says he has nothing, not even a radio. The truth is, by now he probably has more radios than Radio Shack."

Said Ihem: "He has such intuitive power. He says all the right things. I think he's trying to live a life outside of prison, to have his fingers on other lives.

"I could kick myself, but I've learned one thing - there are a lot of diabolical people out there. From now on, before I deal with a man, I want to see wings sprouted on his back."

Execution-style killer

Definitely no angel, Pardo has resided for seven years on Death Row. He faces the death penalty for nine execution-style murders in 1986.

When police arrested him, they found a collection of Nazi memorabilia in his apartment, including a picture of Hitler and a Nazi flag.

A onetime Boy Scout, Marine and highway patrolman, Pardo confessed to the killings but said his victims were drug dealers who "have no right to live." Prosecutors said Pardo was involved in the drug trade and that many victims were Pardo's competitors or customers.

Convicted by a Dade County jury that recommended the death penalty, Pardo is still in an early phase of the appeals process. No execution date is likely to be set for years.

That leaves him plenty of time to place ads (weekly cost, about $25 per paper) and write letters to people like Ihem and Ford.

The two women have much in common. Both were divorced. Both are high-school graduates, and Ihem has a college degree in accounting. Both endured abusive relationships with men.

Each woman earned only $7,500 last year. While Ford cleaned houses, Ihem worked part-time at a Wal-Mart. Both had recently lost parents and had trouble with their children, rendering them even more emotionally vulnerable.

They now realize that they selected themselves as victims - only the truly desperate are likely to respond to tabloid ads from doomed prisoners, only the truly desperate can find fulfillment in such a relationship.

Getting graphic

In fact, as the long-distance liaisons matured, the letters became increasingly steamy and graphic - the written equivalent of phone sex.

"As awful as it was, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had those letters," Ihem said. "I might have gone over the edge.

"I guess I got my money's worth, if you want to look at it that way, because of the sexual stuff, the romance and the support, but it was just a dream. It was like reading a novel because the real person was not there."

Pardo only occasionally made specific requests for money. More often, he dwelt on his miserable existence, writing that he was so penniless he couldn't buy candy bars to supplement the prison food he rarely ate or buy stamps to write to his beloved.

The women got the message, and each money order brought letters of gratitude and love. The first alarm bells sounded in July when Ford and Ihem - still not knowing of the other's existence - saw Pardo on "Hard Copy," a tabloid TV show that broadcast an admiring report of the "real life Charles Bronson" who cleaned "Miami's mean streets" of drug dealers.

Bald, tattooed, his ample belly bulging over his belt, Pardo didn't look very hungry.

Then, in October, a Pardo letter addressed to Ford in Ohio showed up in Ihem's mailbox in Oklahoma along with a letter addressed to Ihem.

No one knows how Ford's letter arrived at Ihem's home, though both women now talk about divine intervention.