:Charlie Chop-off

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.The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers {{ISBN|978-0-747-23731-0}} 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, nine-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.{{cite news |title=Link Hinted in Harlem and East Side Slayings |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 |access-date=September 3, 2018}}

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. He bled to death from an injury to his arm, although his penis was left intact.

After the botched abduction of a Puerto Rican boy on May 15, 1974, Ernesto Soto, 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.{{Cite news |date=June 27, 1974 |title=Slaying Suspect Is Tied to Deaths Of 3 More Boys |work=New York Daily News |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/464366883 |via=newspapers.com |access-date=March 31, 2024}} 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.

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.The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers {{ISBN|978-0-747-23731-0}} p. 321

In 1993, Soto's lawyers requested for him to 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."{{cite news |date=February 2, 1993 |title=The nightmare is back |work=New York Daily News |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/470543515 |via=newspapers.com |access-date=August 22, 2024}}

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.{{cite book |last=Vronsky |first=Pete |title=Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters |publisher=Berkley |date=2004 |location=New York |isbn=0-425-19640-2}}{{cite web |last=Ramsland |first=Katherine |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}}

• List of fugitives from justice who disappeared
• List of serial killers in the United States

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last=Rockefeller |first=J. D. |title=America's 14 Worst Serial Killers |year=2016 |publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing |location=U.K. |isbn=978-1-530-61924-5}}
• {{Cite book |last=Wilson |first=Colin |author2=Seaman, Donald |title=Encyclopedia of Modern Murder: 1962-1982 |year=1988 |publisher=Bonanza Books |location=U.K. |isbn=978-0-517-66559-6 |pages=270–271}}
• {{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}}

• [http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkillers/S/SOTO_erno.php SOTO Erno aka Charlie Chopoff at the True Crime Library]

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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:Violence against men in the United States

Category:Year of birth unknown