Institutional trauma, absence of accountability, and psychopathology in a juvenile serial homicide case

Juan Fernando Hermosa, infamously known as “The Child of Terror,” committed 23 murders in Ecuador between 1991 and 1992. This perspective article offers a conceptual and theoretical analysis of the interplay between institutional trauma, accountability, and psychopathology in juvenile justice settings, using Hermosa’s trajectory as an illustrative example. Drawing on publicly available judicial records, academic literature, and journalistic sources, we advance the argument that institutional tra