Manuel Pardo was born in New York on September 24, 1956. He was a former Boy Scout and served as a Marine Corps veteran. Pardo started his law enforcement career with the Florida Highway Patrol, where he graduated as valedictorian from the academy. In 1979, he was dismissed from the agency for falsifying traffic tickets. Shortly after, Pardo secured a position with the police department in Sweetwater, Florida, within Miami-Dade County.

Manuel Pardo Jr., a former officer at the Sweetwater Police Department, lost his job after multiple run-ins with the law, including lying to investigators. He subsequently turned to the drug trade and committed his first known murders in January 1986. Pardo shot Mario Amador and Roberto Alonso with a .22 caliber Ruger pistol during a robbery.

Later that same month, Pardo killed Michael Millot, a Haitian anti-Duvalier activist and gunsmith who had previously provided Pardo with silencers. Believing Millot to be a police informant, Pardo and his former Sweetwater police partner, Rolando Garcia, lured Millot into a car. Pardo was hiding in the back seat and fatally shot Millot in the head with a 9mm pistol once he entered the vehicle.

In February 1986, Pardo committed a robbery that resulted in the deaths of Luis Robledo and Ulpiano Ledo. Two months later, he killed four more people in separate incidents. Fara Quintero and Sara Musa were murdered after a dispute over a pawned ring and for not buying Pardo a VCR with stolen credit cards. Pardo believed Quintero had marked him for death using a Santería sign. Ramon Alvero and his girlfriend Daisy Ricard were shot because Alvero missed several drug deals.

Pardo was captured in a New York City hospital with a gunshot wound to his foot, which matched bullets from his final victims. The injury occurred when his gun jammed while shooting Ricard, and he bludgeoned her, causing the gun to discharge into his foot.

A search of Pardo's home revealed Nazi memorabilia, and prosecutors argued that he was a Nazi sympathizer with racist and antisemitic views. Pardo maintained that his mission was to eliminate drug dealers, admitting to six of the nine murders he was charged with.

During his trial, Pardo testified, claiming he was a soldier on a mission and asked for the death penalty rather than life in prison. Prosecutors painted him as a cold-blooded killer eliminating competition in the drug trade.

Rolando Garcia was initially sentenced to death for four counts of first-degree murder but later received a new trial. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, received a 25-year sentence, and was released on September 5, 2002. Manuel Pardo Jr. was executed by lethal injection in Florida on December 11, 2012, after spending 26 years on death row.