Mateo Banks y Keena (18 November 1872 – 28 August 1949) was an Argentine spree killer who murdered six members of his family, in addition to two of the family's employees. The crimes occurred on two of the family's rural estates at Parish, near Azul, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, on 18 April 1922. Background Born in a family of Irish ancestry originally from Chascomús, by 1922 the Banks brothers owned two cattle ranches in Parish, a rural area several miles north of Azul, referred to as "El Trébol" ("The Shamrock") y "La Buena Suerte" ("The Good Luck"). "El Trébol" and "La Buena Suerte" were inherited from their father, the Irish immigrant Matthew Banks, who had died in 1909. Matthew Banks was married to Mary Ann Keena & Gibson, who died in 1908. They left seven sons and daughters; María Ana, Dionisio, Miguel, Mateo, Pedro, Catalina and Brígida. Pedro and Brígida died in 1911, the latter in Ireland, just 18 days after getting married, while Catalina also got married in Ireland, settled there and after 1922 became the only heir of her siblings. Mateo Banks lived away from the ranches in a luxurious house in the town, with his upper-class wife Máxima Gainza, three sons and a daughter. A fervent and charitable Catholic, he was a member of the local chapter of the Jockey Club Argentino, the vice honorary consul of the United Kingdom and the commercial representative of the Studebacker car company in the region. Mateo Banks was also a councillor in the local education authority. Many people in Azul, however, suspected that he was living a double life of arrogance, wastefulness and prodigality. By this reason, Mateo's brothers ousted him from the family's business. All which was left for him was "Los Pinos", a smaller ranch adjoining "El Trebol". A hidden criminal past Azul's historians Georgina Degano and Eduardo Aguero Mielhuerry carried out a research on Mateo Banks early life, and discovered some evidence of a criminal past. When the Banks first arrived in Azul, in 1897, a young Mateo Banks was hired as a peon in "La Buena Suerte", then owned by Henry McCracken, a British subject. After improperly flirting with one of McCracken's daughters, Mateo Banks became involved in the theft of a sum of money from his employer (a couple also working in the ranch was accused and fired). When Banks claimed that he had found