Crimes have always been around our society since early times. When certain criminals reach the height of success, they become a source of fascination for regular people.
One such criminal is Pablo Escobar!
Pablo Escobar is the late Columbian drug lord and narcoterrorist who founded and became the sole leader of the Medellin Cartel after rising to prominence in 1978. Following his success in the crime world, he was named The King of Cocaine and became the wealthiest criminal ever by accumulating 30 billion dollars as his wealth. With so much wealth, people were always curious about how he lived his life.
Pablo Escobar was married to Maria Victoria Henao with whom he had two children Juan Pablo (now Sebastián Marroquín) and Manuela. While his son has earned himself great respect by being an architect and an author, his daughter is still a mystery to a lot of people. Let’s hop into the interesting facts about Manuela Escobar, the daughter of the drug king pin that shook the world.
Early Life: Comprehending with Paulo’s Lifestyle
Contents
Manuela was born on May 25, 1984, to parents Pablo Escobar and his wife Maria Victoria Henao. Since Pablo Escobar was renowned for his criminal activities, he had enemies left and right. Apart from being a law and order outcast, he had multiple threats from fellow criminals who saw his success as an obstacle to their own.
Despite the nature of his work, he always made sure that his family was always on the safe side. Like every father in the world, his daughter was his little princess. From early on, Manuela was homeschooled since attending a public school would only compromise her safety. When Manuela was only 3 years old, on January 13, 1988, she experienced a murder attempt on her father in their Monaco apartment building by the use of a car bomb explosion.
Being the daughter of the wealthiest drug lord meant that every day Manuela was able to live a pampered life and her father supported the way she was raised. Pablo Escobar was a very doting father and would fulfill every wish his child would ask from him. One such incident was reported by author J.D Rockefeller.
According to him, once Manuela innocently asked her father how much a billion dollars worth to which he answered, ‘The value of your eyes, my princess’. Once little Manuela asked for a unicorn from her father. Any other normal parents would not be able to fulfill such wish since unicorns are fictional animals. But for Pablo, his daughter’s happiness was everything. He produced a unicorn for his daughter by having a horn stapled to a horse head. To Manuela, the act might be sweet but as for the horse; the animal later died of an infection.
Pablo Escobar did not shy away to spend his excessive wealth to spoil his children. Both of his children lived their lives in luxury but were also always surrounded by unwanted threats. When Manuela was little, the whole Escobar family had to go in hiding in Medellin mountainside for some time. During that period, Manuela fell ill.
According to the vintage news, in order to keep his daughter and family warmth, Pablo Escobar set 2 million dollars cash on fire. According to sources, Pablo promised Manuela that she would be the last of his line. Because of this, he forced one of his mistresses to abort the baby. As much as the world feared Pablo Escobar, because of him Manuela grew up in a very loving environment.
Life After Her Father
Pablo Escobar ruled the 1980s as a drug lord and was responsible for the dealing of about 80% of cocaine in the United States. But the life of a criminal is relatively shorter than your average person. Although with his increasing business, Pablo used to help out poor people acting as a Robinhood, he was making enemies left and right. On December 2, 1993, Pablo Escobar was killed in a shootout by Columbian National Police.
With the death of her father, Manuela’s life took a sharp turn too. In the blink of an eye, they turned from rich to refugees. The death of Pablo Escobar lifted off the security blanket that was protecting his family from any kind of threat. Manuela had to run away with her mother and brother in 1995.
Her family first fled to Mozambique and thereafter to Brazil. Looking for a safer place away from all of her father’s enemies, the family arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on tourist visas and finally settled there as citizens in exile from Colombia.
In Argentina, her whole family got new names. She started going by the name Juana Manuela Marroquin Santos. Manuela was very much attached to her father’s memories and always slept with her father’s shirt that he wore on his last day. Although they struggled with the middle-class lifestyle in Argentina after a while they got adapted to it. After that, she finally started going to school with her brother. Her mother found success in real estate.
The ghost of her father’s crimes followed them in another country too. Once her mother’s identity was found, she got incarcerated for a year and a half. All her finances were also investigated but since there was no proof of any illegal activities, she was released. This fallback of her family gravely affected Manuela who refused to go to school, hence ended up taking private classes only.
The Adult Life of Manuela Today
Manuela Escobar unlike her brother Juan and mother has stayed away from media for practically all her life. There is news that she took public relations as her study major but nothing is confirmed yet. Not much information is known about what career she has chosen. She also lacks a social media presence.
It was reported that till now she lives in constant fear that one of her father’s enemies would retaliate against her and her family. According to her brother, Juan, Manuela even tried to take her own life due to her constant depression episodes. Apart from this, it is also reported that Manuela right now stays with her brother and his wife who helped her during her depression attacks.
The After Effects are Surreal
How you bring up your child is constantly going to hunt them for the rest of their lives. If Pablo were able to provide his children with a normal childhood, they probably would have led a happier adult life too. We can only hope that Manuela would overcome her pain and live a safe life.