José Jurado Montilla's TikTok videos helped authorities arrest him for two murders committed in 2022 and 2023
Credit: Netflix
NEED TO KNOW
- José Jurado Montilla, known as the TikTok Killer or Dinamita Montilla, was convicted of killing four people in the 1980s
- He was released from prison in 2013, and prosecutors allege that he killed two more people in 2022 and 2023
- His TikTok videos ultimately led authorities to find and arrest him
José Jurado Montilla, who became known as the TikTok Killer, was caught and arrested twice — for charges relating to six different murders.
Montilla, who was born in 1961 and resided in the Málaga region of Spain for most of his life, was arrested for the first time in the mid-1980s for the murders of four people in Málaga. He received a 123-year prison sentence, but he was released after 28 years because of a successful appeal to a Spanish sentencing law.
A decade after he was released from prison, Montilla created a TikTok account, where he went by "El Titi” or “Dinamita," and gained a following for his videos showing him hiking around Spain while professing his innocence. However, it was ultimately his constant posting on TikTok that led authorities to find his whereabouts when they suspected him of two additional murders.
In 2024, Montilla was arrested in connection with the murder of a 21-year-old college student named David. David was fatally shot on his family farm in Málaga in August 2022 and described Montilla to his dad before his death, according to SUR. One year later, Montilla joined 42-year-old Esther Estepa on her hiking adventure through Spain, but she went missing just a few days after they met in late August 2023.
Estepa's remains were later discovered in 2024, and the evidence connected Montilla to her death, as well. He has denied having anything to do with David or Estepa's deaths and is awaiting trial. The tales of Montilla's past crimes and how his TikTok led to his recent arrest are told in the Netflix docuseries, The TikTok Killer.
Here's everything to know about how José Jurado Montilla, The TikTok Killer, was caught.
When was Montilla arrested for the first time?
Credit: Netflix
Montilla committed his first known murder when he fatally shot his neighbor, 57-year-old Francisco González, at his farmhouse. Montilla was not initially arrested but later confessed to killing González. However, he was adamant that González approached him with a shotgun inside his home, so Montilla grabbed the gun and shot him out of self defense.
In the time before Montilla was charged, he killed at least three more people: chauffeur Antonio Paniagua in March 1987 and a German and British tourist in May 1987.
He was arrested in the late 1980s and was convicted of all four murders though he denied killing the last three people and insisted that he was used as a scapegoat. Montilla was sentenced to 123 years in prison.
"Everything that happened in that part of the country was blamed on me,” he claimed in a TikTok video that was featured in The TikTok Killer. "Even though I had absolutely nothing to do with it."
Why was Montilla released from prison?
Credit: Netflix
Montilla served 28 years in prison before his sentence was re-evaluated after the Spanish Parot Doctrine was appealed. The Spanish Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the doctrine in 2006, allowing prisoners to be held longer than the then-maximum sentence of 30 years of the European Convention of Human Rights.
In 2013, the European Court of Human Rights successfully overturned the doctrine so Montilla was released.
What did Montilla do after he was released?
Credit: Netflix
After being released from prison, Montilla launched a TikTok account, called "Dinamita Montilla," where he documented his travels as an older man. In addition to posting videos about his miles-long hikes across Spain, he also spoke about his past in prison and maintained that he was innocent. He had around 3,000 TikTok followers at the time of his arrest, per the Netflix doc.
In August 2022, Spanish authorities believe that Montilla shot and killed his fifth victim, 21-year-old student David. Before his death, David allegedly told his dad that he had connected with "an older man who looked very shady" and who wanted to hunt foxes, local newspaper 20minutos reported, per A&E. Although the case went cold for a few years, that story would later become relevant, as another person suspected to be one of Montilla's victims claimed that he met with someone who asked to hunt foxes with him.
The following year, Estepa was reported missing after she failed to get in contact with her mom, who she usually talked to daily. Estepa disappeared while she was hiking along the Spanish coast and stopped in the town of Gandía to treat an injured leg in late August 2023.
On Aug. 23, Estepa's mom received a few messages from her daughter via WhatsApp, but she later told investigators that the writing seemed off and that she thought they came from someone else. Although her family was initially unaware that Estepa had met Montilla, they became familiar with him after he reached out and expressed his concern over Estepa's whereabouts.
Seemingly in response to Estepa's disappearance, Montilla rewalked the same trails and roads that the pair allegedly did days before she was reported missing. He shared his journey on TikTok, relayed Estepa's story to his followers and claimed he hoped someone would report seeing her.
How was Montilla caught and arrested for a second time?
Credit: Netflix
Shortly after Estepa stopped messaging her family in August 2023, they learned about her friendship with Montilla. He called them several times and asked about the investigation, so her family subsequently contacted authorities and alerted them of their suspicions.
In the midst of investigators looking into a possible connection between Montilla and Estepa, they received DNA results from David's crime scene. Police allegedly confirmed that Montilla's DNA was found on David's backpack, and they set plans to arrest him.
Since Montilla was a nomad who didn't have a permanent address, authorities scraped through his TikTok videos to determine where he was and arrested him at a sports bar near the Spain-Portugal border, per Crime Spain. The TikTok Killer documentary director Héctor Muniente later told TIME that Montilla's content provided investigators with a "rich archive" of evidence.
“At first, when diving into his content, you focus on what he says, looking for contradictions and lies. But after hours of raw footage, after selecting dozens of videos, watching them repeatedly, and editing them in the cutting room, you start to develop small obsessions,” Muniente said. “You notice tiny details, repeated patterns, his gestures, and almost without realizing it, you become a bit like a forensic psychologist."
The director continued, "What I will never forget is his ability to switch emotions in a single click, from one second to the next, blending sadness with joy, anger with charm, all in the same video, with no transition or mediation. It feels like watching a performance of what many would call psychopathy unfold in real time.”
In February 2024, Estepa's skull and bones were discovered near a highway in Gandía, per El País. While Montilla was already behind bars in connection with David's murder, authorities searched his phone and found evidence that they say proves he sexually assaulted and killed Estepa. He has maintained his innocence in both cases and is awaiting trial.
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