The Mystery Of Griselda Blanco’s Murder Remains Unsolved

In Netflix’s Griselda, Sofía Vergara stars as a dramatized version of the titular drug boss Griselda Blanco — a major player in the Miami cocaine trade of the 1970s and ‘80s.

“We didn’t want to romanticize her or make her a hero, because she wasn’t,” Vergara, who also serves as executive producer, recently told Entertainment Tonight. “But no matter what anyone says, this was a very interesting character.”

Indeed, the extent of Blanco’s fearsome influence is best summed up with a quote from Pablo Escobar at the beginning of the series: “The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco.”

She ultimately served time for drug trafficking and three second-degree murder charges — though the attorney who prosecuted her told the Miami Herald that the true amount of murders she ordered “would certainly be dozens.”

The so-called “Cocaine Godmother” was released from prison and deported to Colombia in 2004. But just eight years later, she was murdered in Medellín.

A Violent Parallel

According to the Miami Herald, Blanco had just purchased meat from a local butcher shop when a man on a motorcycle gunned her down. She was 69 years old, and her pregnant daughter-in-law was with her at the time.

Blanco’s assassin is unknown to this day, though a witness told the paper the killer was middle-aged and seemed “professional ... [acting on] vengeance from the past.”

Former Miami homicide detective Nelson Andreu, who once investigated Blanco, voiced a similar suspicion. “When you kill so many and hurt so many people like she did, it’s only a matter of time before they find you and try to even the score,” he told the Herald. The outlet pointed out that the “motorcycle assassin” style of murder was one Blanco reportedly popularized herself.

Telling Blanco’s Story

Vergara isn’t the first person to bring Blanco’s story to screen. Catherine Zeta-Jones played the drug lord in Lifetime’s 2018 film, Cocaine Godmother, and Blanco also received the documentary treatment in 2006’s Cocaine Cowboys.

But even before Blanco’s death, there was interest in dramatizing her life. Mark Wahlberg revealed on a radio show months before her murder that a film adaptation of Cocaine Cowboys was imminent, and claimed Jennifer Lopez was “chasing that [role] like crazy.”

A separate project called The Godmother was later announced in 2019, with Lopez set to star and produce. “I’ve been forever fascinated by the story of Griselda Blanco and jumped at the chance to play her on screen,” Lopez said in a statement, per Variety. The actor added she was “eager to shine a spotlight on this anti-hero.” However, the project's status is unclear, as Lopez hasn’t shared any recent developments.