WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR NETFLIX‘S GRISELDA.
The Netflix miniseries Griselda is now out, and one of the questions the series does not truly answer is how the real-life Griselda Blanco died. The information about Blanco’s death is indeed provided to fans in a text scroll at the end, but her death is never shown on screen. Instead, the show ends before her death, with Blanco in prison, cutting to Blanco looking at the beach. But how exactly did real-life drug lord die?
As the show tells us, Blanco was assassinated in Medellin, Colombia in 2012, at the age of 69. There isn’t any confirmation regarding who killed her or clear information regarding the motivation behind the killing; all that is known is that she was shot twice while leaving a butcher shop by a man on a motorcycle. She was with her pregnant daughter-in-law, who was uninjured.
Her shooting is said to have mimicked the assassination style Blanco was credited with introducing during her prime in Miami. No one was ever charged with her murder. Before that, she led a quiet life after being released from jail in 2004 and deported to Colombia. She was allegedly no longer involved in organized crime and “was hoping to live off the sales of several properties she owned.”
The miniseries Griselda focuses on the rise to power of Colombian Griselda Blanco, widely known as “The Godmother,” who created one of the most profitable cartels in history in 1970-1980’s Miami.
The limited drama comes from the creators and executive producers of Narcos and Narcos: Mexico. Vergara doesn’t just star in the limited series but is also credited as an executive producer. She underwent a considerable physical transformation to play Blanco, looking unrecognizable in the role.
Griselda is not the first time Blanco’s story has been told. Lifetime’s 2017 film Cocaine Godmother attempted to tell the story of Blanco, ironically, with Catherine Zeta-Jones playing the title role. Sofía Vergara, who takes over the role of Blanco this time, is actually Colombian.