Not much is known about his youth, but on his later U.S. visa request, Hurtado said he entered the Peruvian army in March 1979, four months shy of his 18th birthday. He must have been a good soldier and reasonably well connected, because in October 1982, he was chosen to attend a month-long cadet training course at U.S.-backed School of the Americas in Panama.

The facility dubbed "School of the Assassins" by its critics is known for training war villains, notably a pair of dictators during Argentina's Dirty War and Panama's Manuel Noriega.

Three years later, on April 25, 1985, Hurtado led a mission called "Pan de Azúcar," in which he freed 40 captives, making a decision "diametrically opposite" to the one he would make in Accomarca, according to a 2006 report, "The Truth About Accomarca," written by a Peruvian army general. The report claims Hurtado acted independently, leaving his superiors unaware.

Hurtado would later recall he and officers hatched plans for what would become the Accomarca massacre in a meeting shortly before the August 14 operation. The stated mission: "Capture and/or destroy existing terrorist elements in Quebrada de Huancayoc." At the officers' gathering, a participant asked the operation leader, Army Infantry Capt. Helber Gálvez Fernández: "Should we assume anyone we see in the Quebrada de Huancayoc is a terrorist communist?"

Yes, Gálvez responded.

So soldiers like Hurtado stitched together a cockeyed worldview in which Sendero flashed in every indigenous person's face: A pretty girl, a bumbling toddler, or an illiterate grandmother could be loaded with explosives. "One cannot trust in a woman, an old person, or a child in these times in which we are living, especially in what we are living out there.... They start to indoctrinate them at two or three years old...," Hurtado would say later. (Rebels did in fact recruit children they called peoneros — foot soldiers — and use them to shuttle bombs.)

On August 13, around noon, a helicopter landed far outside Accomarca, carrying Hurtado and his troops to catch villagers by surprise. They hiked several miles and, around 5:30 p.m., stealthily entered Accomarca, where they settled in for the night. The next day troops headed out early and, around 6:30, descended upon Quebrada de Huancayoc and rounded up about 50 campesinos. The soldiers soon herded their prey into two rooms in a house where, survivors would later testify, Telmo Hurtado ordered them to "open fire." Then he tossed a grenade and ordered his command to collect the used ammo so it would seem like a terrorist attack.

Around 3:00 p.m., as the sun weakened and smoke billowed from fires stoked by lives extinguished, Hurtado and other soldiers gathered in a home in the valley to celebrate killing the "terrorists," eyewitnesses would later testify. The bash got so rowdy that one frolicking soldier slipped on a skirt and danced. The troops slaughtered a villager's pig, sizzled up some chicharrones, and swilled Cartavio rum. They stole money, clothes, and blankets before ditching their smoky fatigues for civilian duds and heading back to Accomarca.