EARLY LIFE

Héctor Luís Camacho Matías was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, to Héctor Luis Camacho Sr. and his wife María Matías. He was the second youngest of five children, which included a younger brother, Felix and sisters Raquel, Estrella, and Esperanza.

When he was three, his parents separated, and his mother took the children with her to New York City. They lived in the James Weldon Johnson housing project in Spanish Harlem.

Camacho attended local schools and ran into trouble as a teen, getting into street fights and landing in jail at fifteen.

AMATEUR CAREER

As an amateur, Camacho won three New York Golden Gloves Championships. Camacho won the 1978 112 lb Sub-Novice Championship, 1979 118 lb Open Championship, and 1980 119 lb Open Championship. In 1979 Camacho defeated Paul DeVorce of the Yonkers Police Athletic League in the finals to win the title, and, in 1980, Camacho defeated Tyrone Jackson in the finals to win the Championship.

In 1980 Camacho won Intercity Golden Gloves, defeating Orlando Johnson of Chicago.

Camacho completed his amateur career, having a hundred fights under his belt, with 96 wins, and 4 losses.

PROFESSIONAL CAREER

LIFE AFTER BOXING

PERSONAL LIFE

On January 6, 2005, Camacho was arrested by police in Gulfport, Mississippi on charges of trying to burglarize an electronic goods store and carrying the drug ecstasy on him. In 2007, he pleaded guilty to being under the influence at the time of the burglary. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison, but a judge eventually suspended all but one year of the sentence and gave Camacho probation. He served two weeks in jail after violating that probation.

On February 12, 2011, Camacho was attacked near the Luis Lloréns Torres housing project in San Juan. Camacho said he was taking a friend to a nearby bar when two men approached his vehicle (a 2005 BMW X5) and tried to carjack him. When he tried to drive away, they shot at him three times.

DEATH

On November 20, 2012, Camacho and a friend, Adrian Mojica Moreno, were shot while sitting in a parked car outside a bar in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Police said two assailants fled in an SUV. Moreno was declared dead at the scene. Camacho was originally expected to survive, but his condition quickly deteriorated and he was put on life support. After being declared brain dead, he was taken off life support and died on November 24, 2012.

Hundreds of fans turned out for the public wake in New York City and watched as a carriage drawn by white horses carried Camacho's coffin through the streets of Spanish Harlem en route to St. Cecilia Church on East 106th Street. The street outside the Church was lined with over a thousand people from the "El Barrio" neighborhood who waited patiently to pay their respects.

Camacho was buried on December 1, 2012, at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx, not far from former World Welterweight Champion Benny Paret.

LEGACY