Why did Brazilian Rosanita Nery dos Santos, 47, chopped her husband in over 100 pieces, cooked and fried the body parts in boiling oil and then kept the remains under the stairway in the couple's home in the city of Salvador, capital of the northeastern state of Bahia?
Because she was forced to do this by gunmen who invaded her house, she told a seven-member jury. The jurors, however, didn't believe her story and found her guilty. She will be getting 19 years in prison for murder and hiding a corpse.
"The jury accepted all charges and evidence brought forth by the prosecution because it didn't have any doubt that she committed the crime," said Armênia Cristina Santos, with the Bahia's attorney general office and the prosecutor in charge of the case.
For the prosecutor, Rosanita, who often contradicted herself during her testimony, is unquestionably the culprit. "The Public Attorney Office is fully convinced that she is the murder," stated Santos. "The police report and testimonies by her children leave no doubt that she committed this crime."
The trial, which had already been postponed three times, lasted over 12 hours. The sentence was pronounced Friday night, March 23, by judge Cássio Miranda, head of Salvador County's 1st Jury Court. He ruled that Rosanita will have to serve her time in a women's prison.
José Raimundo Soares dos Santos, 53, the husband, was a retired police lieutenant with whom she was married for 28 years and had five kids. Thei couple's children testimony was crucial to convict the woman.
The crime occurred on June 23, 2005, in the Vale do Ogunjá neighborhood. According to court records, Rosanita gave the husband hard liquor mixed to a tranquilizer. When he fell asleep, on the couple's bed, she stabbed him in the breast, abdomen and head.
She then cut his body, separating head, arms and legs. After that she took the parts to the bathroom where she boned them. The next step was to cook and fry the body's pieces, let them cool down and put them in plastic bags. The procedure took about 13 hours.
The housewife finally hid the fried pieces under a stairway covering the area with a particle board. Only the next day she scrubbed everything to hide any evidence of the crime.
When the couple's daughter Shisleide Nery dos Santos, 24, came for a visit the day after the murder the mother told her that her father had stabbed himself to death and she had dismembered and hidden his body's parts so that she wouldn't be charged with his death by the police.
Shisleide, however, didn't believe the mother's story and went to the police where she told police chief Nilton José about her suspicion that her mother had killed the husband. Soon after, the authorities came to the house and arrested the woman.
In the police district she first told authorities she had arrived home and found her companion stabbed to death in their bed and added: "After that I decide to cut the whole body and then fry the pieces in order to prevent that bad corpse smell."
Even though she denies it, the police suspect that she ate part of the fried body parts. The motivation for the crime was never clear to the authorities. She might be attempting to collect a US$ 34,000 life insurance or trying to avenge a life of humiliation at the hands of the military man. The woman seems to have mental problems and the court records also talk about a black magic ritual she might be involved with.
In one of her versions in court, the housewife blamed the murder on two knife-carrying hooded men. According to this story, she was approached by them at the entrance of her home when coming back from the bakery. She told the court she was dragged by the men who threatened to kill her and then was forced to watch while they stabbed and dismembered her companion.
According to Bernadete de Souza Soares, 63, the victim's aunt and a witness in court, Rosanita and José Raimundo used to fight a lot especially over her habit of going to candomblé (an African religion) worship services. Soares told jurors that the husband once invaded the candomblé church and dragged the wife out of there.
"He went in and broke everything," said Soares. "After that, the mãe-de-santo (afro-Brazilian priestess) said that he would pay dearly for that and that he wouldn't live more than one year. The priestess also asked Rosa to deliver his heart to her and that's why she dismembered him."
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written by freddy, March 26, 2007
written by Professor, March 26, 2007
written by keepin it real, March 26, 2007
HOUSTON (AP) — For at least two days, neighbours at a city apartment complex noticed an acrid aroma, black smoke and leaping flames coming from two barbecue grills on the balcony of a second-floor apartment.
What, neighbours at the Red Oak Place apartments wondered, was going on in the unit where 27-year-old Timothy Wayne Shepherd lived? What was he burning at all hours, for days at a time?
The answer turned their stomachs.
According to law enforcement officials, Shepherd dismembered, and then burned the body of his former girlfriend, Tynesha Stewart, a 19-year-old Texas A&M University student. Nothing remains of Stewart’s body, Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas said at a press conference Saturday.
“I just don’t know what to think about it,” said Louis Evans, whose balcony faces Shepherd’s in the quiet tree-lined enclave in northern Houston. “I thought he was a nice normal person. I guess you never know what your neighbours are doing.”
Authorities said Shepherd has confessed to strangling and dismembering Stewart, a college freshman who was home on spring break, because he was angry that she had started a new relationship.
Officials first thought Shepherd had disposed of her remains in a large commercial trash bin that had since been emptied, launching an intense debate in the area about whether the Sheriff’s Department should conduct a massive and expensive search of area landfills for Stewart’s remains.
Stewart was last seen March 15 and was reported missing March 19. The next day the Harris County Sheriff’s Office homicide division launched its investigation.
On March 16, neighbours said they first noticed the unusual activity — and the unpleasant odour — on Shepherd’s balcony.
“The smell was awful,” said Evans, who also became alarmed after seeing a blaze shoot out from the grills. “I was wondering: What is he burning? Not cooking, but burning. There is a difference.”
At times, Evans said, the flames from the grills leapt dangerously close to the roof of the balcony. Evans says he called 911, but when firefighters arrived, the flames had calmed and Shepherd assured them everything was under control.
A leasing agent at the apartment complex also noticed the thick dark smoke and the intense flames and asked Shepherd what he was doing, Evans said. Another neighbour, 18-year-old James Hebert, told The Houston Chronicle that he often cooked out with Shepherd, and even left his grill at Shepherd’s apartment. When he wasn’t invited over, he asked his neighbour what was going on. Shepherd replied that he was cooking for a wedding, the newspaper said.
Dionne Whitaker, 31, who lives in the complex, said she saw Shepherd carry the grill and smoker to a garbage bin a day or so later, the newspaper said.
Human remains generally require extremely high temperatures to destroy, and authorities have not said how it is possible that Stewart’s remains could be completely burned on a patio grill.
“This certainly turned out to be one of the most heinous crimes I’ve ever seen in my 38 years (in law enforcement),” Thomas, the sheriff, said Saturday.
Shepherd, who is charged with murder, is being held on US$250,000 bond in the Harris County Jail. Telephone message left with his lawyer were not immediately returned. On Sunday, the door to Shepherd’s apartment was covered with plywood boards.
written by GS, March 26, 2007
written by Professor, March 26, 2007
After having read this story from Houston, my first thought was there is nothing like a good Texas BBQ except for a good Brazilian BBQ.
As for the Whackos they are salted apon this earth and can be found anywhere! Kind of makes you want to think twice before accepting an invitation to a BBQ.
As for me I never eat the Mortadella in Brazil and for what any one might say otherwise, I think they are full of Baloney!
written by bo, March 26, 2007
There are whackos everywhere in the world....
written by keepin it real, 2007-03-26 15:06:37
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2007/03/26/3836676.html
HOUSTON (AP) — For at least two days, neighbours at a city apartment complex noticed an acrid aroma, black smoke and leaping flames coming from two barbecue grills on the balcony of a second-floor apartment.
What, neighbours at the Red Oak Place apartments wondered, was going on in the unit where 27-year-old Timothy Wayne Shepherd lived? What was he burning at all hours, for days at a time?
The answer turned their stomachs.
According to law enforcement officials, Shepherd dismembered, and then burned the body of his former girlfriend, Tynesha Stewart, a 19-year-old Texas A&M University student. Nothing remains of Stewart’s body, Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas said at a press conference Saturday.
“I just don’t know what to think about it,” said Louis Evans, whose balcony faces Shepherd’s in the quiet tree-lined enclave in northern Houston. “I thought he was a nice normal person. I guess you never know what your neighbours are doing.”
Authorities said Shepherd has confessed to strangling and dismembering Stewart, a college freshman who was home on spring break, because he was angry that she had started a new relationship.
Officials first thought Shepherd had disposed of her remains in a large commercial trash bin that had since been emptied, launching an intense debate in the area about whether the Sheriff’s Department should conduct a massive and expensive search of area landfills for Stewart’s remains.
Stewart was last seen March 15 and was reported missing March 19. The next day the Harris County Sheriff’s Office homicide division launched its investigation.
On March 16, neighbours said they first noticed the unusual activity — and the unpleasant odour — on Shepherd’s balcony.
“The smell was awful,” said Evans, who also became alarmed after seeing a blaze shoot out from the grills. “I was wondering: What is he burning? Not cooking, but burning. There is a difference.”
At times, Evans said, the flames from the grills leapt dangerously close to the roof of the balcony. Evans says he called 911, but when firefighters arrived, the flames had calmed and Shepherd assured them everything was under control.
A leasing agent at the apartment complex also noticed the thick dark smoke and the intense flames and asked Shepherd what he was doing, Evans said. Another neighbour, 18-year-old James Hebert, told The Houston Chronicle that he often cooked out with Shepherd, and even left his grill at Shepherd’s apartment. When he wasn’t invited over, he asked his neighbour what was going on. Shepherd replied that he was cooking for a wedding, the newspaper said.
Dionne Whitaker, 31, who lives in the complex, said she saw Shepherd carry the grill and smoker to a garbage bin a day or so later, the newspaper said.
Human remains generally require extremely high temperatures to destroy, and authorities have not said how it is possible that Stewart’s remains could be completely burned on a patio grill.
“This certainly turned out to be one of the most heinous crimes I’ve ever seen in my 38 years (in law enforcement),” Thomas, the sheriff, said Saturday.
Shepherd, who is charged with murder, is being held on US$250,000 bond in the Harris County Jail. Telephone message left with his lawyer were not immediately returned. On Sunday, the door to Shepherd’s apartment was covered with plywood boards.
thanks for that E Sodomy!
written by jab, March 26, 2007
For any single deperate Gringoes.
written by ch.c., March 27, 2007
written by bo, March 27, 2007
written by ch.c., 2007-03-27 00:24:58
You forgot to mention the American who was killed and cut in pieces a few months ago and also the Brazilian who raped and killed......42 children ! Yessssss 42.....a few months ago !
I heard something about the raping and killing of all those children briefly on the news here in brazil, but could never find anything on it on the 'net nor did I hear it mentioned again on the news here in brazil, as I'm sure you know, there are many things that happen here that the media tends to pass over, for one reason or another, and this case seemed to be one that didn't get much attention from the brazilian press whatsoever.
Do you have any links or url's concerning that situation?
written by A proud Brazilian... ever!!!, March 27, 2007
What have you been smoking?? New York City is now the safest megalopolis in the WORLD!! Brazils poverty is well known, especially to those of us that live here! The third lowest minimum wage on planet earth and severe problems in education. More than 40 million brazilians making less than 2 dollars a day!!! And as far as crime, 55,000 people murdered in brazil in 2005, 14,000 in the U.S., and the U.S. has nearly twice the population, you want to talk about crime?? You tell me, why do you think that brazilians by the millions are leaving this "best place in the world to live"??? Wow, at least you correctly named yourself, "A proud brazilian", lol. I've met many of you guys, you'd deny the fact that the sun rises every morning if it was something to not be proud of.
My God! Not even basic maths skill!!!
United States population: 298,444,215
Brazil's population: 188,078,227
The difference between USA x Brazil population: 110,365,988 or the Brazilian population is equal to 63% of the American population.
USA has 110,365,988 more inhabitants than Brazil: it means 58.7 % more inhabitants than the Brazilian population. That's not almost twice!!!
To be "nearly" twice as you said, you would need to tell us that the American population was 376,156,454 what is basically the double of 188,078,227 that is the actual Brazilian population. Anyway, if you take the actual American population totalizing 298,444,215 from what you call to be the "nearly twice" 376,156,454 (let's than take 0.5% to make sense for the expression "nearly") it would be: 374,275,672... than your "nearly" is 75,831,457 people more!!!! That's a huge difference!!!
That's bigger than the population of France: 62,752,136; Italy: 58,133,509; UK: 60,609,153; Turkey: 70,413,958; close to the population of the entire Egypt!!!
That's the American megalomania: obtuse view of the world! Then you come to tell me about American education?
written by Kevin, March 27, 2007
Murders per capita-
Brazil - 1 murder per 3419 people
USA - 1 murder per 21317
Brazil's murder rate per person is OVER 6 times that of the USA
dont argue over the little details like 'nearly', the overall numbers are still there
written by bo, March 28, 2007
written by bo, March 28, 2007
United States population: 298,444,215
Where are you getting those old numbers?? Everyone knows that the U.S. topped the 300 million mark some time ago, and it's growing, not inversely!
And the last numbers I heard in brazil was 185 million.
Brasileiros, we americans don't have anything over on you.