Investigators have found traces of DNA from a 17-year-old suspect that links him to the drugging, rape and subsequent death of a 15-year-old girl in Brazil last year.

Milena Eduarda Deckert Schreiber died during a local celebration in the town of Capao Bonito in the Brazilian municipality of Ijui on 20th September last year.

According to Milena’s family, she was drugged and raped during the festivities and was rushed to hospital, but pronounced dead on arrival.

An analysis of the victim’s urine confirmed the presence of two substances, “one of anaesthetic nature and the other of a sedative nature,” according to the family’s lawyer Humberto Meister.

The autopsy revealed Milena suffered a ruptured hymen and severe laceration of the vaginal canal that caused blood vessels to burst, resulting in severe haemorrhaging and the teen’s eventual death.

Milena’s father, 42-year-old Cristiano Schreiber, described it as “a very cruel, cowardly, horrible – call it what you will – crime. It was a totally premeditated crime.”

The 17-year-old boy, who has not been named, was already considered the prime suspect. However, the new revelation is significant because it rules out other suspected participants.

His lawyer, Guilherme Kuhn, protested his client’s “innocence”, and that his version of events will be heard by the public prosecution in due course.

The suspect has so far claimed that the act was consensual and he is currently awaiting trial in freedom.

Milena was a keen athlete and musician and dreamed of being a farmhand in the idyllic countryside where she lived.

Milena’s mother, 39-year-old Marcia Cristiane Deckert Schreiber, said of her daughter: “She was a healthy girl, full of life. She had a whole life ahead of her, with huge dreams.”

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