A couple has been sentenced to 36 years in prison over the death of a 12-year-old girl who was found in an area of woodland tied to a tree.
The police believe she was killed after being mistaken for the sister of an indebted drug purchaser.
The sentences were handed down by judge Flavio Roberto de Carvalho at a courthouse in the town of Sao Roque in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo on Tuesday, 9th November.
Bruno Marcel de Oliveira was given 36 years and three months and his partner Mayara Borges de Abrantes was given 36 years for murder, kidnapping and concealment of a corpse.
The crime was discovered after young Vitoria Gabrielly went missing when she left her home in the town of Aracariguama on the afternoon of 8th June 2018 to go out rollerskating.
Her dead body was found in an area of woodland alongside a dirt road eight days later. According to the police, her hands and feet were tied up and her body was tied to a tree.
Oliveira and Abrantes, who had criminal records for drug trafficking and robbery respectively, were arrested at their home in the town of Mairinque later that month.
By that point, construction worker Julio Cesar Lima Ergesse had already been taken into custody and charged with murder over the crime.
The Civil Police (Brazil’s investigative police force) determined that the girl had been killed over a drug debt of BRL 7,000 (GBP 944) the same month.
Ergesse was given 34 years for murder, concealment of a corpse and kidnapping in 2019, with his sentence subsequently reduced to 23 years and four months on appeal.
Odilan Alves, the man identified as the drug debt collector who had been charged with murder over the case, was sentenced over unrelated drug-trafficking charges the following year. He may yet be convicted over the girl’s death.
The police believe the victim was kidnapped so a drug debt would be paid off. However, the suspects allegedly killed her when they realised they had the wrong person.
She allegedly bore a resemblance to the sister of a man who owed a drug dealer money.
Evidence that led to the couple’s conviction included a sniffer dog having identified the victim’s scent in the couple’s house.
During sentencing, the judge said of Abrantes: “You went to buy a baking dish and quilts as if nothing had happened [after the crime], which highlights your coldness and dangerousness.”
