A court in Brazil has acquitted a woman who admitted stabbing her violent, paedophile husband to death before burying his body in the back garden.

He had sexually harassed the couple’s daughters – aged between seven and 20 when the crime was discovered in 2020 – the defence claimed during the trial.

A court in Goiania, Goias state, west-central Brazil acquitted Katia Soares Pereira Teles of murder and concealment of a corpse on Tuesday, 6th September.

A jury had found the 40-year-old not guilty on both counts, despite her having confessed to both crimes.

The court had heard how she had suffered years of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of husband, Joel de Souza Teles.

He had even been making sexual approaches towards their daughters, the jury was told.

Presiding judge Jesseir Coelho de Alcantara said: “She was acquitted of the two crimes she was answering for.

“She confessed to both crimes, but all the witnesses and Katia herself had always declared that she lived under oppression during her 18-year relationship with her husband.”

The crime took place at the couple’s home in Goiania on 19th May 2018, when Katia was in the kitchen and Joel de Sousa Teles arrived home and put her in a chokehold.

Katia grabbed a knife and plunged it into her husband’s chest.

She then ran out onto the street and found a drug dealer, who helped her dig a hole in her back garden, where she dumped Joel’s body.

When later questioned about her husband’s disappearance, she told acquaintances they had divorced and that he had left for Acre state, northern Brazil, for work.

As Joel had previously expressed an interest in moving north, no one suspected a thing until two years later, when police received an anonymous tip-off about a body buried in Katia’s garden.

There, cops found and removed Joel’s remains from the shallow grave, while Katia confessed to having killed him and hidden his body.

But her lawyer, Rogerio Rodrigues de Paula, told local media: “She suffered a lot. She had just committed the murder in self-defence. Could she do anything other than hide it?”

He went on: “He beat her, he beat his stepdaughter, his daughters. He committed sexual abuse against his stepdaughter and his youngest daughter. He even promised to kill both Katia and their daughters.

“He went so far as to ask his daughters to walk around the house in their underwear, he put a ladder against the bathroom window to watch them taking a shower.

“In addition, he lived off drug trafficking, fought with neighbours, beat people on the street.”

Rodrigues de Paula said his client had never separated from Joel or reported him to the police because she was afraid of him.

He told local media: “She claimed she was terrified of him, because he did what he promised. As he had promised to kill Katia and his daughters, and if one day he were arrested, when he got out of jail, he would kill them or Katia’s parents, who were elderly.”

Katia has three daughters, two of whom are from Joel.

Had she been found guilty of murder and concealment of a corpse, she would have faced between six and 20 years in jail and up to three years in jail respectively.