This is the smiling happy family photo that shows a little girl by the seaside cuddling her mother in a selfie taken by her stepfather at some point before he raped and murdered her in a ritual sacrifice.

Cops arrested evil Lucas Melo da Silva, 25, who admitted to torturing and beating his 10-year-old stepdaughter to death. He also confessed that he had beaten his five-year-old stepdaughter to death earlier in the year.

At the time of his arrest in the city of Belo Horizonte in the south-eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, he was with his partner, 31-year-old Deborah Almeida da Silva – the girls’ mother, who is also in the picture – who was also apprehended.

Their arrest on the afternoon of Tuesday, 24th August took place shortly after the older girl’s body was found after their neighbour, Ivanildo dos Santos Luz, noticed a bad smell coming from the shed they had converted into their makeshift home in the nearby city of Contagem.

Inside the property, he found 10-year-old Ana Livia Almeira Contarini’s rotting corpse wrapped up inside sheets underneath a bed.

The suspects were taken to the police station, where, according to local news site D24am, they confessed to the crime, with the man telling the police he was guided by “supernatural forces”.

According to D24am, he also confessed to beating his youngest stepdaughter, Stefany, to death in the nearby city of Divinopolis before dumping her corpse in a thicket in Contagem in February.

The young man allegedly told cops that Stefany’s presence had caused his partner to miscarry, so she had to be sacrificed as a ritual that was a form of compensation.

News site G1 gave the age of the girl killed in February as 5 whereas D24am reported it to be 4.

According to D24am, the suspect murdered Ana Livia when the same event repeated itself.

It reports that he raped Ana Livia, beat her with a flip flop, punched her, attacked her with a knife, beat her with a wooden stick and burnt her with a cigarette in the days leading up to her death.

The couple reportedly had dinner at their home while Ana Livia suffered an agonising death nearby. They then allegedly fled to Belo Horizonte the following day to avoid vigilante justice.

Local media reported that the police are due to provide more details about the case in a press conference today (Thursday, 26th August).