The drug dealer’s wife accused of the macabre murder of a former model after discovering he had been giving her drugs for sex has been remanded in custody.
Civil Police in Sao Paulo State, Brazil, arrested Micheli de Andrade Ferraz and have formally accused her of murdering former model Aline Lais Lopes.
Investigators say she resolved to kill Aline after discovering her husband, with whom she has two children, was cheating on her with the 34-year-old.
Police say husband Paulo Lamartine Pereira Alexandria supplied crack addict Aline with drugs in exchange for sex but believe he was not part of the sick plot to kill her.
They did not believe Ferraz when, during questioning, she tried to pin the crime on him.
Investigators believe the victim was lured to a derelict theatre used as a drug den in the municipality of Cotia on 23rd February.
There, say police, Ferraz strangled her to death with a shoelace while a heavyset transvestite named only as Julia restrained her.
Her body was then covered with a sofa and set on fire before a homeless man named Igor Santos de Moraes took her charred remains away in a shopping trolley.
De Moraes dumped the remains under a footbridge, where they were found two days later, on 25th February.
Police say Ferraz paid her accomplices just BRL 50 (GBP 8) each for their roles in the crime.
Police have formally accused Julia, 24, of involvement in the murder and De Moraes of hiding the victim’s body.
They were both arrested but had to be released on a technicality. However, police asked judicial officials to authorise their re-arrests on 2nd March.
Police chief Monica Resende told local media: “The perpetrator committed this crime in partnership with another person who has already been identified, who is a transvestite with a strong physical build, and who helped the perpetrator, who has a smaller physical build, to kill the victim.”
Aline’s remains, which were so charred that identification was only possible through DNA testing, were buried on 1st March.
She leaves behind a mother, a brother, and a 16-month-old son, who is being raised by his maternal grandmother.
