Twenty-five sourced Brazilian case files spanning landmark trials, serial investigations, cold cases, media ethics, human rights and forensic breakthroughs.
Use the tabs to separate cases with convictions or identified offenders from unresolved files. Every article distinguishes court findings from allegations and links to its source trail.
Six-year-old João Hélio Fernandes died during a 2007 carjacking in Rio de Janeiro. Four adult defendants were convicted of robbery resulting in death and received prison terms of 39 to 45 years; a 16-year-old participant was handled under juvenile law.
Open case file →The 2013 Kiss nightclub fire in Santa Maria killed 242 people and injured hundreds. Four defendants were convicted; the convictions remain valid while the reduced sentence lengths are still under appellate review.
Open case file →Eleven-year-old Bernardo Boldrini was killed in Rio Grande do Sul in 2014. Four defendants were convicted; Leandro Boldrini was retried and convicted again in 2023.
Open case file →Brazilian lawyer Mércia Nakashima was murdered in 2010. Her former partner Mizael Bispo and Evandro Bezerra were convicted in separate jury trials; Mizael's sentence was later increased on appeal.
Open case file →Dorothy Stang was murdered in Anapu, Pará, in 2005 amid violent land conflict in the Amazon. Multiple participants were later convicted in the contract-killing prosecution.
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SolvedA 2008 São Paulo case that led to two murder convictions.
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SolvedA planned family murder resolved through jury convictions.
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SolvedA televised hostage crisis followed by conviction and media scrutiny.
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Partly SolvedConvictions followed the killing of eight young people near a Rio church.
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SolvedA live-broadcast hostage crisis with a documented fatal outcome.
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SolvedTwo convictions and a petition that helped expand the Heinous Crimes Law.
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SolvedA qualified-homicide conviction later received sentence review by the STJ.
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SolvedMultiple convictions stand although Eliza's remains have not been recovered.
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SolvedSurvivor testimony and investigation led to multiple murder and sexual-crime convictions.
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Major ConvictionsShooter convictions were followed by five STF convictions in 2026.
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SolvedThree people were convicted in a case involving three murdered women, cannibalism and food allegedly prepared with human remains.
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IdentifiedA 1991 series of killings of boys in Greater Rio ended after a surviving child helped police identify Marcelo Costa de Andrade.
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SolvedDozens of investigations and a long series of jury trials followed the 2014 arrest of a security guard in Goiânia.
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SolvedDNA and cellphone tracing helped investigators connect five murders of women in Greater Belo Horizonte to Marcos Antunes Trigueiro.
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SolvedForensic evidence tied Francisco das Chagas Rodrigues de Brito to a long series of murders of boys in Maranhão, leading to repeated convictions.
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SolvedA flamboyant 1960s burglar became one of Brazil’s most famous criminals after a wave of home invasions, robberies and four homicide convictions.
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