Marcos Antunes Trigueiro, the “Contagem Maniac”

Between 2009 and early 2010, the murders of several women in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte generated fear and an increasingly coordinated police investigation. Authorities came to identify a common offender: Marcos Antunes Trigueiro, later nicknamed the “Contagem Maniac.” He confessed after his arrest, and juries convicted him in multiple cases.

A concise timeline

1. 2009
   A series begins

   Women are killed in Contagem and nearby municipalities.

2. Early 2010
   Investigators identify a common pattern

   Forensic and investigative links strengthen the serial-case theory.

3. February 2010
   Trigueiro is arrested

   Police announce the capture and a confession to five killings.

4. 2010–2018
   Separate jury trials

   Convictions are entered for multiple victims.

5. 2018
   Another conviction in Ibirité

   TJMG records a sentence of more than 30 years in an additional case.

A pattern across different crime scenes

The victims were found in different locations, but investigators recognized similarities that suggested the crimes were connected. The development of a serial-offender hypothesis allowed forensic and investigative teams to compare evidence instead of treating each death as isolated.

DNA and phones as linking evidence

Forensic testing reportedly linked biological evidence from multiple victims to the same person. Police also traced mobile phones taken from victims, creating an investigative trail that helped narrow the suspect pool.

Arrest in 2010

Trigueiro was arrested in February 2010. Police said he confessed to five killings. As with any confession, the cases still moved through the courts individually and required judicial findings.

Multiple convictions

Juries in Minas Gerais convicted Trigueiro across several proceedings. A 2018 release from the Minas Gerais Court of Justice records another conviction in Ibirité for rape, homicide, concealment of a body and theft, adding more than thirty years to his accumulated sentences.

Why this case belongs in the forensic-evidence archive

The investigation is notable not simply because it involved a serial offender, but because separate crime scenes were connected through pattern analysis, DNA and the movement of stolen phones. Those links turned a climate of fear into prosecutable cases.