Explore 24 documented cases from Portugal. Each file separates established findings from allegations and unresolved questions, with a focus on investigation rather than graphic detail.
Thirteen people died in a planned arson attack on the Meia Culpa nightclub in Amarante in April 1997. Five men were convicted of offenses including arson and aggravated homicide, with organizer José Queirós receiving a 25-year sentence.
Open case file →PSR activist José Carvalho was killed outside his party's Lisbon headquarters during a neo-Nazi skinhead attack in 1989. Four defendants were convicted, and the Supreme Court later confirmed Pedro Grilo's conviction.
Open case file →GNR officer Carlos Caetano and civilians Liliane and Luís Pinto were killed in the Aguiar da Beira crime sequence in 2016. Pedro Dias was convicted of three homicides and attempted homicide and received a final 25-year prison sentence.
Open case file →Alexandra Neno and Diogo Ferreira were killed hours apart around Lisbon in 2008. Paulo Jorge Almeida surrendered in 2013 and was convicted in 2014, receiving an aggregate 25-year prison sentence.
Open case file →Diogo Gonçalves, 21, was murdered in Portugal's Algarve in 2020. Maria Malveiro received 25 years; Mariana Guerreiro Fonseca's initial homicide acquittal was reversed and she ultimately received 23 years before being detained in Indonesia in 2026.
Open case file →Ilídio Correia was killed in Porto in 2007. Four named defendants were convicted in the Noite Branca prosecution, and the principal appeal sentence reached 24 years.
Open case file →Portuguese actor Bruno Candé was murdered in Moscavide in 2020; the Loures court convicted Evaristo Marinho and found racial hatred to be part of the motive.
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António Jorge Machado, known as Tó Jó, was convicted of murdering both parents in Ílhavo in 1999 and received an aggregate 25-year prison sentence.
Open case file →Former GNR officer António Luís Costa was convicted of murdering Isabel Isidoro, Mariana Lourenço and Joana Oliveira between 2005 and 2006; Portugal’s Supreme Court upheld the 25-year sentence.
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A fellow student reportedly confessed to Beatriz Lebre's 2020 murder in Lisbon, but he died in custody before a criminal trial could determine guilt.
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Three-year-old Jéssica died in Setúbal in 2022. Four defendants received 25-year prison terms, with the core judgment upheld on appeal.
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Nine-year-old Valentina was killed while staying near Peniche in 2020; Portugal's Supreme Court ultimately restored the severe sentences imposed on her father and stepmother.
Open case file →Rosa Grilo and António Joaquim ultimately received 25-year sentences after António's first-instance homicide acquittal was reversed on appeal and the Supreme Court maintained the judgment.
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Portugal's long-running institutional abuse prosecution produced multiple convictions, extensive appeals and separate acquittals for the retried Elvas allegations.
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Seven people were killed by Vítor Jorge in central Portugal in March 1987; he was convicted and sentenced to the effective maximum term then applied.
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Three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal's Algarve while her family was on vacation in 2007.
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Eight-year-old Joana Cipriano disappeared from the Algarve village of Figueira in 2004 and has never been found.
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Diogo Alves was a 19th-century criminal in Lisbon associated with a series of robberies and killings.
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Luísa de Jesus was accused of taking abandoned infants from Coimbra's foundling system for payments and then killing many of the children.
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Gisberta Salce, a homeless transgender woman from Brazil living in Porto, died after prolonged violence by a group of youths in 2006.
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Alcindo Monteiro, a Portuguese man of Cape Verdean origin, was fatally attacked in Lisbon during racist violence in 1995.
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Nine-year-old Rachel Charles, a British child living in the Algarve, was abducted in Albufeira in 1990 and found dead several days later.
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