Barbosa Alves de Matos
State Penitentiary in São Paulo
Sao Paulo
Brazil
Death toll 5
Brazilian police resumed the hunt for a suspected serial killer who was freed due to Brazil’s electoral law despite confessing to raping and stoning to death five women.
The law, designed to ensure fair elections, prohibits anyone from being arrested and held by police from five days before an election until 48 hours after polls close, unless they are caught in the act or have already been sentenced.
Police said they had uncovered the women’s corpses in varying degrees of decay just before the Election. Edson Barbosa Alves de Matos, 25, confessed to raping and stoning them to death. Two of the victims have been identified.
“We will begin looking for him again after 5:00 p.m.,” spokeswoman for the Sao Paulo security secretariat Camilla Silveira told Reuters. “He had confessed to the killings but Brazilian law required we release him.”
You read it right. Yes he confessed to the crime, but under Brazilian law, they had to release him.