After a long escape that lasted 25 years, Francisco Edson Pereira (Featured image53-year-old, considered the greatest fugitive in the history of the Federal District, was sentenced to 18 years and 9 months in prison. The decision of the jury in Gamma is a preliminary decision and may be appealed.
Francisco Edson is accused of stabbing a man to death in 1999, in Jama (DF). After the complaint, the convict disappeared from the Federal District and began living under an assumed name in northern Brazil.
The Public Ministry of the Federal District and Territories (MPDFT) was able to put an end to the escape and arrest Francisco after discovering Maria da Penha’s records of attacks committed by the accused against a former partner.
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Crime
The defendant, born in Tiangua (CE), worked as a stocker in a supermarket. On May 1, 1999, in the eastern sector of the administrative region, José Herwaldo Ferreira de Menezes, 22 years old at the time, was stabbed. The victim died.
According to the complaint, the crime had a bad motive, resulting from disagreements, in addition to the use of a resource that made the defense difficult, as the accused suddenly approached the victim and suddenly assaulted her.
A preventive detention order was issued in 2000, but Francisco has been missing ever since, becoming the Defense Forces’ longest-wanted fugitive.
In 2013, after several attempts to locate him, the process and the statute of limitations were suspended due to the defendant’s failure to appear or hire a lawyer.
Yasser
In June 2024, the Gama Prosecutor’s Office resumed efforts to try to locate him. Francisco was located and arrested on February 24, 2025 in Roraima.
The arrest was possible based on investigations conducted by the MPDFT Institutional Police. The operation was supported by the Roraima Civil Police.
Francisco was located and arrested by Roraima Police officers at a farm in the Rural District of Rorinopolis (RR). The suspect was transferred to the capital, Boa Vista. He was then sent to Babuda, in DF.
Maria da Penha
According to prosecutor Marcelo Henrique de Azevedo Souza, Francisco said that when he fled the armed forces he went to Rondônia, where he lived for five years. Then move to Roraima.
In Rorinopolis (RR), the accused had a companion. In 2018, he was involved in an incident involving Maria da Penha against his wife, but he used an alias. In 2020, he committed another act of violence, and two years later he threatened her again.
The last record was recorded after Francisco invaded the house where his ex-partner was living with another man. The fugitive threatened the couple with a knife.
“Because of Maria da Penha, this woman left him for obvious reasons. He broke into the house armed with a knife. The people managed to escape. The police arrested him,” the prosecutor said.
There were no convictions in the Roraima cases. The first two were subject to the statute of limitations, and the latter was not represented by the victims.
“His name is Francisco Edson,” the prosecutor said. “But he used Francisco Adriano.” The MPDFT Intelligence Center discovered the Maria da Penha incidents.
Investigators also checked information with other agencies. There is no registration with the National Social Security Institute and the Ministry of Labour, for example. The voter registration card has also been cancelled. “He did everything to erase his identity,” he summed up.
Life in the countryside
The MPDFT continued the investigation and a team from the Gama Public Prosecutor’s Office in collaboration with the Roraima Civil Police located the accused.
He added: “During his escape, he was always working in the countryside, on farms, in the fields. On that occasion he tried to get away from the police’s approach by saying that his name was Francisco Adriano. But he later ended up confessing to the police that he was actually Francisco Edson and that he had escaped from Gama in the 1990s for killing someone. He was arrested.”
According to the prosecutor, the first trick to the long escape was to adopt an alias. Francisco did not use forged documents, but he began to identify himself as Francisco Adriano.
The fugitive stopped re-registering and registering with public authorities and did not carry documents. In the Roraima incidents, the accused did not provide documents. He said they had lost their way and were from Ceara.
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