The statements made by metalworker Lucas Silva Souza, 29, and his unemployed partner Manuela Cristina Cesar, 34, about the death and disappearance of the body of little Emanuele, aged 4, diverge on almost all essential points and indicate a mutual attempt to shift responsibility for the child’s killing onto the other.
Emanuele’s father, Lucas, told the civil police that Manuela killed the child after a quarrel because the girl “wet her bed.” He added that he arrived home from work and found his daughter dead on the sofa at home.
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Conditional closure.
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Excavations identified human remains and began an investigation into a qualified murder.
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Police, with the help of her father, identified the spot where 4-year-old Emanuele was buried, and concrete was poured in the backyard of the house in Guarulhos.
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The tools Lucas used to break up the floor reveal the stench that confirms the girl’s body was hidden
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The Guardianship Council left the house after noting the couple’s discrepancies about Emanuele’s whereabouts hours before the confession
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The girl was dismembered at home
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The couple was arrested
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The child’s father and stepmother give different accounts of the case
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The stepmother, according to Lucas in his testimony, later admitted that she “had a fight” with Emanuele and that the little girl “fainted.” In the metalworker’s account, Manuela carried out the dismemberment alone while he only watched and helped bury it.
He stated that he acted under threat and that he feared losing custody of the children if he reported previous attacks he had witnessed.
Stepmother version
Manuela gave the opposite account. He stated that he spent the afternoon with Emanuele and that the girl “was quiet as if she felt ill.” He said that when Lucas returned from work, the child was still breathing, and that the father himself said he would “get rid of” the body. According to her, she alerted him that the child was “still breathing.”
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Manuela denied the dismemberment, denied the previous attacks on the same day, and stated that she only helped Lucas bury the body, saying she did not think to ask for help.
Reports also conflict with interactions with the Guardian Council. Manuela, as stated in police documents obtained by the report, initially stated that the child was with her mother, an account that Lucas repeated hours later. They both knew that Emanuele was dead and buried on the balcony. Pressed on the inconsistencies, Lucas admitted that they had hidden the body and declared that his partner had “killed the child.”
The video shows a father breaking into his daughter’s secret grave
The investigation revealed that the body was torn apart, buried, and covered with layers of concrete, dirt, and a new layer of concrete. Lucas used tools to break open the floor when police took him to the scene, exposing parts of the body and strands of hair (Watch the video above). Experts suspect that there may be fragments in other parts of the property.
The police recorded that Lucas had four previous reports to the police, one of which related to the abuse of another son and the other of physical harm, threats and insults against Gabriella, Emanuele’s mother. History weighs heavily on the investigation, which takes into account the possibility of joint authorship between father and stepmother.
The fourth DP charged Guarulhos with first degree murder and concealment of a corpse. Pretrial detention was requested based on the cruelty used, the extreme vulnerability of the victim, and the attempt to obstruct the investigation.
The São Paulo Court of Justice accepted the request and ordered the couple to be detained, for an indefinite period, on Friday (28/11).