The app driver Sergio Henrique Lima dos Santos, 19, suspected of the murder of Rhianna Alves, an 18-year-old trans woman, was arrested this Wednesday (10). The crime took place in the town of Luís Eduardo Magalhães (BA) on Saturday evening (6).
Bahia’s civil police said they had concluded the investigation and charged him with suspicion of femicide. The Report contacted his defense on Wednesday, but received no response.
After killing Rhianna, Sérgio drove to the city’s police station with the woman’s body in the car and admitted to strangling her with a “naked choke.” According to a note published by the civil police to the press on Tuesday (9), he was questioned and then released, to respond freely to the crime, “for having presented himself spontaneously to the police unit and having confessed to the crime”.
The suspect’s release had repercussions, with criticism from groups, entities and politicians.
Federal MP Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP) informed the Leaf who sent letters to the Public Ministry and the Public Security Secretariat of Bahia in which he affirms that the spontaneous presentation of the suspect “does not in itself eliminate the state of arrest, which constitutes a serious functional irregularity on the part of the police authority which received the incident”.
“In addition to the procedural irregularity, there are elements which suggest the possible influence of transphobic prejudices in the inappropriate handling of the case,” she continued, requesting a special correction from the police station “to verify whether there is a tendency for similar irregularities in other cases, notably involving LGBTQIAPN+ victims”.
Lawyer Ives Bittencourt, legal assistant at the Municipal Secretariat for Reparations of Salvador City Hall and member of the Commission for Sexual and Gender Diversity of the OAB (Brazilian Bar Association) of Bahia, also criticized the handling of the case by the police authorities.
“Could it be that if a trans woman had killed a heterosexual cisgender man, would she have been released in the same way? Obviously not. It is a reflection of institutional transphobia. The law allows that, in the case of collaboration with justice, the act is not triggered immediately. However, given the coldness of the situation, the way in which this body was invalidated and erased, it is obvious that he should have been caught in the act,” said Bittencourt, in an interview with Leaf.
The lawyer also questions the thesis of self-defense, which would have been presented by the suspect in the report he made to the police station. “The law establishes that self-defense must be in moderation. So how can one person feel threatened and kill another with a rear-naked chokehold? This has no moderation. It is completely disproportionate and violent,” he said.
This Wednesday, in a note, the Civil Police justified the release, specifying that “the department delegate who responded to the incident chose to combine the confessions with the expert reports and other testimonies for the request for preventive detention to the judiciary, since the legislation allows the person under investigation to be released in these circumstances.”
According to the regional coordinator of Barreiras, delegate Leonardo Mendes Júnior, the arrest took place after it was possible to gather “all the necessary evidence to consolidate the request for judicial action.”
“We prioritize strengthening the procedure to ensure the removal of the accused from social life, given that they complement the first facts and information collected at the beginning of the incident,” said Mendes Júnior, through the Civil Police press office.
The suspect lives in Barreiras, a town neighboring Luís Eduardo Magalhães, but was arrested in Serrinha (about 700 km from Barreiras). THE Leaf found that investigators suspect he fled the city where he resides following the fallout from the case.
This Wednesday, he was taken to a police unit and will undergo physical examinations at the Technical Police Directorate.
According to lawyer Ives Bittencourt, who is following the case, Rhianna “came out as a trans woman about five months ago and worked in a grocery store.”
On a social media profile, she introduced herself as a digital influencer and used to post photos with clothes she received from stores. The report did not allow his family to be contacted.
According to Bittencourt, Luís Eduardo Magalhães is one of the most violent cities in Bahia for the trans population. “We have had 10 murders of trans people in the last 10 years. In 2023 we had the Lorena Fox case, which also had a huge repercussion,” he said.
According to a report by Transgender Europe (TGEU) published in November and distributed by Antra (National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals), Brazil continues to occupy, for the 18th consecutive year, first place among the countries which murder the most trans and transvestite people in the world.
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