Adventurer was tortured, raped and murdered, claims suspect
A BRITISH woman was tortured and raped after being shot as she attempted to canoe the length of the Amazon river, a suspect in her murder claimed.
Emma Kelty, 43, had reached Brazil on her solo adventure when she went missing last Wednesday.
The full details of her last moments were revealed in a confession by one of seven suspects, thought to members of a group of drug users.
The gang’s ringleader Evanilson Gomes da Costa, 24, was himself shot dead earlier this week by members of a rival drug gang.
But before his death, one resident of Lauro Sodre, close to where Ms Kelty was abducted and killed, said da Costa had told him Ms Kelty had pitched her tent in an area “crawling” with pirates.
He said: “They thought it belonged to a Colombian with drugs, so they started firing. The woman was hit in the arm. She started waving frantically and screaming for help.”
He said that when the men saw that she was a woman they attacked her and, still believing she was carrying drugs, cut off her hair. One of the group then slit her throat before four of the men “sexually abused her”. Her body was dumped in the river, he said. Jose Afonso Barradas Junior, in charge of the investigation, said one suspect – Artur Gomes da Silva – had confessed to slitting the former London head teacher’s throat but none had confessed to her rape.
He said it was the gang, and not Ms Kelty, who accidentally triggered her GPS distress signal, and that her body would have been eaten by fish.
Four male suspects have been accused of her murder. Two brothers suspected of involvement are still on the run.