Police: Amazon fisherman confesses to killing missing men
MANAUS, Brazil — A fisherman confessed to killing a British journalist and an Indigenous expert in Brazil’s remote Amazon region and took police to a site where human remains were recovered, a federal investigator said after a grim 10-day search for the missing pair.
Authorities said they expected to make more arrests in the case of freelance reporter Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira of Brazil, who disappeared, June 5. None had been made, as of Thursday, but police said a search for the boat the two had used were about to restart.
They gave no immediate explanation of a motive for the killing, but officials earlier suggested that Pereira’s work to stop illegal fishing in an Indigenous reserve had angered local fishermen.
Two federal police officials in the capital, Brasilia, told The Associated Press, on Thursday, that a total of five people were being investigated, including the fisherman who confessed and his brother who was detained, Tuesday, as a suspect. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, provided no further details.
At a news conference, Wednesday night, in the Amazon city of Manaus, federal police investigator Eduardo Alexandre Fontes said the prime suspect in the case, 41-year-old Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, told officers he used a firearm to kill the men.
“We would have no way of getting to that spot quickly without the confession,” Torres said of the place where police recovered human remains, Wednesday, after being led there by de Oliveira, who is nicknamed “Pelado.”
“We found the bodies nearly two miles into the woods,” the investigator said, adding that officers traveled about one hour and forty minutes by boat and 25 more into the woods to reach the burial spot.
Torres said the remains were expected to be identified within days, and if confirmed as the missing men, “will be returned to the families of the two.”
The suspect’s family had said previously that he denied any wrongdoing and claimed police tortured him to try to get a confession.
Another officer, Guilherme Torres of the Amazonas state police, said the missing men’s boat had not been found yet but police knew the area where it purportedly was hidden.
“They put bags of dirt on the boat so it would sink,” he said. The engine of the boat was removed, according to investigators.