Brazil inmate found dead in prison cell after failed escape in daughter’s clothes
RIO DE JANEIRO — An inmate who drew international headlines after trying to escape from prison by donning a wig, mask and his daughter’s clothes appears to have killed himself in his cell, officials said Tuesday.
The inmate, Clauvino da Silva, 42, was found dead Tuesday morning, three days after the failed attempt, officials with the Rio de Janeiro state penitentiary system said. Prison officials said he apparently hanged himself.
The attempted prison break was covered extensively in Brazil and abroad after officials released a video of da Silva taking off the disguise, which included a latex mask. That video went viral in Brazil and around the world, and Silva was moved into solitary confinement as punishment.
Officials said he was caught while trying to walk out the front door unnoticed in clothes that belonged to his 19-year-old daughter. Investigators said they think the mask was smuggled in by a visiting relative.
Da Silva, who was known as “Shorty,” was serving a 73-year sentence on drug trafficking charges. In February 2013, he was among a group of inmates who escaped from a prison in Rio de Janeiro by slipping through a sewage pipe. He was caught.
Brazilian officials have been chastised for their inability to safely hold prisoners. Last week, at least 62 detainees were killed after a clash between rival gangs at a prison in the northern state of Para. In late May, 55 prisoners were killed in a similar incident in the state of Amazonas.
Two days after the bloodbath — one of Brazil’s worst since 111 people died during the notorious 1992 Carandiru massacre — another four prisoners died as they were transferred to another prison unit.
The country’s prison system has been overwhelmed as recent toughon-crime policies have led to a sharp rise in detentions.
Rosental Alves, a Brazilian journalist and a professor at the University of Texas in Austin, said authorities have an “old and bad tradition of exhibiting suspects in humiliating ways, as though they were trophies.”
Still, he said, the highly unusual details of da Silva’s failed prison break justified the release of the video because it drew attention to a potential security lapse.
“The disguise used was so unusual, so cinematic and spectacular,” he said. “I have never heard of someone using a latex mask to escape from prison.”