Francisco Leitão was a scrap dealer who lived in Carqueja, a locality in the municipality of Lourinhã, Portugal. In March 2012 a jury court at Torres Vedras convicted him of three killings carried out on separate occasions: the deaths of Tânia Ramos and Ivo Delgado in June 2008 and of Joana Correia in March 2010. He was also charged with a fourth homicide, dating from 1995, and was acquitted of it. For the three convictions he received 25 years in a cumulative sentence, the longest term Portuguese law allows.
Leitão was 48 years old in October 2016, according to Diário de Notícias. He worked as a scrap dealer. Press reports from the trial years describe him as living in Carqueja, in Lourinhã, and that is where the Polícia Judiciária arrested him in July 2010 as the main suspect in the three deaths. Accounts give the day as July 19 or July 20, and one says he had been in detention since July 22.
His record before the homicides was not clean. Diário de Notícias reported in April 2012 that in 1995 he had been convicted of qualified fraud. In May 2011 the court at Lourinhã convicted him of possessing a prohibited weapon and fined him 2,880 euros. In June 2011 the court at Peniche convicted him of simulating a theft, with a fine of 500 euros. He did not pay either fine, and they were converted into prison time: 240 days for the first and 100 days for the second, 340 days in all according to the newspaper. Later reporting also lists convictions for forging a document and for handling stolen goods.
Tânia Ramos was 27. She died on June 5, 2008. She was the mother of a young daughter.
Ivo Delgado was 22. He died on June 26, 2008. The trial court found a personal motive. His father took part in the trial as an assistant to the prosecution.
Joana Correia was 16. She died on March 3, 2010, the most recent of the three. The court convicted Leitão of qualified homicide in her case, reasoning that the facts called for a judgment of greater blame. Her parents and her sister gave evidence at the trial.
The three cases were tried together. Diário de Notícias reported that the court found passion-related motives behind the killings.
The Polícia Judiciária arrested Leitão in July 2010. He was held in preventive detention, which was his only coercive measure in the homicide case. By January 2013 he had been moved from the Judiciary Police prison to the Vale de Judeus central prison. In December 2012 the court extended his detention until the appeal court decided his appeal, saying the grounds for it had not changed and had been strengthened by the conviction. It also cited the triple homicide and a risk of flight, and a separate investigation then under way.
An unusual feature of his custody was that the 340 days owed for the unpaid fines were deducted from the preventive detention period. The Lisbon district prosecutor's office told Lusa in April 2012 that he would stay in custody on the other cases, and that the preventive detention clock was for the time being not running. As a consequence the date in November 2013 at which the maximum pre-trial period would have ended was to be pushed back.
The trial took place before a jury court at Torres Vedras. Diário de Notícias reported that he was brought to the court in a prison van on the morning of January 16, 2012, when relatives of the victims were due to testify. Joana Correia's parents were heard that day, along with Ivo Delgado's mother and father. Witnesses called for the following day included Tânia Ramos's mother, brother and former husband, Ivo Delgado's sister, Joana Correia's sister and the daughter of António d'Albuquerque, the man named in the fourth charge.
A witness gave evidence that the court relied on in part. The defense later argued that the witness should herself have been made a defendant. The defense also challenged the attribution to Leitão of a series of text messages sent in Joana Correia's case.
The decision came in the last days of March 2012 and was reported on March 29. The court convicted Leitão of three homicides by majority vote. One of the judges, Raquel Baptista, voted that none of the three homicides or the concealment of the bodies was proved, because she did not find that witness's testimony credible.
The sentences for each count were set out as follows.
Joana Correia: 18 years for qualified homicide.
Tânia Ramos: 13 years. He was charged with qualified homicide and convicted of simple homicide.
Ivo Delgado: 12 years and six months. He was charged with qualified homicide and convicted of simple homicide.
Three counts of concealment of a corpse: 12 months each.
Forgery of documents: 12 months.
Possession of a prohibited weapon: three months.
These were merged into a cumulative sentence of 25 years. The court also awarded damages: 150,000 euros to the family of Tânia Ramos, 100,000 euros to the family of Joana Correia and 100,000 euros to the family of Ivo Delgado.
On the fourth charge the court did not accept that the facts were proved. Diário de Notícias reported that every fact in the indictment was held proved except those concerning the death and the concealment of the body of António d'Albuquerque, which was alleged to have taken place in 1995, and Leitão was acquitted of that count. The defense said it would appeal everything except that acquittal. Ivo Delgado's mother told reporters she was satisfied with the sentence, and a lawyer for Ivo Delgado's father said justice had been done.
Leitão's lawyer appealed to the Lisbon Court of Appeal (Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa), asking for the trial to be repeated and calling the judgment null for lack of evidence and of reasoning. The appeal alleged a clear error in the assessment of the evidence. In November 2012 the public prosecutor at the appeal court opposed it. Its opinion, quoted by Lusa, said the evidence allowed only the conclusion that the three young people were dead and that the accused had killed them. In January 2013 the appeal was still pending, with a decision expected by the end of that month.
The ruling of the appeal court and any later step in that appeal are not on record. By October 2016 Diário de Notícias described him as serving the 25-year sentence at Vale de Judeus, and every later account treats the conviction as the basis of his imprisonment.
In March 2017 the Lisbon Court of Appeal accepted a request by one of the 2012 judges, Rui Teixeira, to step aside from a second trial of Leitão, on the ground that his earlier judgment on overlapping facts could raise doubts about his impartiality.
In October 2016 Leitão was indicted on separate charges that were to be tried at the Lisbon Norte court in Loures, a trial that began on May 15, 2017. On September 18, 2017, that court convicted him of 14 further crimes and sentenced him to 17 years. Observador reported that the court had to combine the new sentence with the 25 years of 2012 in a cumulative sentence and that, because 25 years is the legal maximum, the new term added nothing in practice. His lawyer said he would study the judgment and appeal if legal questions arose.
In July 2026 Observador reported that Leitão had served half of the 25-year maximum and was held at the Vale de Judeus prison, having been moved there from the Carregueira prison. His conduct in prison was described as good, but the social reintegration technicians gave unfavorable opinions on his requests for temporary leave, and the courts have not authorized any such leave. Requests had been filed since at least 2023. The damages ordered in 2012, 350,000 euros in all, had not been paid, according to the same report, and a lawsuit filed against the State by Joana Correia's mother was unsuccessful.
The 1995 charge ended in acquittal on the facts and is not part of the record of killings attributed to him. The three convictions rest in part on the testimony of a witness whom one judge of the panel did not find credible, and the defense maintained that the evidence did not tie him to the text messages in Joana Correia's case. The appeal court's treatment of those arguments is not on record.
1995: Convicted of qualified fraud; also the year of the alleged death on which he was later acquitted.
June 5, 2008: Tânia Ramos dies.
June 26, 2008: Ivo Delgado dies.
March 3, 2010: Joana Correia dies.
July 2010: Arrested by the Polícia Judiciária as the main suspect; held in preventive detention.
May and June 2011: Convicted at Lourinhã (prohibited weapon) and Peniche (simulated theft); fines unpaid.
January 16, 2012: Victims' relatives testify at Torres Vedras.
Late March 2012: Convicted of three homicides and three counts of concealment of a corpse; 25 years; acquitted on the 1995 homicide charge.
May 2012: Appeal lodged at the Lisbon Court of Appeal.
November to December 2012: Prosecutor opposes the appeal; pre-trial detention extended.
September 18, 2017: Sentenced to 17 years at Loures in a separate trial.
July 2026: Held at Vale de Judeus; leave requests refused.