In early 2012 two women disappeared within a few weeks of each other in Garanhuns, a city of about 111,000 people in the Agreste region of Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil. Their families went to the police. For weeks there was little to go on. Then the credit card bill of the first missing woman arrived at her family's home, and it listed purchases made in Garanhuns shops after she had vanished. Police went to the shops, pulled the security footage where there was any, and identified the people who had used the card.
On Wednesday, April 11, 2012, officers arrested a man and two women at a house under renovation in the Jardim Petrópolis neighborhood. That morning the bodies of the two missing women were dug out of the backyard. Within days the three had given police statements about a sect they called the Cartel, a self-published book written by the man had turned up in the house, and a five-year-old girl living with them had been identified as the daughter of a young woman killed in Olinda four years earlier. The three were Jorge Beltrão Negromonte da Silveira, his wife, Isabel Cristina Pires da Silveira, and Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva, who lived with the couple. Brazilian newspapers have called them the "canibais de Garanhuns" ever since.
All three were convicted by juries of three killings: Jéssica Camila da Silva Pereira in Olinda in 2008, and Gisele Helena da Silva and Alexandra da Silva Falcão in Garanhuns in 2012.
Most of what has been printed about Jorge Beltrão's early life comes from his own writing, which the police and the press treated with caution. According to the VICE Brasil account drawn from his book, he was born in Recife, earned a degree in physical education at the University of Pernambuco and taught karate. G1 reported in April 2012 that the book described him as a physical education graduate and a karate black belt, and police in June 2012 also referred to him as a karate black belt. The book says he had heard voices and seen things others could not see since childhood, and had spent time in psychiatric clinics.
Isabel Cristina was his wife. VICE, again drawing on the book, says she had been his longtime girlfriend before they married, and that she made and sold savory pastries to support the household when his mental health kept him from working at gyms. Police said in June 2012 that the couple had tried for eight years to have a child without success.
Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva was much younger. G1 reported in April 2012 that police described the three as a love triangle made up of a married man and woman, both 52, and a woman of 25. When they went on trial in Olinda in November 2014, the Gazeta do Povo gave their ages as Jorge 52, Isabel 53 and Bruna 28. The Diario de Pernambuco gave Jorge's age as 64 in March 2026, which would put him at about 50 in 2012, so the earlier figures do not all agree.
Police told the Jornal do Brasil in June 2012 that Jorge Beltrão had been tried over the death of a young man in 1994 and found not guilty for lack of evidence. No other detail of that case was found.
On the day of the arrests, police found in the house a document of about 50 pages, written on a computer, printed, illustrated by Jorge Beltrão and registered with a notary. It was titled "Revelações de um Esquizofrênico" (Revelations of a Schizophrenic). It named the three by their real names and described killings the group had carried out, including acts of cannibalism presented as a ritual to "purify the soul," according to G1.
"He is intelligent, he divides the story into chapters, he made a table of contents, a description of the author, and even tried to sell it in local bookstores. It is a dossier," a police agent, Daniel Ferreira da Silva, told G1. The officer in charge of the case, Wesley Fernando, said police also found a diary in which one of the women kept notes on the killings, treating each death as a "mission."
The Associated Press, citing the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, reported that in the book Jorge Beltrão said he heard voices and was obsessed with killing women. The Gazeta do Povo reported in 2014 that the book had been written in 2009 and registered with the notary on March 28, a date VICE describes as a few weeks after the death of the third victim. VICE, which read the book, counted 34 chapters. In it, Jéssica appears in distorted form, as a young woman who comes to live with the couple, while the young woman Jorge describes as an evil presence who had to be destroyed matches what police said happened to the real Jéssica. The last chapter ends: "All of this that I revealed is not me, nor anyone, it is only my mind."
For investigators the book became a source of leads. The Olinda homicide chief, Paulo Berenguer, said in June 2012 that he studied what Jorge had written and drawn and then questioned him about it. At a press briefing he showed pages with a face and figures resembling cartoon ghosts. Jorge told him the face was Jéssica going to heaven, and the ghosts were evil spirits that had not followed her.
Jéssica Camila da Silva Pereira was 17 years old, according to the police inquiry, the 2014 trial reports and the Diario de Pernambuco in 2026 (the same paper gave her age as 18 in 2019, and VICE gave 22). She was from Olinda, in greater Recife, and had a baby daughter. The Diario de Pernambuco reported that she sold sweets at traffic lights in Boa Viagem, in the south of Recife. Agência Brasil's trial report, as carried by Bahia Notícias, described her as living on the street.
Prosecutors said she was chosen because she was socially vulnerable and had a small daughter. She was offered domestic work at the trio's house in the Rio Doce neighborhood of Olinda and allowed to bring the child. VICE reported that, according to her parents, she was kept there for a few weeks and told she could leave only if she left her daughter behind. Police said she was killed there, probably on May 26, 2008. Her daughter was one year and seven months old.
Paulo Berenguer said Jéssica was killed in part because Jorge Beltrão wanted a daughter. Prosecutors said in 2014 that the couple could not have children and wanted to raise Jéssica's daughter as their own. After the killing, Bruna Cristina used Jéssica's birth certificate to take on her identity and registered the little girl as her own child. The girl was raised by the three from then until their arrest in 2012.
According to police, the group buried Jéssica's remains at the house and, a few weeks later, put them out with the trash when they sold the house and moved to Conde, a town about 17 kilometers from João Pessoa in the neighboring state of Paraíba. Police and prosecutors said parts of her body had been eaten by the three, and that the child had been given some of it.
Gisele Helena da Silva was 31 and lived in Garanhuns. She disappeared in February 2012; VICE gave the date as February 25. VICE also reported that she was known around town as "Geisa dos Panfletos" because her job was handing out flyers, and that she had family, friends and work, and no reason to leave. That detail was not found in other sources opened.
G1 reported in April 2012 that police did not yet know how she had been drawn to the house. VICE wrote that Isabel invited her there to learn more about the word of God. Police believed she was killed the day she disappeared. Two days later, according to VICE, her card was used in five shops in the city.
Alexandra da Silva Falcão was 20, and was looking for work in Garanhuns. She disappeared on March 15, 2012, according to police (VICE gave March 12). She had told her mother she had been offered a job paying one and a half times the minimum wage.
Her mother, Selma Maria Leandro da Silva, told G1 what her daughter had said: "She made plans, she was happy and she said: 'Mom, with the first salary I get I'm going to build my little shack. I'll buy the bricks and then I'll save up for the labor.' But we found it strange, because nobody here pays a salary and a half."
Police said she was lured with a false offer of work as a nanny. VICE reported that she was buried with her identity documents.
Gisele's family reported her missing, and police opened an inquiry. "When the first one disappeared, the family came to the station and we opened a procedure to investigate," Wesley Fernando of the Second Police Station of Garanhuns told G1. "Until the middle of March we had some leads. Then the credit card bill arrived at the family's house, and it showed several purchases here in Garanhuns. We went to the stores, checked the internal security cameras of the ones that had them, and identified the people."
Police also learned that both women had been seen near the suspects' house before they disappeared, and that the card bill included building materials. Investigators asked a court for search warrants and preventive arrest warrants for a man and two women, which were granted on Monday, April 9, 2012.
When officers arrived on April 11, the house was being renovated, but there were no builders. "We suspected that the bodies would be there if they were dead, but we hoped they were alive," the officer said. "We arrived and arrested the three." A first search did not find the bodies.
A five-year-old girl living in the house went to the officer at the scene and told him that her father had killed the two women, according to G1. Police said one of the women tried to keep the child at her side, but officers separated them and showed the girl photographs of the missing women, whom she recognized. After that, one of the women confessed at the police station and showed investigators where the bodies were buried. Officers returned and dug. With help from workers at a city cemetery they recovered the remains of two women, dismembered, from shallow graves in the yard. Clothing pointed to the two missing women; the remains were sent to the Instituto de Medicina Legal in Recife for identification.
That afternoon the three gave statements at the Garanhuns police station. Police said they would be charged with a crime classed as "hediondo" (the gravest category) under Brazilian law, concealment of a corpse, use of false documents and fraud, for using the victims' cards. The women were sent to the Colônia Penal Feminina de Buíque and the man to the Garanhuns public jail. The child was placed with the Conselho Tutelar, the local child protection council, under the supervision of the juvenile court. Police said she had seen the killings and was very shaken.
Word spread through the city. The house had been vandalized since the evening of April 11, and in the early hours of April 12 residents set it on fire. Firefighters put out the blaze and no one was hurt. Police said the fire did not reach the yard, but one officer, Cristiano Holanda, complained that it might have destroyed evidence of other crimes. VICE later reported that the house was looted and burned twice and that the book and Bruna's notes were nearly lost.
In statements on April 12, the three told police they belonged to a sect called the Cartel that preached "the purification of the world and the reduction of its population," as Wesley Fernando put it to the Globo network. "According to those involved, they take part in a sect called Cartel. And there was an opposing sect called 'M' [for 'impure women']. All the blame for their being in jail was because 'M' interfered with their plans," he said. Asked how victims were chosen, he said: "According to them, when they passed people, an entity warned that they were bad people." The aim, police said, was to kill three women a year.
The police inquiry closed in June 2012 described the Cartel as a sect invented by the group itself. It ordered the killing of people whose lives were considered impure, and, according to the inquiry, the group said it needed four female victims, one for each element of nature. In 2024 the Diario de Pernambuco summarized the group's claimed aim as reducing the population by killing women who had children they could not provide for.
Police found no relationship between the trio and the women before they met. "They were people in need," Wesley Fernando said. Police also said they had identified three other women, still alive, whom the group had been approaching as possible victims, and a woman in a nearby town whom they had planned to kill next. G1 and the AP named the town as Lagoa do Ouro; one G1 report said Lagoa do Carro.
The detail that drew international coverage came from those April 12 statements. Police said the three told them they had kept parts of the bodies in the refrigerator and used the flesh as filling for empadas, small savory pastries, which they ate themselves, gave to the child and sold in the city. Police found no human remains in the refrigerator. Residents confirmed that one of the women had sold pastries in Garanhuns, but nobody came forward to say they had eaten them, police said. VICE reported that the three confessed and retracted the sale of the pastries several times, and that Isabel at one point said she had made it up out of fear. All three admitted to police that they had eaten parts of the bodies, VICE reported, and Bruna said so again in court in 2014.
In the house, police found the birth certificate of the five-year-old. It showed that the girl was the daughter of a woman killed in Olinda in 2008, and one of the suspects admitted she had been living under that woman's name. Bruna, VICE reported, had given police Jéssica's name when she was first taken in.
The Olinda investigation fell to Paulo Berenguer of the state homicide department (DHPP). Following directions from Jorge and Isabel, police went to the former house in Rio Doce and found small bones of a collarbone and shoulder blade buried under the living room floor and smaller finger bones inside bricks. A forensic expert said the short bones made DNA testing difficult, but comparison with Jéssica's father gave a match with 99.99 percent certainty.
On June 5, 2012, Berenguer announced that the inquiries were complete. He said the method was always the same: a job offer, an invitation to an interview at the house, and an attack by Jorge Beltrão with a blow to the jugular vein. The three were formally accused of Jéssica's killing as well as the two in Garanhuns.
In the days after the arrests, police said the three might have killed others. On April 20, 2012, a police spokesman, Carlos Leite, told the AP that investigators were looking at five more killings, four in Pernambuco and one in Paraíba, and had information that those women "suffered the same fate." In June the inquiry said the group was being investigated by police in Paraíba over a death in Conde. VICE wrote in 2018 that there were suspicions of other bodies in places the trio had lived in the Northeast, but no evidence beyond statements by Isabel and Bruna. No charge over any other death was found in the sources opened for this page.
The three went on trial for Jéssica's killing on Thursday, November 13, 2014, at the First Jury Court of Olinda, before Judge Maria Segunda Gomes de Lima. They were charged with homicide with four aggravating factors (futile motive, cruel means, preventing the victim's defense, and securing impunity), with concealment of a corpse and with desecration of a corpse. The public defender Tereza Joacy represented them. Only two witnesses were scheduled: Paulo Berenguer and the forensic psychiatrist who had examined the defendants, Lamartine Hollanda. An evaluation at the state custodial psychiatric hospital in Itamaracá had found that none of the three had a mental disorder that would excuse them, the Gazeta do Povo reported.
The defendants were jeered by onlookers as they arrived. In court they blamed each other. Jorge Beltrão, quoted by G1 as reported by the AP, said at the opening: "I committed a horrible monstrous mistake. It was a moment of extreme weakness and brutality that I regret." Bruna said she had not taken part in the killing or the dismemberment, and that when she saw what had been done the horror film "Saw" did not compare. She said she had eaten the flesh "because it was part of the ritual." VICE reported that Jorge's defense raised an insanity claim, and that the medical report rejected it.
The verdict came on the evening of Friday, November 14. Jorge Beltrão was sentenced to 21 years of reclusão (the harsher form of imprisonment, served at first in a closed regime) and 1 year and 6 months of detenção (a lesser form). Isabel Cristina and Bruna Cristina each received 19 years of reclusão and 1 year of detenção. The jury accepted all four aggravating factors.
The Pernambuco prosecutor's office (MPPE) appealed, arguing the sentences were too light. In July 2019 the First Criminal Chamber of the Pernambuco Court of Justice (TJPE) agreed. Jorge Beltrão's sentence rose to 27 years of reclusão and 1 year and 6 months of detenção. Isabel and Bruna's rose to 24 years of reclusão and 1 year of detenção each. The Diario de Pernambuco reported that the decision was final and that no further appeal by the defendants was possible.
"At the time of the trial, the prosecution did not accept how the sentences had been calculated by the judge. We considered the sentences unjust," said the prosecutor Eliane Gaia. "The MPPE asked for an increase because the defendants' personalities were extremely turned toward crime. The circumstances and the facts of the crime were of extreme gravity."
The trial over Gisele and Alexandra was to have been held in Garanhuns, but a defense lawyer asked for it to be moved to another district, and it was transferred to Recife. It was postponed once because a defense lawyer did not appear.
The jury sat at the First Jury Court of the Capital, in the Fórum Desembargador Rodolfo Aureliano in Recife, beginning at 10:10 a.m. on Friday, December 14, 2018. The three defendants testified that day. Jorge Beltrão spoke first and said that Bruna Cristina had tortured him and that he was a victim. "Both Isabel and I were tortured into taking responsibility for that," he said. A report from the custodial psychiatric hospital found that all three were capable of answering for their acts.
On Saturday, December 15, the defense lawyers argued. Jorge Beltrão's lawyer presented psychiatric reports to argue that he could not be held criminally responsible because of mental illness. Isabel's defense also argued insanity and denied that she had committed the theft, concealment and desecration counts. Bruna's lawyers spoke last. The trial ended at about 11:10 p.m.
The jury convicted all three of double homicide with three aggravating factors: a base motive, insidious or cruel means, and making defense impossible. Judge Ernesto Bezerra Cavalcanti imposed these sentences:
Jorge Beltrão Negromonte da Silveira: 71 years, made up of 54 years of reclusão for the two homicides, 9 years of detenção for concealment and desecration of the corpses, 5 years for qualified theft and 3 years for fraud.
Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva: 71 years and 10 months, made up of the same 54, 9, 5 and 3 years, plus 10 months for false identity.
Isabel Cristina Pires da Silveira: 68 years, made up of 54 years for the homicides, 9 years for concealment and desecration and 5 years for qualified theft.
The judge kept all three in preventive custody and ordered the sentences to begin immediately in a closed regime. The defenses lodged appeals in court. The TJPE said the new sentences would be added to the Olinda sentences. The Diario de Pernambuco calculated in 2019 that, with the increased Olinda sentences, the totals came to 98 years for Jorge, 95 for Isabel and 92 for Bruna (the paper's own figures; the components it reported add up to slightly different totals). It also noted that an appeal against the Garanhuns verdict was still possible at that point. Its outcome was not found.
The girl who helped police find the two bodies was Jéssica's daughter. She had been taken into the trio's home as a baby, given a false identity and, according to police and prosecutors, used to win the trust of women answering the offer of nanny work. After the arrests she went to the care of the Conselho Tutelar and the juvenile court. VICE reported in 2018 that she was living with a great-aunt, away from the press. Her name is not given here.
After the convictions the two women were held at the Colônia Penal Feminina de Buíque in the Agreste, and Jorge Beltrão at the Penitenciária Professor Barreto Campelo on the island of Itamaracá, according to the Diario de Pernambuco in 2019 and again in September 2024. The women drew national attention again in September 2024 when the influencer Deolane Bezerra was held at the Buíque prison and said she had met them.
In July 2025 a video circulated online showing Jorge Beltrão in a suit and tie, with a guitar on his back, presented as an evangelical pastor among prison missionaries. It had been recorded at Barreto Campelo, which had since been closed, and posted by a man who called himself a deacon. "One day, a missionary told me that God had something for me and that I would start working for God," Jorge said in it. He quoted 2 Corinthians 5:17 and ended: "Many don't know who Jorge Beltrão is now. Amen." The state prison administration (Seap) said it provided religious assistance in all its prisons, respecting the freedom of belief of inmates.
His lawyer, Giovanni Martinovich, told reporters that Jorge had been preaching in prison for more than two years and that, although he was legally entitled to move to a less restrictive regime, he did not want to leave. "He told me that if he gets out, he will start hearing the voices again and will kill again. He also said that if people find out who he is outside prison, he will be killed," Martinovich told DOL. The lawyer said he did not plan to seek a sentence review or regime progression. By then Jorge had been moved to the Presídio Policial Penal Leonardo Lago in the Curado prison complex in Recife.
In March 2026 Jorge Beltrão, then 64, asked a court for home detention on health grounds, saying he had irreversible blindness in both eyes. A medical report said he was stable and receiving clinical, psychiatric and psychological care. On March 4, Judge Evandro de Melo Cabral of the Recife sentence enforcement court ordered the prison to report in detail whether it could meet his needs. On Monday, March 23, 2026, the judge denied the request. Citing a report from the prison's health team, which said he had full care, regular medical visits, psychological and psychiatric support, continuous medication and referral to the public health system when needed, and an opposing opinion from the MPPE, the court found no humanitarian grounds for home detention. It ordered the prison to keep up his care and allowed for a new review if his health worsens. The court recorded his condition as irreversible bilateral blindness caused by glaucoma, with a history of psychiatric treatment.
As of the March 23, 2026 Diario de Pernambuco report, Jorge Beltrão Negromonte da Silveira was held at the Presídio Policial Penal Leonardo Lago in Recife after being refused home detention, and Isabel Cristina Pires da Silveira and Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva remained in closed-regime custody. The September 2024 report placed the two women at the Colônia Penal Feminina de Buíque. The Olinda convictions were reported as final in 2019. No report was found on the result of the appeals against the 2018 Garanhuns verdict, and no report was found of any of the three being released.
Proven in court: all three were convicted of killing Jéssica Camila da Silva Pereira (jury verdict 2014, sentence increased on appeal 2019 and reported as final) and of killing Gisele Helena da Silva and Alexandra da Silva Falcão (jury verdict 2018), with concealment and desecration of the bodies. Jorge Beltrão and Bruna Cristina were also convicted of fraud for using a victim's card, and Bruna of false identity.
Confessed: the three admitted the Garanhuns killings to police in April 2012 and described the Olinda killing; Jorge and Isabel directed police to Jéssica's remains. In court they blamed one another, and in 2018 Jorge said he had been tortured into confessing.
Claimed by the defendants and not proven: that the flesh was sold to the public in pastries. The three gave this account to police and later retracted it in part; police found no remains in the refrigerator and no buyer came forward.
The defendants' account: the existence of a sect called the Cartel, which police said the group had invented, and the claims in Jorge Beltrão's book about voices and visions. Psychiatric evaluations used at both trials found all three capable of answering for their acts.
Suspected only: additional victims in Pernambuco and Paraíba. Police said in April and June 2012 they were investigating up to five more deaths, including one in Conde, Paraíba. No charge was found.
1994: Jorge Beltrão is tried over the death of a young man and acquitted for lack of evidence, according to police in 2012.
2008, probably May 26: Jéssica Camila da Silva Pereira, 17, is killed at the trio's house in Rio Doce, Olinda. Bruna Cristina takes her identity and registers her daughter as her own.
2008: The trio sells the Olinda house and moves to Conde, Paraíba, later settling in Garanhuns.
2009: Jorge Beltrão writes "Revelações de um Esquizofrênico," according to the Gazeta do Povo.
February 2012: Gisele Helena da Silva, 31, disappears in Garanhuns.
March 15, 2012: Alexandra da Silva Falcão, 20, disappears after accepting a job offer.
March 28, 2012: The book is registered with a notary (date from the Gazeta do Povo).
April 9, 2012: A court grants search and preventive arrest warrants.
April 11, 2012: The three are arrested in Jardim Petrópolis, Garanhuns; the two women's bodies are recovered from the yard.
April 12, 2012: Residents set the house on fire. The three describe the Cartel and the pastries in police statements.
April 20, 2012: Police tell the AP they are looking into five more deaths.
June 5, 2012: Police close the inquiries and accuse the three of Jéssica's killing, confirmed by DNA from small bones found at the Olinda house.
November 13-14, 2014: Jury trial in Olinda. Jorge Beltrão is sentenced to 21 years plus 1 year 6 months; Isabel and Bruna to 19 years plus 1 year each.
December 14-15, 2018: Jury trial in Recife over the Garanhuns killings. Sentences: Jorge 71 years, Bruna 71 years 10 months, Isabel 68 years.
July 2019: The TJPE raises the Olinda sentences to 27 years plus 1 year 6 months (Jorge) and 24 years plus 1 year (each woman).
September 2024: The two women are reported held at the Colônia Penal Feminina de Buíque.
July 2025: A prison video shows Jorge Beltrão presented as an evangelical pastor; his lawyer says he does not want to leave prison.
March 23, 2026: A Recife judge denies Jorge Beltrão home detention despite blindness from glaucoma. Status as of this report.