Marcos Antunes Trigueiro was convicted by Minas Gerais juries of killing five women in the Belo Horizonte metropolitan region in 2009. Each case was tried separately, and each ended in a conviction for aggravated homicide, rape and theft. The trials ran from June 2010 to February 2018, the last of them in the comarca of Ibirité.
For months the deaths were handled as separate cases. Police tied them together when investigators from across Greater Belo Horizonte compared the victims, the hours and the places, and when a man who ran a phone business told them that two of the dead women's phones had passed through his shop. Trigueiro was arrested on February 24, 2010, at his home in Contagem. His sentences, as reported by Estado de Minas in 2023, add up to about 160 years, though Brazilian law limits the time a person actually serves.
Trigueiro was born in Brasília de Minas, a town in the north of Minas Gerais, according to Estado de Minas. At the time of his arrest, Agência Estado reported, he was 32, married, and the father of five children. Reporting from 2023 says that neighbors and fellow members of his church saw him as a good husband and neighbor and had no reason to suspect him. His wife did not know that a phone he had given her had belonged to one of the dead women.
Agência Estado reported in February 2010, citing police, that he had been arrested for theft in May 2005, escaped, was recaptured that September, and was released on conditional terms in 2008. Itatiaia wrote in 2023 that he had an earlier conviction for robbery resulting in death. When that conviction was entered and what sentence it carried are not on record. In February 2010 police also said they were examining whether he had a part in the 2005 death of a man in Betim. No charge on that matter is on record.
Estado de Minas, in its 2023 profile, described the victims as five young women unknown to him. Itatiaia likewise reported that none of them had known him before they were killed.
Adina Feitor Porto, 34 in Agência Estado's 2010 report, was the first. The Tribunal de Justiça de Minas Gerais (TJMG) described the killing for which Trigueiro was tried at Ibirité in 2018 as a crime committed in Sarzedo in January 2009, and quoted the prosecutor as saying the victim was the first in chronological order. The TJMG release names the victim only by the initials A.F.P., which match Adina Feitor Porto.
Ana Carolina Menezes Assunção, 27, died in April 2009; Estado de Minas gives the date as April 17. Her young son was with her at the time and was not hurt. The jury later convicted Trigueiro of endangering the child as well as of the offenses against her. She was from Belo Horizonte, and the crime took place in the northwest of the city.
Maria Helena Lopes Aguilar died in September 2009 in the Califórnia district in northwest Belo Horizonte; Estado de Minas dates it September 17. Her age is given as 48 by Agência Estado and 49 by Estado de Minas. Her surname appears as Aguilar, Aguiar and, in one report, Gomes Aguiar.
Natália Cristina de Almeida Paiva, 27, was killed in October 2009, according to Agência Estado. Estado de Minas gives the date as October 7 but places it in 2010, which cannot be right when Trigueiro was already in custody from February 2010.
Edna Cordeiro de Oliveira Freitas, 35, was killed on November 12, 2009, near Nova Lima, according to Jornal do Brasil. She was the last of the five. When her case came to trial, her daughter and friends were in the courtroom.
In the early reports the deaths were counted as unrelated. According to Estado de Minas, the turning point came at meetings with the police commanders of the whole metropolitan region, where investigators recognized that the victims shared a profile and that the times and places fitted together. Agência Estado, writing the day after the arrest, said police had a key witness who helped produce a composite sketch.
The phones carried the case. A man who ran a phone business told police that Trigueiro had sold him two of the stolen phones, which made him the main suspect. Police traced other phones to Trigueiro and to the woman then living with him, and one victim's phone was in his household. His wife told investigators he had given it to her as a gift and that she did not know where it came from, as Estado de Minas reported. Agência Estado reported that serial numbers tied the phones to the dead women even though some had been damaged.
Police also said DNA tests in three of the cases confirmed that he was responsible. That report came from police in February 2010 and is not a court finding; the verdicts came later, at trial.
Police arrested Trigueiro on Wednesday, February 24, 2010, in Contagem. He was presented to the press on February 25 and held at a police station in Belo Horizonte, in a separate cell. His wife was also held while police looked into whether she had any part in the thefts.
His first statement went on into the early hours, but he chose to stay silent, Agência Estado said. Two later reports differ. Agência Estado, in September 2010, and Jornal do Brasil, in 2012, say he confessed to the rapes and killings and afterward claimed he could not remember them. At the 2018 trial, TJMG reported, he declined to say anything about the crime but confirmed the statement he had given to the Polícia Civil, which the prosecution said described the crimes in great detail.
The cases went to the Tribunal do Júri one at a time.
In June 2010 a jury sentenced Trigueiro for the death of Ana Carolina Menezes Assunção. Jornal do Brasil gives the sentence as 34 years and 4 months of reclusion plus 7 months of detention, covering homicide, rape, theft and endangering a child. TJMG's later summary of the series gives 34 years and 11 months for the same case, which is the two figures added together.
On September 30, 2010, the 2nd Tribunal do Júri of the Lafayette forum in Belo Horizonte sentenced him to 28 years in closed regime for the rape and killing of Maria Helena Lopes Aguilar, Agência Estado reported. By then his sentences already stood at 62 years in total, and the same report said he faced juries for the three remaining women.
On September 11, 2012, a jury of seven in the comarca of Nova Lima convicted him for the death of Edna Cordeiro de Oliveira Freitas, on a verdict of triply qualified homicide, rape and simple theft. Judge Juarez Morais de Azevedo imposed 36 years and 9 months in closed regime, made up of 23 years and 11 months for rape, 9 years and 11 months for the homicide, and 2 years and 11 months for the theft of the victim's phone, Jornal do Brasil reported. Estado de Minas, as printed by Brasil 247, gave the sentence as 36 years and 4 months in its text; Jornal do Brasil's breakdown and TJMG's later summary both give 36 years and 9 months. The trial lasted about six hours. Four witnesses were dismissed, and the defense asked for acquittal. The prosecutor, Francisco Santiago, criticized the defense approach and the timing of the defendant's remorse. Police investigator Edson Moreira, who headed the homicide and person-crimes division, described Trigueiro to Jornal do Brasil as cold, calculating and very intelligent, and said there was nothing of the madman about him. The court ruled that he could not appeal while at liberty.
When that verdict was reported in 2012, no dates had been set for the trials over the deaths of Adina Feitor Porto and Natália Cristina de Almeida Paiva. TJMG's 2018 release lists a conviction for the death of N.C.A.P., sentenced to 31 years, 8 months and 10 days for rape, death and theft involving her. The date and court of that trial are not on record.
On Wednesday, February 7, 2018, a jury in the comarca of Ibirité tried the last case. Judge José Honório de Rezende of the 1st Criminal, Children and Youth Court presided; the jury had four men and three women; Manuela Lage Xavier prosecuted and Rodrigo Bizzoto Randazzo defended. The complaint had been received on June 19, 2010. The trial lasted more than six hours, and no witnesses were heard. The jury found him guilty of rape, homicide with four aggravating qualifiers (a base or vile motive, insidious or cruel means, a method that hindered the victim's defense, and an aim of securing impunity for another crime) and theft. The judge sentenced him to 30 years and 5 months in closed regime, and described his personality as cruel and perverse. The prosecutor argued that his problem was character, not mental illness. The defense argued that he had already received more than 150 years; it asked the jury to reclassify the offense, to apply the principle of insignificance to the theft, and to find no intent on one count. The release said the decision could be appealed. TJMG called it the last of the five killings, which it dated to 2009 and 2010 in its release.
TJMG's 2018 release lists the five sentences as 34 years and 11 months, 28 years, 36 years and 9 months, 31 years, 8 months and 10 days, and 30 years and 5 months. Estado de Minas wrote in 2023 that his convictions total 160 years, and that Brazil's maximum time in prison is 30 years, which can be extended to 40 after a government review. No appeal ruling in any of the five cases is on record.
TJMG reported in 2018 that he was held at the Nelson Hungria penitentiary in Contagem. In March 2023 Estado de Minas, printed by Correio Braziliense, reported that he had been in prison since 2010, in a separate wing of the Inspetor José Martinho Drumond prison in Ribeirão das Neves. Itatiaia wrote in March 2023 that the national genetic profile database, had it existed before 2008, could have identified him after the first killing and might have prevented the other four.
Several figures differ between outlets. Victim ages, the spelling of Maria Helena Lopes Aguilar's surname, the date of Natália Cristina de Almeida Paiva's death, and the sentence for Edna Cordeiro de Oliveira Freitas all vary. Estado de Minas gives April 2009 to October 2010 for the whole series, which conflicts with Agência Estado, Jornal do Brasil and TJMG, who place all five in 2009 and report a February 2010 arrest. His occupation is given as unemployed by Agência Estado in February 2010 and as a painter by the same agency in September 2010. Whether he had any part in the 2005 Betim death was a police inquiry in 2010, and no charge or finding is on record.
2005: Arrested for theft in May; escapes; recaptured in September (police account, February 2010).
2008: Released on conditional terms.
January 2009: Adina Feitor Porto killed in Sarzedo.
April 2009: Ana Carolina Menezes Assunção killed in Belo Horizonte.
September 2009: Maria Helena Lopes Aguilar killed in Belo Horizonte.
October 2009: Natália Cristina de Almeida Paiva killed.
November 12, 2009: Edna Cordeiro de Oliveira Freitas killed near Nova Lima.
February 24, 2010: Trigueiro arrested in Contagem.
June 19, 2010: Complaint received in the Ibirité case.
June 2010: Convicted in the Menezes Assunção case.
September 30, 2010: Convicted in the Aguilar case; 28 years.
September 11, 2012: Convicted in the Freitas case at Nova Lima; 36 years and 9 months.
By February 2018: Convicted in the Paiva case; 31 years, 8 months and 10 days.
February 7, 2018: Convicted in the Porto case at Ibirité; 30 years and 5 months.
March 2023: Held in a prison in Ribeirão das Neves.