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Maceió Jury Convicts Albino Santos de Lima a Tenth Time, for a Couple's Murder; Sentences Reach 294 Years

Jurors found him guilty of shooting John Lenno Santos Ferreira and Débora Vitória Silva dos Santos in Maceió in December 2023. The judge gave him 30 years for each killing.

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Illustration of an empty jury courtroom in a northeastern Brazilian courthouse, with wooden benches, a judge's bench and louvered windows in hazy afternoon light. Not an actual scene from the case.

For the tenth time, a jury in Maceió has convicted Albino Santos de Lima. On Thursday, October 22, 2026, at the Fórum do Barro Duro, jurors found him guilty of the murders of John Lenno Santos Ferreira and Débora Vitória Silva dos Santos, a couple shot dead in the city in December 2023. Judge Geraldo Amorim sentenced him to 30 years for each killing, to be served in a closed regime. The 60 years took his combined sentences to 294 years, 2 months and 13 days.

The state prosecutors' charges put the shooting at about 6 p.m. on December 18, 2023, on Rua Formosa in the Levada neighborhood. TNH1 reported that John Lenno was the one the gunman went after first.

The prosecutor, Antônio Vilas Boas, told the jury that Lima had fixed his attention on Débora and had fallen out with John Lenno. The main witness was a pastor, José Luiz. He testified that John Lenno had complained to him that Lima was secretly filming Débora on his phone, and that Lima had been seen carrying a gun in church. After the complaint, Alagoas 24 Horas reported, Lima stopped coming to services; days after the killings, according to Tribuna Hoje, he came back and seemed pleased that the couple were dead. Ballistic tests matched the bullets recovered from both victims to a .380 pistol attributed to Lima, the same weapon used in other killings he has been convicted of, and the prosecution showed the jurors pictures of the couple and notes about the killing taken from his phone.

The jury accepted both aggravating circumstances the prosecution alleged: a futile motive, and a method that made it hard for the victims to defend themselves. In the court's account of the ruling, Amorim found the killings premeditated. Lima had looked the couple up on social media beforehand, kept their pictures on his phone, marked the date of their deaths on a calendar and, afterward, taken photographs at their graves. "If you want to understand the artist, you have to look at his art," the judge said, as Alagoas 24 Horas reported it. "The crime scene is the serial killer's canvas."

Lima denied the killings when he was questioned, and denied that he had been glad of them. He told the court he had wanted to serve in the Israeli army and had taken shooting courses. His lawyer called him a good person. A psychiatric report cited at the trial found that he understood what he was doing, and Alagoas 24 Horas reported that the evaluations also noted psychopathic traits.

Lima has been in custody since police arrested him at his home on September 17, 2024. Investigators attribute 18 killings and six attempted killings between 2019 and 2024 to him. Before this trial, juries had convicted him nine times, most recently on October 7, when he received 30 years for the killing of Mikaele Leite da Silva, 21, in Vergel do Lago.

What this story covers. The verdict, the sentences and the judge's findings on premeditation come from the Alagoas Court of Justice's press office account of October 23, 2026, as published by Já é Notícia; the date, time and street come from the state prosecutors' charges as reported by Cadaminuto; the witness testimony, the ballistics and the defense come from Tribuna Hoje and Alagoas 24 Horas, and the new total from Tribuna Hoje and TNH1. Most reports place the killings in the Levada neighborhood, but Alagoas 24 Horas and at least one other outlet say Vergel do Lago; the story follows the charges. One outlet gave the new total as 354 years, which does not match the court's figures, and another repeated the old total of 234; the 294-year figure is the one the other reports agree on. The victims' ages were not published in the verdict reports, so they are not given here. The quotations are translated from Portuguese. The image is an illustration of a courtroom in northeastern Brazil, not the actual court.

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