Police: Amazon fisherman confesses to killing missing men
MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — A fisherman confessed to killing a British journalist and an Indigenous expert in Brazil’s remote Amazon region and took police to a site where human remains were recovered, a federal investigator said after a grim 10-day search for the missing pair.
Authorities said Wednesday that they expected to make more arrests in the case of freelance reporter Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira of Brazil, who disappeared June 5. None had been made as of Thursday morning, but police said searches for the boat the two had used were about to restart.
At a news conference in the Amazon city of Manaus, a federal police investigator said the prime suspect in the case confessed Tuesday night and detailed what happened to Phillips and Pereira. Investigator Eduardo Alexandre Fontes said Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, 41, nicknamed Pelado, told officers he used a firearm to kill the men.
“We would have no way of getting to that spot quickly without the confession,” Torres said of the place where police recovered human remains Wednesday after being led there by de Oliveira.
Torres said the remains were expected to be identified within days, and if confirmed as the missing men, “will be returned to the families of the two.”
“We found the bodies t3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) into the woods,” the investigator said, adding that officers travelled about one hour and forty minutes by boat and 25 more into the woods to reach the burial spot.
The suspect’s family had said previously that he denied any wrongdoing and claimed police tortured him to try to get a confession.
Another officer, Guilherme Torres of the Amazonas state police, said the missing men’s boat had not been found yet but police knew the area where it purportedly was hidden.
“They put bags of dirt on the boat so it would sink,” he said. The engine of the boat was removed, according to investigators.
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen on their boat in a river near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia. That area has seen violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers and government agents.
