For those who believe witch-hunts are a thing of the past, it's time to think again.
Brazilian police are on the lookout for a would-be witch after the head of a murdered woman was stolen from her grave.
While it may sound like something out of a horror film, the story gets even more creepy when you learn the circumstances in which the young woman tragically died.
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Police were first alerted to the creepy goings on in Rio de Janeiro State, after being alerted by authorities to a disturbance at a graveyard.
However, nothing would prepare them for the macabre ritual they found at the grave of Sabrina Tavares de Almeida - with police alleging there was evidence of black magic.
“We found that the concrete cover had been broken by blunt action,” criminal analyst Fábio Barbosa Teixeira told local news outlets.
“The lid of the wooden coffin inside the tomb was broken and the corpse’s head had been extracted,” he then explained, adding that the corpse’s head had been replaced with an ‘earthenware bowl containing burned materials inside’.
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However, the police think the suspect is far from supernatural and have already asked the local community for help with their witch-hunt.
Though they’ve yet to find the grave robber, authorities have named who they think is responsible for Almeida’s untimely death.
Last August, the 31-year-old was tragically shot by a hooded intruder as she slept at her home - with her mom also caught in the crossfire.
Thankfully, the older woman survived her horrific ordeal and later on, police named Almeida’s former brother-in-law, Mateus da Silva Osório Ferreira, as the main suspect.
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He previously expressed his resentment towards the young woman, after she inherited the home of her husband - Ferreira’s brother – a police officer who was killed in 2016.
The tension between the former relatives became so great, that Ferreira legally challenged the inheritance and hoped to gain ownership of the home.
Upon losing the legal battle though, he refused to accept the court’s ruling and began to target Almeida.
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Although he was later arrested and charged with the horrific crime, a judge released him due to a lack of evidence.
Understandably, this latest incident has devastated Almeida’s family.
Her father, Jorge Luiz Gomes de Almeida, told the press: “You bury someone and they do this? It’s a horrible thing. She was murdered and there’s no peace for her, not even in the cemetery.”
Seems like the police will need a crystal ball to help them solve this one.
Topics: Horror, World News, Crime, True crime