Pesseghini case

Pesseghini case
Location	Brasilândia, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Date	August 5, 2013 (2013-08-05)
Attack type	Familicide
Victims	4
Perpetrator	Marcelo Eduardo Bovo Pesseghini

The Pesseghini family case refers to the massacre that occurred on August 5, 2013, in the Brazilian municipality of São Paulo, in which five members of the Bovo Pesseghini family were killed. The premature closure of the case by the Brazilian justice system was surrounded by a series of criticisms and controversies. After several attempts to reopen the case in the Brazilian justice system, the case was reported to the Organization of American States in the United States in 2018.

Crime

On the night of Monday, August 5, 2013, five members of the same family were found dead inside their home in Brasilândia, in the northern zone of São Paulo. Among the victims were Andreia Regina Bovo Pesseghini, a sergeant in the 1st Company of the 18th Military Police Battalion, based in Freguesia do Ó and the mother of the boy Marcelo; Benedita Oliveira Bovo, the mother of Sergeant Andreia and the grandmother of the boy Marcelo; Bernardete Oliveira da Silva, Benedita's sister and Marcelo's great-aunt; Luis Marcelo Pesseghini, a sergeant in the ROTA and Marcelo's father; and Marcelo Eduardo Bovo Pesseghini, the child of the police couple and a suspect in the crime.

The victims' bodies were mourned on the afternoon of the 6th at the Gethsêmani Anhanguera Cemetery, located on the Rodovia Anhanguera.

Investigation

Investigators ruled out the possibility of the crime being an attack on the two military police officers by criminals and began to consider the hypothesis of a family tragedy: the couple's son, Marcelo, was believed to have shot his parents, grandmother, and great-aunt before committing suicide.

Elizabete Sato, the head of the Department of Homicide and Protection of Persons (DHPP), stated that other possibilities, such as a crime of passion or revenge, had not been ruled out. According to the delegate, the crime scene was not properly preserved for forensic analysis when civilian police arrived to respond to the incident on the day of the crime, August 5, 2013, shortly after 6 pm. On that day, about 200 police officers went to the house where the family was killed.

Prosecutor Luiz Fernando Bugiga Rebellato gave a favorable opinion for a new request to extend the investigations by another thirty days. This request was made on the grounds that the completion of the work depended on additional data related to the cellphone records found in the house.

Based on a psychiatric report on the profile of Marcelo Pesseghini (a retrospective post-mortem examination of mental sanity), which was based on analyses from testimonies and interviews and signed by forensic psychiatrist Guido Palomba, it was pointed out that the student suffered from "hypoxic encephalopathy" (lack of oxygenation in the brain), which led him to develop an "encapsulated delirium." The psychiatrist compared this loss of the sense of reality experienced by Pesseghini to that of the character in the video game Assassin's Creed.

The Civil Police, the Public Prosecutor's Office, and the Court of Justice of São Paulo concluded that the boy was the murderer. However, the Military Police continued to investigate the case. On October 15, 2014, the Military Police requested a copy of the completed police inquiry report from the special department of the Court of Justice. The justification, signed by Major Laerte Fidelis, stated that there was a need to complete the inquiry that was investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Corporal Andréia. This inquiry was attempting to clarify the corruption allegations made by her. Lieutenant Colonel Wagner Dimas, who had initially expressed doubt that the boy had killed the family, had been suspended but later resumed command of the unit.

Antonio Carlos Prado, writing for the magazine IstoÉ, referred to the Pesseghini case as "one of the most poorly explained in the history of crimes in Brazil." After several attempts to reopen the case in the Brazilian justice system, the case was reported to the Organization of American States in the United States in 2018.