Killing of Rachel Genofre

Rachel Genofre, a 9-year-old girl described as an active and intelligent student, disappeared on the evening of November 3, 2008, after leaving her school, Instituto de Educação, in Curitiba, Brazil. She was last seen around 5:30 pm near Praça Rui Barbosa, on Rua Voluntários da Pátria, by two schoolmates who had accompanied her partway home. When she did not return, her parents contacted police, who began a search.

Two days later, on November 5, 2008, two indigenous men found the girl's body inside a suitcase left under a stairway at the Curitiba railway/bus station. Police were called, and her identity was confirmed at the Instituto Médico Legal after her father recognized the body. Investigators determined she had been subjected to prolonged physical and sexual violence before her death, which was attributed to strangulation; forensic evidence of the sexual assault later proved central to identifying her killer. Experts estimated she had died on the afternoon of November 4.

The investigation stalled for nearly 11 years. Surveillance cameras at the station were not functioning on the day the suitcase was left there, and investigators reported no other leads. Over the following years, more than 200 DNA tests were conducted and several men were arrested, but no match was confirmed. The case advanced in 2019 when a search through Brazil's National Bank of Genetic Profiles—expanded following a determination by the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF)—matched sperm collected from the victim's anal canal in 2008 to a man already incarcerated in São Paulo.

That man, Carlos Eduardo dos Santos, had been imprisoned in Sorocaba, São Paulo, since 2016 in a facility for people convicted of sexual crimes, serving 22 years for the 1985 rape of a boy in São Vicente, São Paulo. He was also linked to other cases involving rape of a minor, theft, embezzlement, use of false documents, attempted registration of a child, and property damage. Initially he denied involvement in Rachel's death, but confessed when confronted with the DNA evidence. According to investigators, he first claimed he had assaulted her only after she died—an account they rejected as inconsistent with the forensic evidence—and said he had lied because a conviction involving a body already dead would carry a lesser penalty. Investigators said he had lured Rachel by posing as a producer for the children's television program Patati Patatá, telling her she could be hired if she accompanied him, then restrained her.

In May 2021, Carlos Eduardo dos Santos was sentenced to 40 years for triple-qualified homicide (involving cruel means, asphyxiation, and concealment of the body) plus 10 years for indecent assault, totaling 50 years. Rachel's mother, Maria Cristina Lobo, commented after the verdict. The case reportedly proceeds under judicial confidentiality (in camera).