Soap in Brazil: Congress impeached MP accused of killing her husband she adopted as a teenager

Even the best Brazilian soap opera hasn’t received so much encouragement. A story that mixes religion, politics, evangelical pastors, orgies, bloody rituals, mass adoptions, financial problems and contract murder has left the whole country speechless.

Reality beats any scenario. Congress deleted this Wednesday to the federal deputy and evangelical pastor Flordelis dos Santos de Souza, an enigmatic lawmaker involved in a story that seems to come out of a typical Brazilian soap opera.

The reason? MP is accused of ordering her husband to be killed in collaboration with seven of his 55 children, the vast majority of which are adopted.

The funny thing is that her husband, Anderson do Carmo, who was also a pastor, was adopted by the woman when the victim was only a teenager. He was 18 years younger than his wife.

The parliamentarian’s impeachment was approved by 437 votes in favor and only seven against, just over two years after the assassination.

How was the crime

Pastor Anderson passed away in the early morning hours of June 16, 2019. He was riddled with 30 balls at the door of the house he shared with his wife in Rio de Janeiro. A large number of shots were fired at his genitals, then he was in agony for several minutes.

The investigation led the police to charge Flordelis with the murder. According to the investigation, the crime was due to financial disputes between the two and in the planning of which seven of the 55 children (including 51 adopted) of the pastor, founder of the Evangelical Community Ciudad del Fuego, were involved.

According to witnesses who testified in the case, this church was the center of bloody rituals and orgies in which the Member herself participated with her faithful and some members of her family.

Flordelis, 60, adopted Anderson do Carmo, 18 his junior, when he was a teenager. But over time the relationship changed and they formed a couple. They married in 1994 and together they shaped a career that first projected her as a gospel singer and then as a pastor.

Until he finally decided to try his luck in politics, a path that opened the door to many members of the evangelical congregation in the country. In 2018, she was elected federal deputy of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which supported the candidacy of the current president, Jair Bolsonaro and counted among its bases dozens of evangelical pastors.

A story still open

Despite the charge, Flordelis has not been arrested so far as she was protected by parliamentary jurisdiction, but is charged with capital murder, criminal conspiracy, ideological and documentary forgery and attempted murder.

On this last point, the police claim that she tried to poison her husband with arsenic before the murder. The prosecution has identified at least six attempts. The investigation implicated seven of his children as participants in the conspiracy, one of them even being the material perpetrator of the crime. In total, there are 10 people involved, including a granddaughter of the couple.

The now ex-legislator denies being the principal of the crime. According to her, her husband was killed by two men following them on a motorbike and shot her husband when they arrived at his home.

According to the prosecution, cited by the BBC, De Souza “Designed the whole criminal operation, he prepared, encouraged and convinced other defendants to participate in the murder ”. The reason was that her husband maintained a strict control of family finances and she did not allow privileges to be granted to her next of kin.

Prosecutor Sérgio Luiz Lopes Pereira claimed that the MP told one of his children that couldn’t divorce so as not to “violate the name of God”.

In her latest statement to Congress, in a fiery defense, she demanded this Wednesday that the people judge her. “The city brought me here. I know I am innocent and I will prove it. But let me be judged by the people and, if so, removed from this place by the people, ”she said before the vote.

Now the prison is waiting for the pastor. But like any good Brazilian soap opera, the story promises to continue in the next chapter. But of course no more from the Palais des Congrès.