At 6:30 in the morning, on the 22nd of October, 2009, in Curitiba, the capital of the Brazilian State of Paraná, João Guilherme Martinho Martins pulled up in front of the home of his girlfriend, Jéssica de Andrade Casas, 21.
He was bringing her home from a party.
While they were exchanging a goodbye kiss, a young man with a pistol came up to their car.
The young man told them he was going to steal the vehicle - and told the young people to get out. João Guillerme followed his instructions and handed over the keys.
Jessica was nervous and had trouble unfastening her seatbelt.
The thief was high on drugs.
He became impatient, lost his temper and shot her in the arm.
João Guillerme tried to intervene in her defense, and the thief shot him, too.
Three times.
One of the bullets struck him in the head.
The young man died on the spot.
João Guilherme’s Dad was Colonel Jorge Luiz Thais Martins, a man who’d headed up the state’s firefighters from 2007 to 2009, when he retired.
That’s right. A colonel. In Brazil, firemen are a branch of the State Police.
That gave Jorge close ties to law-enforcement.
Hundreds attended his son’s funeral.
Hundreds more marched in the streets to protest the violence sweeping their town.
The Civil Police, charged with the investigation, promised a thorough investigation and swiftly arrested a suspect.
But they had insufficient proof – and had to let him go.
There, too, the story might have ended.
But it didn’t.
Fast forward to August of 2010. Someone started killing drug users in the neighborhood where João Guillherme was shot. Nine were murdered in the course of the next five months.
Initially, the police were stymied.
Finally they got a break: a survivor indentified a photo of a man he claimed to be the shooter.
That man was Colonel Martins.
The Colonel’s home was searched.
Ammunition was found that, allegedly, matches bullets removed from the victims.
Another witness identified a car used to commit the crimes, a Ford Escort. The Colonel owns just such an automobile.
The Colonel’s family, friends and ex-colleagues are in denial.
Jorge Martins, they say, is a man who dedicated his existence to saving lives.
Why should he now turn to taking them – whatever the provocation?
The Colonel, informed that a warrant had been taken out for his arrest, turned himself in. He denies the charges.
His lawyer denounced the accusation as “garbage” and claims his client can prove he was elsewhere when the killings occurred.
The cops, on the other hand, are convinced they’ve found their man.
They think the Colonel Martins set out to kill young drug users, one after the other, until he got the one responsible for murdering his son.
Is the Colonel innocent?
Or were the murders vengeance killings committed by a grief-stricken father?
This one sounds like a Charles Bronson movie.
But, sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.
Leighton - Monday
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And sometimes fiction writers get into the psyche of those motivated by revenge and presents a case in which it is easy for the reader to put themselves in the place of the character. Good fictional characters and good writers take the human condition beyond the page.
ReplyDeleteMost parents would have no difficulty imagining themselves in the shoes of Colonel Martin. The death of a child is a loss no one who hasn't experienced it can truly understand. But a murdered child tears the fabric of a community.
This, of course, makes the issue of Colonel Martins even more complex. In trying to kill the killer of his child, he is killing another father's child. He is now no better than the drug addict. If the father of each of those he killed, followed his path, there would be carnage leading to a riot.
Murder begets murder. Colonel Martins deserves sympathy but he also deserves justice under the law, something he didn't grant to men innocent in the death of his son.
Unfortunately, the grief doesn't end with the arrest of Colonel Martins. It is now generational. Families will keep alive the memories of their dead sons in an oral family history that. while commemorating the murdered sons,may also keep vengeance alive.
Beth
www.murderbytype.wordpress.com