The Brazilian police have indicted a Brazilian woman for kidnapping and then killing an American man she met through the Internet. Authorities have called for her preventive arrest.
Raymond James Mierrel, a composer from the United States, has been missing since April. According to the police of São José dos Campos, in the interior of São Paulo state, he was killed by his Brazilian girlfriend Regina Filomena Rachid, with the help of Evandro Celso Augusto Ribeiro and Nelson de Siqueira Neves.
The American had visited the girlfriend twice before. The investigations reveal that during the seven days that Mierrel stayed at Rachid’s house in his last visit he was doped with narcotics and alcohol so that he would give the passwords to his ATM cards. The Brazilian woman ended up withdrawing about US$ 46,000 from his accounts.
In order to conceal her tracks, the Brazilian woman, on April 2 rented a Chevrolet Corsa and after killing the American with an electrical wire, with the help of Ribeiro and Neves, took the dead man in the car to an empty lot in Caçapava, a little city in the interior of São Paulo, and set the composer’s body on fire. He ended up being buried as an indigent since the police could not identify the body.
Mierrel’s parents took their case to the FBI when their son didn’t come back on April 4 as scheduled and they were not able to establish any contact with him.
Regina was arrested in June while trying to rob a businessman in a shopping mall in São José of the Campos. The police at that time found in her purse a bank card that belonged to Mierrel.
Arrested on September 23, in Cabo Frio, a Rio beach resort, Ribeiro confessed that he got 12,000 reais (US$ 5,500) to get rid of the American’s body. Ribeiro blamed Regina for planning and executing the murder.
Neves, the other suspect, has just turned himself to the São José dos Campos police this Monday, October 2. The three involved in the crime are being indicted for kidnapping followed by homicide. They could get as much as 30 years in jail.