A gospel-singing Brazilian congresswoman has been accused of masterminding the “barbaric” murder of her preacher husband after at least six failed or aborted attempts to kill him with poison or in staged robberies.
Anderson do Carmo was 42 when he was shot dead in June last year, as he returned to the home he shared with the church crooner-turned-politician Flordelis dos Santos de Souza.
The celebrity congresswoman, who congregants and fans call simply Flordelis, said that her husband — with whom she had famously raised more than 50 children — had been slain by thieves.
Photo: AFP / Brazilian Chamber of Deputies
However, allegations of a bizarre and lurid family plot to murder the evangelical preacher emerged on Monday as police arrested five of Flordelis’ children and one granddaughter for involvement in the crime.
The 59-year-old lawmaker — who has made records for one of Brazil’s top gospel labels and was elected to the Brazilian Congress in 2018 — could not be arrested, because she enjoys parliamentary immunity.
However, investigators said they had no doubt Flordelis, who reportedly wept uncontrollably as police raided her home, was the ringleader.
“The conclusion the investigation reached was this: that she planned this cowardly murder,” homicide chief Antonio Ricardo Lima Nunes told reporters as the singer’s handcuffed relatives were led away by heavily armed officers.
“The motive was that she was unhappy with the way in which pastor Anderson lived his life and handled the family finances,” he said.
Do Carmo’s grisly murder — he was reportedly shot more than 30 times, predominantly in the groin and thighs — made nationwide headlines.
Brazilian newspapers have published a succession of sensational allegations, including that the evangelical couple frequented a swingers’ club in west Rio de Janeiro, where the singer was spotted in a state of inebriation.
Flordelis denied the claims and has repeatedly denied involvement in her husband’s murder.
“Let’s say we were surprised by today’s events,” her lawyer, Anderson Rollemberg, told the Web site UOL on Monday.
However, police said they are sure she was the architect of his killing.
Local reports said the conspiracy began in May 2018, when scheming relatives began secretly spiking pastor Anderson’s food with arsenic.
It ended just more than a year later, in the early hours of June 16 last year, when the preacher’s body was riddled with bullets at the couple’s home in Niteroi.
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