A Brazilian man accused of stabbing a woman to death in a Rio suburb has confessed to have murdered 41 people, almost all of them women, "for the fun of it," police has said
Rio de Janeiro: A man arrested after the stabbing death of a woman in the Rio suburb of Nova Iguaçu has confessed to 41 additional homicides, Brazilian police said Thursday.
Sailson Jose das Graças, 26, told investigators that over the past nine years he has killed 37 women, three men and a 2-year-old boy.
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The toddler was the son of one of his female victims, killed to stop his crying from alerting the woman's neighbours, police said. "He wanted to kill women -- white women, not black ones. He followed the victims, studying them closely before committing the crimes," said police commissioner Pedro Henrique Medina from the northern suburb of Nova Iguacu.
Police told Globo television they give credence to the alleged serial killer's confession because of the level of details he provided in his statements.
"We can perceive a very great wealth of details... details that only a person who was at the crime scene could know," Medina said.
Police, however, are still trying to compare and correlate Das Graças' statements with unresolved homicide cases in greater Rio de Janeiro.
Das Graças, in a television interview, was unemotional as he described how he would choose his victims, most of them white women, and other details of his crimes.
"I'd watch the victim, studying her. I'd wait a month, sometimes a week, depending on the site. I tried to learn where she lived, about her family. I'd walk on the street studying the house. In the middle of the night, find a way to get in the house easily. And I would enter," the suspect said.
Das Graças said he was 17 when he killed for the first time and that he continued killing because of "the adrenaline rush".
He explained he started out as a petty thief.
"At 17, I killed the first woman and that gave me a buzz. I kept on doing it and I enjoyed it," he said, adding on one occasion a couple, Cleusa Balbina and her former husband Jose Messias, contracted him to kill someone for money. The pair are now under arrest.
Gracas said he used a gun in contract killings but strangled his other victims.
He planned his crimes meticulously, wearing a rain jacket in order to conceal his identity and gloves in order not to leave fingerprints, adding he became addicted to murder.
"When I wasn't killing someone I got uptight. I would pace up and down at home. Killing calmed me down. "I'd kill someone and then would think about the victim for two or three months. After that, I'd go off hunting" for another victim, Gracas revealed.
During the interview, conducted at the police station, Das Graças said he didn't have "the least bit of no remorse" for his crimes and warned that he would likely kill again if he ever got out of prison.
"I don't feel remorse -- if I go to jail for 10, 15, 20 years, then as soon as I get out I'll do the same thing all over again," he insisted.
Under Brazilian law, the maximum prison term is 30 years. The country as never had capital punishment.
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