Jorge Luiz Thais Martins is a Brazilian man and former colonel of the Military Firefighters Corps who was previously convicted of killing 9 drug addicts during a five-month period between August 2010 and January 2011 in the city of Curitiba, the state capital of Paraná. The case garnered massive attention, and through police misconduct, Thais was erroneously arrested and convicted for them with the supposed motive that he wanted to avenge the death of his son, Jorge Guilherme Marinho Martins.[1] This supposed motive led to comparisons to the main character of the 1974 American film Death Wish, who went on a revenge-motivated killing spree to avenge the murder of his wife and the rape of his daughter.
Prosecution
editThais was initially presented as the prime suspect when several witnesses supposedly recognized him as the "executioner".[2] Due to the fact that the murders began shortly after his son was murdered in a botched robbery by two drug addicts, local authorities believed that he had a reasonable motive to commit the murders and thus arrested him for the crimes.[3]
While his initial detention lasted only 19 days and he was released thanks to a habeas corpus motion from his lawyers, prosecutors were able to convince the jury that he was guilty. Despite the fact that virtually all of the evidence was circumstantial and based on witness testimony and analyses of photographs, Thais was found guilty and imprisoned.[4] The conviction proved to be devastating for his family, with his father supposedly passing away from stress due to it.[5]
Exoneration
editThe case took a turn in August 2013, when two of the witnesses who had originally identified him went to the police station and claimed that they had made a mistake. This subsequently led to a review of the case that scrutinized the lack of concrete evidence that tied Thais to the killings.[5]
In March 2016, Thais was acquitted of all charges and formally exonerated, as all the murders were proven to be the doing of five current and former police officers from the Military Police that had formed a death squad.[6] The following year, he filed a lawsuit against the state of Paraná, which was backed by his lawyers and several military institutions, all of whom signed a petition urging the state to compensate him.[6] In November 2019, the Court of Justice of the State of Paraná (TJ-PR) ordered that the state compensate him with 50,000 reais.[7]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Célio Yano and Adriano Ribeiro (October 28, 2010). "Amigos e familiares de jovem morto em assalto promovem passeata pela paz" [Friends and family of young man killed in robbery promote peace march]. Gazeta do Povo (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on December 31, 2012.
- ^ Jean-Philip Struck (January 27, 2011). "Ex-comandante dos bombeiros do PR é suspeito de matar 9" [Ex-commander of PR firefighters is suspected of killing 9]. Folha de S.Paulo (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on September 19, 2012.
- ^ Felipe Aníbal and Vitor Geron (January 27, 2010). "Ex-comandante dos Bombeiros teria cometido cinco ataques com 14 vítimas" [Former fire chief allegedly committed five attacks with 14 victims]. Gazeta do Povo (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on July 31, 2012.
- ^ Diego Ribeiro (June 23, 2016). "Grupo de extermínio teria cometido assassinatos atribuídos a coronel dos Bombeiro" [Death squad would have committed murders attributed to Firefighters Corps colonel]. Gazeta do Povo (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on October 16, 2022.
- ^ a b Marina Sequinel and Antônio Nascimento (June 23, 2016). ""Sempre me questiono do por que me acusarem pelo que não fiz", diz Coronel Martins" [“I always wondered why they accused me for what I didn’t do”, says Colonel Martins]. Banda B (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on October 16, 2022.
- ^ a b Angieli Maros (December 11, 2017). "Inocentado das mortes em série no Boqueirão, coronel processa o Estado" [Not guilty of the serial deaths in Boqueirão, colonel sues the state]. Gazeta do Povo (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on October 16, 2022.
- ^ Alex Silveira (November 29, 2019). "Coronel dos Bombeiros será indenizado pelo governo após ser inocentado por mortes no Boqueirão" [Firefighters Corps Colonel will be compensated by the government after being exonerated for deaths in Boqueirão]. Tribuna PR (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on October 16, 2022.