José Paz Bezerra

On July 16, 1970, 36-year-old teacher Iolanda Pacheco was picked up by a taxi driver wearing a coat and scarf from Augusta Street. However, instead of dropping her off at the requested address, the driver announced that he would take her to Morumbi.[3] Before he could do anything, Pacheco managed to open the car door and jump out of the vehicle, which then sped away. Despite lodging a complaint to the police, who made a facial composite of the man, they did not tie this case with the subsequent crimes until October 1970.[4]

Three days later, police were alerted about the presence of a woman's body in a vacant lot in the Real Parque neighborhood, just one kilometer away from the Palácio dos Bandeirantes. The victim was found half naked, gagged with her own bra and with her arms and legs tied with pieces of nylon stockings that also partially wrapped around her body and neck, indicating strangulation.[3] Her face was also covered with bruises, making her almost unrecognizable. While doing forensics work in the field, authorities found the body of another woman who was in a similar condition. Later on, the São Paulo State Criminal Identification Institute successfully identified the two women via fingerprints, revealing their identities to be 23-year-old Nilza Alves Cardoso and 27-year-old Vanda Pereira da Silva, respectively.[5]

By September 1970, the bodies of other victims started appearing in the Greater São Paulo area. What caught the attention of the authorities was the similarity in all the crimes: all victims had been dumped in vacant lots, naked, gagged, their hands and feet tied with pieces of their own clothes and with signs of strangulation and sexual violence (later proven to be carried out post-mortem). The press initially dubbed the unknown criminal "The São Paulo Strangler" (Portueguese: De Estrangulador de São Paulo) and drew parallels with the earlier serial killer Benedito Moreira de Carvalho.

Three victims were found in that same July:[5]

• Cleonice Santos Guimarães, a laborer (23): found in a vacant lot near the Via Anchieta São Bernardo do Campo on July 19.
• Ana Rosa dos Santos, a domestic (47): found in a vacant lot near the Via Anchieta, São Bernardo do Campo on July 20.
• Wilma Négri, a telephone operator (35): found in a vacant lot in Jardim Bonfiglioli, Butantã on July 25.

Despite the police's efforts, no clue towards the killer's identity emerged until October 7, 1970, when a burglary was reported at a mansion in Itaim Bibi, alleging that a scullery worker had stolen jewelry valued at 20,000 cruzeiros and later fled.[3] His companion, a maid who worked at the mansion named Aparecida da Silva Oliveira, was later arrested and interrogated. In her statements, Da Silva claimed that her companion, José Paz Bezerra, was the "Monster of Morumbi". She claimed that one day, he came into the house looking visibly shaken and rummaging through drawers looking for money, and when asked him what was wrong, he broke down and confessed to killing seven women, before threatening to kill both her and her two daughters. She also pointed previous disturbing behavior, including killing the family dog with an axe and saying that he would cut off her tongue if she asked too many questions.[2]

In an attempt to substantiate her claims, the authorities searched her house, where they found newspaper clippings about the São Paulo murders, as well as clothes, earrings, necklaces and other items which were identified by family members as belonging to the victims. In addition, Da Silva said that in October 1969, she and Bezerra lived in Vila Mangalot, near the Anhanguera highway, around the time two women were found murdered. The first were 44-year-old teacher Cenira de Castro Amorim, who was found in a plot of land near Anhanguera on October 7, and the second was 40-year-old coffee vendor Alzira Montenegro, who was found in the same lot as Amorim eleven days later. Unlike previous victims, however, Montenegro was shot to death. By that point, Bezerra had fled to Guanabara, where his mother and sister lived. Authorities unsuccessfully searched for him in São Paulo, Guanabura, the city of Recife, Ceará and his home state of Paraíba.[6][7]

After fleeing Rio de Janeiro, Bezerra hitchhiked with several truck drivers until he arrived in Belém in November 1970. Not long after, he resumed his attacks. On December 23, the Belém State Police found the bodies of two women in a vacant lot on the grounds of a radio station belonging to the Brazilian Navy. The first one was identified as 44-year-old teacher Maria Teresa Marvão, but the second victim's identity was never established. After these two, Bezerra is known to have struck twice unsuccessfully, with one victim escaping while the other ended up living with him until his arrest. On September 21, 1971, police found the body of his final confirmed victim, merchant Anibalina Martins, whose body was found in a vacant lot on Benfica Road, near Benevides.