Brazil Probes New Year Spate of Killings and Crashes as SC Teen Murder Yields Four Arrests

Overview

• Police in Santa Catarina arrested four men over the decapitation of a 15-year-old who vanished on New Year’s Eve, recovered the victim’s head in searches, and are seeking images witnesses say the suspects recorded; two possible motives are under review.
• Six passengers in a van died on BR-116 in Paraná after a collision with a truck whose driver told TV he had been robbed moments earlier, a claim police are examining as traffic flows were gradually restored.
• After the death of 6-year-old Guilherme da Silva Maia, Ribeirão Preto police reclassified the Bonfim Paulista hit-and-run to homicide culposo; the suspected driver, singer Gustavo Perissoto de Oliveira, was questioned and released as new footage and a forensic exam of the car are pursued, and the child’s mother remains hospitalized.
• In Socorro, São Paulo, Juliana Nogueira Vargas, 41, died in a head-on crash; police report the other driver showed signs of intoxication, had no license, was arrested, and the case was registered as homicide culposo.
• Separate investigations track multiple incidents across states, including two deaths and two injuries in a BA-210 car–truck crash near Juazeiro, a 25-year-old motorcyclist killed in Paraíso do Tocantins, two fatalities in a motorcycle collision in Maranhão, a shooting that critically injured a man in Boa Vista, and a driver found dead in a submerged car in Mato Grosso.