Brazilian Politician Who Killed Her Husband With The Help Of Her Children Sentenced To 50 Years In Prison

A Brazilian politician who killed her pastor husband with the help of her children has been sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Ex-Congresswoman Flordelis dos Santos de Souza, a gospel singer turned politician, has been sentenced to 50 years and 28 days in prison for ordering her children to kill her pastor husband Anderson do Carmo. Do Carmo, 42, was shot multiple times in June 2019 just outside his house in Rio de Janeiro as he returned to the home they shared with their dozens of both biological and adopted children, BBC reported.

After the shooting, Flordelis claimed that armed robbers on motorcycles had chased them and attacked her husband. However, in 2020, prosecutors charged Flordelis with “orchestrating the homicide, enlisting to take part in the crime, and attempting to disguise it as an armed robbery.” The prosecutors also raised their suspicion that Flordelis orchestrated the murder in order to gain control over the couple’s finances which were controlled by Do Carmo.

Further investigation revealed that Flordelis unsuccessfully attempted to poison Do Carmo with cyanide at least six times before orchestrating his murder.

In last week's trial, Flordelis maintained that she loved her husband and denied orchestrating his killing. However, she accused him of sexually and physically abusing her and other members of her family. She said that her children did so to protect her from alleged sexual and physical abuse perpetrated by her husband, the Guardian reported.

"It's very difficult for me to speak [about this] but [what happened] is down to the abuses that happened within my home," she told the court.

However, a judge rejected those arguments and said she was the intellectual author of the crime that was made to look like a robbery gone wrong.

The court then imposed a 50-year sentence for Flordelis and said she ordered the killing “because the victim kept a strict control of the family finances and administered conflicts rigidly, refusing to give preferential treatment to the ex-lawmaker’s closest (friends) in detriment to other members of the family.”

Flordelis’s son Flávio was sentenced to 33 years in jail last year for pulling the trigger. Meanwhile, his adopted brother Lucas Cezar received seven years for helping buy the murder weapon. Cezar received a reduced sentence because he collaborated with the police.

Meanwhile, four others, including one biological son and another adopted son, were also given prison sentences earlier this year.

Flordelis was 32 when she met the teenage Do Carmo in 1993. Do Carmo, who was underage, moved in with the family as another adoptive son. However, his adoption was never made official. Years later, in 1998, the 21-year-old Do Carmo married Flordelis.

The couple then continued taking in street children and in total looked after 55 children over the years.

Years later, Do Carmo became a charismatic church leader. Meanwhile, Flordelis' career as a gospel singer prospered after her first album was launched in 2010.