MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — A fisherman confessed to killing a British journalist and an Indigenous expert in Brazil's remote Amazon and took police to a site where human remains were recovered, a federal investigator said, closing out 10 days of suspense as teams searched for the missing pair.
Authorities said Wednesday night without giving any details that they expected more arrests would be made soon in the case of freelance reporter Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira of Brazil, who disappeared June 5.At a news conference in the Amazon city of Manaus, a federal police investigator said the man who had been the prime suspect confessed Tuesday night and detailed what happened to Phillips and Pereira. Investigator Eduardo Alexandre Fontes said Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, 41, nicknamed Pelado, told officers he used a firearm to kill the men. “We would have no way of getting to that spot quickly without the confession,” Torres said of the place where police recovered human remains Wednesday after being led there by Pelado.
Torres said the remains were expected to be identified within days, and if confirmed as the missing men, “will be returned to the families of the two.”
“We found the bodies three kilometers (nearly two miles) into the woods,” the investigator said, adding that officers traveled about one hour and forty minutes by boat on a river and 25 more into the woods to reach the burial spot.
Pelado’s family had said previously that he denied any wrongdoing and claimed police tortured him to try to get a confession.
Another officer, Guilherme Torres of the Amazonas state police, said the missing men's boat had not been found yet but police knew the area where it purportedly was hidden by those involved in the crime.
“They put bags of dirt on the boat so it would sink,” he said. The engine of the boat was removed, according to investigators.
The news conference at Brazil's federal police headquarters in Manaus also included military leaders, who joined the effort to find Phillips and Pereira a few days after their disappearance was reported.
President Jair Bolsonaro, a frequent critic of journalists and Indigenous experts, has drawn criticsm that the government didn't get involved fast enough. Earlier on Wednesday, he criticized Phillips in an interview, saying without evidence that locals in the area where he went missing didn't like him and that he should have been more careful in the region.
The efforts to find the two were started by Indigenous peoples in the region. UNIVAJA, an association of Indigenous peoples of the Javari Valley, mourned the loss of “two partners” in a statement Wednesday, adding they only had help and protection from local police.