Authorities knew
Man locks family in home for 17 years
7/30/2022 5:02 am
For 17 years, a Brazilian has kept his wife and two children captive in a house. Two years ago, neighbors alerted the authorities, but they took their time. When the police finally freed the family, the sons were 19 and 22 years old. The malnourished young men look like children.
In Brazil, a man is said to have held his wife and two sons in his home like prisoners for 17 years. The police arrested the man following an anonymous tip in the poor district of Guaratiba in western Rio de Janeiro and freed the family, the authorities said. According to the police, the two sons were “tied up, dirty and malnourished”.
She and her mother were taken to a hospital, dehydrated and starving. According to media reports, the sons are 19 and 22 years old, look up images published by Brazilian media but look like children or teenagers.
According to the news portal “G1”, the mother told the authorities that she and her sons sometimes had nothing to eat for three days and were constantly exposed to physical and psychological violence. The man she had been with for 23 years wouldn’t let his wife work and his sons wouldn’t go to school. “You have to stay with me until the end, you’ll only get out of here dead,” he is said to have told his wife.
The neighbors called him “DJ”
“We saw the condition the two children came out in and I don’t think they would have survived another week,” a Guaratiba resident told G1. The mother was so weak that she might not speak.
Neighbors told media the man was nicknamed “DJ” because he always played loud music – presumably to cover calls for help from his family. Residents also said they had alerted the authorities two years ago, but they only acted now. Since the police did not react at first, the neighbors occasionally secretly provided the mother and two sons with food. According to “G1”, the man will have to answer for kidnapping, torture and ill-treatment, among other things.
