A former pro cage fighter who shot his wife dead in front of their baby son and then went for dinner with her family has been sentenced to just 14 years in prison.
Accused Luis Lima dos Santos, 45, was found guilty of femicide and was handed the minimum sentence for the crime during a final hearing at the Barra Funda Forum, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 21st November.
Dos Santos was arrested in November 2022 after he gunned down his 26-year-old wife, teacher Ellida Tuane Ferreira da Silva Santos, at their home.
The gym owner had initially told police she had vanished on her way to the Tiete Bus Station to catch a coach to Campinas, in the state of Sao Paulo, to visit her mother.
Police seized Dos Santos after her body was found wrapped in plastic and dumped near a stream in Sao Paulo’s Itaquera neighbourhood.
Investigators found she had been shot four times and her hands and feet had been bound.
Horrific CCTV footage from the couple’s apartment block apparently shows the ex-fighter wheeling his wife’s body to the family car.
It is understood he used the car to transport the body to the creek.
Police said he left the building in the early hours of 6th November with the body and returned home four hours later with his baby son.
Residents of the block later told police they had heard gunshots but had not thought of reporting it at the time.
Ellida’s brother, Valdir Anderson Lima, took to social media to state that he had known all along that Dos Santos was behind his sister’s murder.
He wrote that he “killed her in front of her baby and even went to my family’s home for lunch”.
Police chief Bruno Cogan previously said there were indications that the motive was jealousy.
Ellida and Dos Santos had been together for three years and had married in September 2021.
He admitted to killing her but claimed it was in self-defence.
He was sentenced to 12 years for the murder, another year for hiding a corpse and another year for falsifying a police report.
Prosecutor Antonio Nobre Folgado, from the 4th Jury Court of the Capital, did not agree with the verdict.
He said the court had dismissed additional allegations against Dos Santos which would add to the crime and prove there was a motive.
Folgado added that he would appeal the decision to try to increase the sentence to at least 16 years.
