A little girl was found dead inside a garbage dump near her home in Brazil, after local child protection services received 20 phone calls from a neighbour concerned about her well-being.
Nine-year-old Kerollyn Ferreira had a history of being allegedly abused by her mother, Carla Souza, who was arrested on Saturday, a day after the tragic discovery in Guaíba, Rio Grande do Sul.
Souza was placed in preventive detention for 30 days after a judge approved the request by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which said there was sufficient evidence to show that Souza had made previous comments about Ferreira’s murder.
Fernanda Cardoso told Brazilian media outlet G1 that she sent a photograph of the boy to the Guaíba Child Protection Council on several occasions, but that nothing was done to save Ferreira from his mother’s wrath.
Kerollyn Ferreira (pictured) was found dead inside a garbage container near her home in Guaíba, Brazil, last Friday.
The lifeless body of nine-year-old Kerollyn Ferreira was found in a garbage container near her home in Guaíba, a city in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil.
“I called more than 20 times, asking them to please resolve the problem,” Cardoso said. “I sent a photo of the child, I sent everything.”
‘The girl in the rain, begging. She was always at my door begging. She asked for water, a hug, a kiss.’
Cardoso last spoke to an agency worker a week before Ferreira was killed and was told someone was investigating the allegations.
Ferreira’s body was seen inside the large plastic container on Friday, but it showed no signs of violence, according to court documents reviewed by the outlet.
A police report said Souza subjected Ferreira to physical and mental abuse.
“Regarding the request for provisional imprisonment, I consider that the order is adequate and sufficient for the continuation of the investigations and the determination of the authorship of the crime of homicide, currently under investigation,” wrote Judge João Leal Jr. as part of his decision.
A police officer assigned to the Military Police of the State of Rio Grande do Sul visited the girl’s residence, where Souza acknowledged that she was Ferreira’s mother and stated that she did not sleep at the house on Thursday.
Souza showed no signs of concern when she was told her daughter had been found dead and then became upset when police singled her out as a possible suspect.
Matheus Ferreira with his daughter Kerollyn Ferreira, who was allegedly murdered by her mother and abandoned in a garbage container last Friday
The Guaíba Child Protection Council was contacted more than 20 times by a neighbor concerned about the well-being of Kerollyn Ferreira. The nine-year-old girl was found dead inside a garbage dump last Friday
The head of the Civil Police of Rio Grande do Sul, Fernando Sodré, said that Ferreira “lived freely, abandoned, even sleeping in an abandoned car, many times, which was near the house and the school.”
Ferreira’s father, Matheus Ferreira, told G1 that she lived with him for the first few months of her life and then until she was seven years old, before returning to live with Souza.
She said she had no knowledge of her daughter’s abuse and asked Souza to allow Ferreira to live with him if she believed he could not care for her.
“The girl was sleeping on the street, the girl was eating food from the garbage, the neighbors told me,” said Matheus Ferreira. “It was a situation I was not aware of, I had no knowledge of what was happening.”
“I always told her (Souza) clearly: ‘Man, if you don’t want to take care of the girl, if you don’t have patience, then give her to me, let her stay with me, I’ll take care of her and there’s no problem,'” he said. “But she never wanted it, she never accepted it.”
A joint report released Tuesday by the Brazilian Public Security Forum and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) concluded that 15,101 minors were killed between 2021 and 2023 in the South American nation.
At least 91.6 percent of the victims were between 15 and 19 years old and 82.9 percent of the total were black children.