WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT. A nine-year-old girl was found tied up in the cellar of a shop in Brazil after police heard her screams and she said that she had been abused by the owner who was lynched by a mob
Brazil: Police save young girl from alleged abductor
A screaming girl was found tied up in a Fritzl-style dungeon before an angry mob beat her captor to death.
Footage shows desperate police officers frantically searching for the kidnapped nine-year-old child, whose cries could heard, before eventually finding her hidden in a secret room under beer crates
The youngster had disappeared while playing in the Parque dos Presidentes neighbourhood of Tramandaa, near Sao Paulo, Brazil, on February 25. And shortly after she was freed she pointed out her alleged kidnapper as 61-year-old Marco Antonio Bocker Jacob who was lynched by locals.
The nine year old’s family and neighbours had immediately begun searching, distributing flyers and using a sound car to broadcast her disappearance after she went missing. Suspicion had already fallen on Bocker Jacob, the owner of a nearby convenience store, after he refused to provide security footage to the youngster’s father to help find her.
It is alleged that Bocker Jacob had lured the girl to his shop with an ice lolly before keeping her in a concrete hole with a trap door which was blocked by beer crates. Police officers were called to the shop and hearing the girl’s cries, they found her in the cellar a day after she disappeared with her hands bound.
Body camera footage captured the tense moments as officers removed the obstacles to free her. Following her rescue, she tearfully indicated that the shop owner had abused her by pointing and screaming: “It was him, he abused me.” She was then handed over to her family while a furious crowd of around 50 people gathered by the shop and began to throw objects at it. They forcibly entered the store where they attacked Bocker Jacob.
Police tried to control the situation with rubber bullets and tear gas but the alleged kidnapper was badly injured and he died from his injuries. Sgt Christian Pacheco told local media: “We pulled her up by the arm, and she went straight into a colleague’s arms.
“We successfully got her out of there, placed her in an unmarked vehicle with her family, and took her to the emergency care unit for initial treatment.” The child is now being given psychological support after her ordeal. Her mother said: “I’ll give her whatever she wants. I’ll do everything I can to make her happy and help her forget this.”
Bocker Jacob had a criminal history, including convictions for femicide, drug trafficking, vehicle theft, animal cruelty, and assault. The local authorities have started an investigation into both the kidnapping and the subsequent lynching.
