Last week, Brazilian soccer star Daniel Correa Freitas, 24, was found dead in Sao Jose dos Pinhais in Brazil’s southern state of Parana. Reports indicated that he was nearly decapitated and his genitals “severed.” In a stunning public statement, a suspect, businessman Edison Brittes Jr., told the Brazilian press that he murdered Freitas — and that “any man” would have done the same.
Brittes, 38, told Brasil Urgente program on TV Bandeirantes that he killed the San Paolo midfielder after finding him in his underwear attempting to rape his wife. The rape allegedly took place at Brittes’s home during the birthday party of his 18-year-old daughter, Allana.
Brittes says that he found Freitas in his underwear on top of his wife in their bedroom and that she was “screaming and begging for help,” The Sun reports.
“[Freitas] had gone in, taken his clothes off and locked the door,” he said. “I knocked on the door to my room and when I opened it he was on top of my wife and she was screaming and begging for help. What I did was what any man would do, because the woman that was there was not my wife, she was every woman in Brazil. It could be your daughter, sister, mother or wife. At that moment it was my wife, Cris, who I have been married to for 20 years.”
In response to rumors about Freitas having romantic relationships with his wife and daughter, Brittes said, “The media said a lot of things. My wife never had anything with Daniel, never mind my daughter. Rumors always get started but the truth will come out. I know I did what I did, I want everybody watching to think what they would do to keep the moral integrity of your family and help a small and fragile woman.”
He added: “When I threw him off my wife, I threw him on the floor and stopped her being raped by that monstrous scumbag.”
Local media has reported that Freitas sent messages to a friend prior to the party declaring that he was going “to eat” the “birthday’s girl’s mom.” Photos posted online appear to show the soccer player lying next to an unconscious Cristiana. Trome reports (translation via Google):
Daniel Correa Freitas was invited by the daughter of his murderer to his party of 18 years, he even took a photograph on his social networks before being killed by his father. Later, the soccer player went up to the room where Edson Brittes Júnior’s wife was and when he found her asleep, he began to take pictures and shared them with a friend, who, scared, warned him that they were going to throw him out of the place.
Apparently, Freitas had other intentions with the woman and when she realized it she began to scream. The businessman struggled through the door and according to his statement “he was on top of my wife and she was screaming and asking for help”. At that time, he took the athlete and started hitting him. … Freitas , apparently with the help of other people, is taken to the trunk of the employer’s car and he drives to a place far from his home. The soccer player is brutally beaten and tortured again.
“Edison’s friends allegedly tried to stop him from attacking the Sao Paulo star — who belonged to a club in the equivalent of the Premier League — but ‘they could not do it’ because he was angry,” The Sun reports.
Police detained Edison, Cristiana and their daughter Allana as suspects. Allana reportedly told local media that she heard screaming from her mother’s room and denied ever being “involved” with Daniel, whom she said she met last year.
Police say that Freitas was found with “two deep cuts in his neck, his head was almost decapitated and his genitals were cut.”