At 19:30 on May 19, 2012, Marcos Kitano Matsunaga went down to buy a pizza in Sao Paulo. It was the last time anyone saw him alive. Between then and 5 in the morning, his wife Elize shot him dead, dragged the body, cut it up with a knife, and distributed it among three suitcases.
Elize, raised in poverty in Chopinzinho and a victim of sexual exploitation at 15, had met Marcos years earlier while working as an escort under the pseudonym Kelly. They married in 2009. Three years later, she drove toward Paraná with the suitcases, passed a Federal Highway Police checkpoint without them checking the trunk, and then turned back toward Sao Paulo to dispose of the body.
She was sentenced to 19 years, 11 months, and one day in prison. She served ten at the Santa Maria Eufrásia Pelletier Women’s Penitentiary in Tremembé and was released on parole in May 2022. Today she lives in Franca, works making clothes for pets, and no longer has contact with her daughter, who was left in the care of her paternal grandparents.