Teen 'murdered' 12 people
2008-03-29 09:16
Rio De Janeiro - Police on Friday said they were investigating a 16-year-old boy's claim that he had murdered 12 people since November.
The teen was arrested last week on suspicion of homicide and made the startling killing-spree claim during interrogation, said Enizaldo Plentz, police commissioner of Novo Hamburgo, a town in southern Brazil.
"The number of murders could be higher or lower" than 12, Plentz told said.
"As of now we know that he is implicated in at least six murders. Perhaps he invented some of the murders," said Plentz, who described the adolescent as "deranged".
Plentz said the youth spoke in a "totally natural way" about the murders, and that they had been committed for "trivial reasons".
"He told me that he killed one man because he flirted with his girlfriend. He shot another who gave him a blow to the ear. He gave these kinds of justifications" for the murders, Plentz said.
The youth, whose identity had not been revealed because he was a minor, was being detained at a socio-educational center.
He lived in one of the most violent neighborhoods of Novo Hamburgo, a small community 40km from Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state.