Danelo Cavalcante

família. Meu pai também nunca mais foi o mesmo. Ficou muito assim . . . aéreo. Ainda dói, né.” (“My mother was finished. After her son died, she was never the same. She cried a lot, she became different. It destroyed our family. My father was never the same either. He became very . . . airy. It still hurts.”) (Lauris and Rehbein 2023) With all the heartbreak that ensued in the tragedy, one thing was for certain: Justice needed to be served. Brazilian law enforcement launched an investigation into Moreira’s murder, interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence related to the crime. Police suspected that Danelo Cavalcante was the perpetrator after several eyewitness reports corroborated his presence at the crime scene. Locals in the community described Moreira and Cavalcante as friends despite their opposing nature. While many described Moreira as upbeat and sociable, others described Cavalcante as quieter, with one neighbor saying that “he kept to himself, didn’t talk

much. He didn’t look you in the eye.” (Ionova 2023) Reportedly, many locals in the tight-knit community were even afraid of Cavalcante, claiming that he had a reputation for keeping guns at his family’s ranch on the outskirts of Figueirópolis. Law enforcement probed deeper into the motive of the murder, deducing that it had occurred over a supposed vehicle-repair debt that Moreira owed to Cavalcante. Moreira had damaged a car that Cavalcante had lent him and had never paid for the repairs. The friendship

It was thought that Cavalcante kept guns at his father’s ranch. This caused unease in the community.

17

The Murder of Valter Júnior Moreira dos Reis