Chapter 80: The Cost of Infatuation-The Murder of Alex Ferreira

0:00 Hi guys, I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead. Brought to you by dark Cast Network insie Podcasts with a twist. Hey, they're true crime fans. Are you looking for a podcast that combines your love of crime stories with a good laugh, Look no further than the ODFM podcast. Odfm is the podcast that brings you true crime and comedy in a way you've never heard before. It's hosted by the dynamic duo of Kelly Devrez and Jenna Swanson, the kinds of friends who make inappropriate jokes and laugh at times they probably shouldn't. Kelly and Jenna take you on a wild ride with their unique blend of humor and gripping storytelling.

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1:41 Yes, I hope you enjoy this. I really really hope you enjoy this. I hope you enjoyed the content. Your card will be in the mail this weekend because we sent everyone thank you notes and stickers and all that fun stuff. So in other news, it was on their radio. I was on wq Radio this past Wednesday subbing in for someone on the network that we're a part of, and it was a lot of fun, and they asked me to come back and do a monthly true crime segment. So on October nineteenth, I will be back talking true crime and it was a lot of fun. I hope you guys listen to that. But it'll be the third Thursday of October. I think that's the nineteenth at nine am Eastern time, and you can listen online, but I'll try and put a link if I can find it, so you guys could listen if you are so inclined.

2:36 But anyway, we're going to jump right in and The story I have for you today is one that I don't think anyone has ever really talked about. In fact, I only found two articles about this, and they were basically carbon copies of each other. But I think it's a story that needs to be told about how dangerous young love, however misguided, can be. I normally like did you deep dives and provide longer episodes, because I feel like, if you're going to talk about a case, you should have a lot of information to back it up. But these two articles were all I could find on this case, which is unfortunate, but a story that should be told. Nonetheless, this is the story of the murder of Alex Ferira.

3:23 Alex Ferrara was a thirty three year old man from Yatai, southern Guaya State in Brazil. According to medium dot com, this particular area is known for its production of agricultural products, and Alex also had a young daughter about twelve or thirteen years old, depending on the publication, from a previous relationship, as well as a brand new wife, twenty year old Malee Helen Cravallo. Not gonna lie side eyeing that relationship a little bit, but I digress. Not relevant to the story has nothing to do with it. Now, Alex's daughter did not live with him. She lived with her grandmother, but she was just down the block from her father, and she would visit Alex and Maylee regularly. Now, ordinarily, when introducing a new significant other to a young child, the parent can be nervous about this, which is totally normal. You're introducing a new parental figure in your child's life. But Alex didn't have this problem. Maylee and his daughter got along fabulously, and Alex was thrilled, as I'm sure any parent would be, that their child has openly accepted this new parental figure into their life. Okay, so that the wife is twenty, yes, he's thirty two, thirty three, thirty three excuse me, sorry about that one. So there's a thirteen year age difference there, and the daughter is either twelve or thirteen. Yeah, depending this, I believe the son said she was twelve, the mirror said she was

4:53 thirteen. Either way, very very young, barely a teenager. Okay, so the stepmom is more like a big sister to the twelve or thirteen year old. Yeah, she's only like, it's only like a seven year age different race, just clarifying that for my own brain. However, Alex's delight would soon turn into misgivings about his daughter's relationship with his new wife. Okay, why is that? Well? According to The Mirror in November of twenty twenty, after trying to figure out why he was feeling so unsure about his daughter and how quick she had taken to Maylee, he allegedly found text messages and a letter his daughter had written to her stepmother, and they were, needless to say, very concerning. According to this letter, Alex's daughter professes her love for Meilee and begs her to leave Alex that they could live together.

5:53 I'm a little confused here. I'm not confused. Okay, let's clarify that way. I'm not confused about what is the I guess okay, I'm confused about why this young child is writing a letter to the stepmom saying, leave my dad and we're gonna go live. You know, we should go live together. I don't know if this is more of a she's viewing the stepmom as a big sister kind of thing. She's living with her grandmother. Yes, okay, it's just a little confusing, like the relationship is married, and I wish I had more details, but I don't. Now it's said that this love was a platonic love, so I don't know if it's you know, I just I love mainly, like so much better than my dad. I wish she was my mom, Like I want to just live with her, not my dad. I don't know what kind of relationship she had with her father. I'm not no, Well, I was just going on the you know, she's this, she's looking up to this young woman twenty years old, you know, looking up to this young woman as a big sister. That's why I keep going back to this big sister thing, only because there isn't that huge of an age difference between the stepmom and the young daughter well exactly, so I don't know what their dynamic was, but

7:28 that's kind of what I would think. But it's it's either way. It's it's concerning for this young girl to be telling her stepmother to leave her dad so that they can live together, just the two of them. Like it's bizarre. Well, I think so too, But again, you know, you're talking about a child, and I'm not saying that adult feelings are not intense, but a child who's kind of I'll say, latched onto one person, you know. And again it could be it could be a friend's mom, you know, it could be a big sister of a friend, that same kind of you know, I love this person. They're so nice to me. You know, I wish I could be with them because I guess, you know, maybe living with Grandma isn't I'm not saying that the grandmother did anything wrong. Please, people do not get that wrong. The grandmother dad or just knowing that her she's kind of floating in between grandma's house and her dad's house. Yeah, no, I get what you're saying. It's I don't know, it could be really for any reason, because they didn't provide those details, so it's really up to speculation for your own interpretation.

8:43 Yeah. What's even more interesting is that a family member told the Mirror that quote. The girl's popul love had been going on for several months and was an open secret among family members, so obviously she was not hiding how she felt about maye mm hmm. But I also get why the family kind of just thought it as a phase, Like she's twelve or thirteen, right, and children go through a lot of phases. You know, there are kids that I don't know, for a solid couple of weeks, the only thing they want to eat is I don't know, bloney, And then for the next couple of weeks, so like, nah, I no, don't want a blowny sandwich, mom, forget it, don't want that in my lunch box. Yeah. I think we all go through phases though. Yeah, and you know, typically this wouldn't necessarily be anything to be concerned about if it stayed a phase and she grew out of this phase. Now, obviously, Alex is shocked by this and probably furious, so he approaches his daughter and scolds her. He tells her how inappropriate her feelings are and how she's misguided in her feelings for Maylee, which honestly is the exact way or response to something like that. I think that was the exact appropriate response. Well, I think you have to be careful though, because young children, the more you say, you know, don't do that, the more they want to do. Yeah. No, and I'm not talking about this, it

10:16 could be anything. No. Yeah, and I get what you're saying about that, and I agree. I'm just saying, like his reaction to it to be like, no, we need to put a stop to this. Oh, absolutely, definitely the correct response for her part. Maylee, according to the Sun, said, after being made aware of her stepdaughter's feelings, she made it clear to her that she loved Alex very much and just wanted to be a good mother figure to her stepdaughter, which is again a completely rational appropriate response. Oh yeah, and explaining it that way is perfectly fine. There's no again, you're talking about a twelve or thirteen year old, so kind of be careful with how you approach it. But I think that was a perfect, perfect way, absolutely, Except Alex's daughter did not think so. She was furious. She ran off back home to her grandmother's and according to that article in the Sun, she was really festering about this and was holding this grudge against her father, and within twenty four hours the grudge would boil over with devastating results. This is where the other shoe drops, isn't it. Yes, So the next evening, this young girl drank a few cans of beer to work up the courage to go back to her father's home. A twelve or thirteen year old is having a couple of cans of beer, Well, what I'm thinking is is she probably snuck that beer like out of the frame. Well, you're out of it. I'm sure nobody

11:48 handed it. No, But what I'm saying is, I'm sure she did not have necessarily like I'm sure she had relatively easy access. She's like, I'm just gonna take this because I'm so angry and i just want to drink and to build up the courage. Okay, I'm stuck on the whole beer drinking for a twelve or thirteen year old, but then again, that's a normal parrot response. So after drinking, she leaves her grandmother's home and walks the block to her father's banging on the door. Now the details are a bit fuzzy, but I'm assuming it was pretty late because she allegedly woke up Malee and her father with the banging on the door. So Maylee gets up and opens the door to find her stepdaughter standing there. Now, Alex's daughter told Melee how sorry she was for how she had acted and the way that she spoke to her father, and she had come over to apologize and make things right. Okay, well that sounds good, but again I'm waiting for that shoe would you like to drop unexpectedly. Maine told her that Alex was sleeping. She knew he would happily get up so that he and his daughter could talk and make amends, and she welcomes her stepdaughter into their home.

13:00 This would be a catastrophic mistake. So this young girl walked into her father's home and headed into his bedroom. Mayie came in behind her, and as Alex rose to sit up, his daughter pulled out a knife, lunged forward, and stabbed her father in the chest. Okay, I was gonna say where did she get the knife, but I'm sure she grabbed it from the kitchen of her grandmother's house. Yeah, it seems like she was like fighting it, like maybe in her shirt or something. So Alex's daughter immediately runs out of the house after attacking her father, and the police in an ambulance were called. Alex was transported to doctor Saraphind at Cavalo Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Oh my god. Police meanwhile found the knife in the house that Alex's daughter had abandoned, covered in blood, and police didn't have to actually look very long to find his daughter. They found her sitting outside her grandmother's house. Now, when police asked her what happened, she confessed to stabbing her father, telling police quote that she had fallen in love with her stepmother and was jealous of her relationship with her dad. She also said she quote had lost it after arguing with her dad, who threatened to prevent her from visiting them as she continued with her infatuation, which is, according to that article from The Mirror, this young girl stabs her father to death because she I want to say, it's a puppy love thing for

14:33 her stepmom. Yeah, and he was in the way of that. That's a tragedy on all levels. She was arrested and transferred to a juvenile detention facility, where at the time the article was written in November twenty twenty, she was facing charges of murder. Now, under Brazilian law, her age required her to potentially be sentenced to a maximum three year sentence with socio educational measures to rehabilitate her back into society. So if she were to be convicted and tried as an adult, she would only serve three years max. Because she's a child. Yeah, because she's a child, and I'm sure I mean, when you look at like children who kill. It's actually very rare, rare parricide, you know, because there's Patrick's side, Mattri's side, and parricide, which is the killing of one or both of your parents.

15:26 It's rare. It's like two percent of all homicides are committed by children against their parents. And usually it has to do with extreme abuse or extreme like emotional problems, which was not the at least not so far that you have told me. Is the case here exactly? And those are all the details I have, Like that's the end of the case. I don't know any updates. I don't know if she was sentenced because she is not named. She is a minor, so you know, getting the details just based on that. You can't search up a name. You search up Alex's name and there's actually an Olympic gold medalist or an Olympian maybe not a gold medalist with the same name. So that's really all that comes up is this Olympians.

16:18 It's very hard to find any articles for this. I found two and that medium article which is just the compilation of both the Sign of the Mirror article, right, So I don't know any other details, but it seems as if this was a young girl that just didn't know how to control how she was feeling well at that young age. Most don't, exactly, most children don't. They're mad, you know about I don't know. And I'm using this as just an example a probably in a very bad way. But you know, you tell your child, no, you can't do X, and they're furious with you and why can't I? Why can't I? And I want to do this? And they're you know, stopping around the house or wherever you happen to be, and they're basically having a mini meltdown because you said no as a parent or a guardian or you know, whoever they happen to be with. And then two minutes later or ten minutes later, that's gone and they've moved on to something else. You know, No, you can't watch this TV show and they're mad, and then they find something to play with and they're happy again. It's the emotions, just they switch on and off like a light switch, like regulate it. They don't know how, they don't yet, they don't have the capacity to regulate their emotions appropriately.

17:49 And I think this was kind of the same situation. She did not understand how to regulate that anger that she was feeling towards her dad. It was, you know, I love mainly dads in the way, do something about it kind of thing. I don't, you know, I doubt this was. You know, this wasn't like a premeditated thing. I think this was premeditated in the sense that, like, you know, she drank the beer, grabbed the knife, walk to her dad's and like didn't think about it, like was like I'm going to do this. But this was within twenty four hours of getting into that bad argument with her dad, where like I'm going to prevent you from coming to my home if you don't stop.

18:34 But I don't think this was. Look, I don't know any more details than you do, Okay, I don't think it was. I want to say, I don't think she planned to stab him. She may have planned to threaten him, but I think this was just a reaction, I split second reaction. I don't think. I don't and I should have said, like premeditated. It was definitely like she was just this was all just a reaction of her anger. In my opinion, Like, I don't think she went there to kill her dad. I think she went there and brought the knife because she was angry, like, I'm so angry I could hurt him kind of thing. I'm so angry, I'm going to show him that he can't prevent this, Like, I'm not going to allow this in her you know, in her mind, I'm not going to allow this where I can't see the person that I love and I want to be with, you know.

19:33 I mean, how many times you hear kids that will run away because a parent or a guardian will say to one, you can't see this person anymore because they're a bad influence on Oh, and they're older, but they'll run away. I mean, how many times you hear a little kid they get mad and I'm running away and they get to the corner and know that they can't cross street kind of thing, and then they come home. So it's it's the child stage, you know, they're they're oh, absolutely, and that's like one of the like, being prevented from being with someone that they love or want to be with is one of the causes of parricide, you know, in that rare moment that it does happen. But it also makes me wonder if this was her response at twelve or thirteen, What would her response be at like sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Oh, absolutely, I think this young girl needs counseling to, you know, maybe deal with whatever is going on in her life that she's I want to say, lashing out. Now, this happens to be she loved her stepmom and she wanted to be with her, you know where dad wasn't there. Because again, I'm thinking it's more like a big sister kind of love. That's what I would like to think, Like, this is my cool big sister, and

21:04 like if we live together just ourselves, like we can like one big slumber party, we can stay up and we can watch movies together, and we can do this. So we can do that and there's no dad making me go to bed, I'm making me go to school, Leave me go to school. It would be just us against the world kind of thing. That's what I would like to think, Because at like twelve or thirteen, you don't have the capacity to understand what being in real love is. So I'm hoping you so, I'm just I wasn't talking about you know, a love that you know you have for a partner or a spouse. It's oh no, but this is the big sister. You know, it's really cool.

21:45 I mean, you know, if you're if you have siblings and you have if you're not the oldest, and you happen to be, you know, a younger sibling, you have an older sibling, Yeah, it's really cool to hang out with an older sibling. It's really fun. You know, if they have their driver's license and they take you for a ride in their car for ice cream or whatever it happens to be, or they take your shopping. It's a lot of fun and you kind of want to have that, you know, all the time. So I understand. But this young girl, I believe, in my own opinion, needs counseling to deal with. I don't know if there's stressors in her life, maybe between you know, living at grandma's and going to dad's and back and forth. I know it was close, but it's still you're all not under the same roof kind of thing. So maybe what's what she's allowed to do with Grandma's isn't what she's allowed to do with Dad's or vice versa, you know, or if she's if dad is out and step mom is around, and you know, well heck, I don't want to have this for dinner, and the stepmom goes, hey, let's get a pizza. Yeah, yeah, whatever it happened, you know, I agree what you're saying. With what you're saying, it's it was most likely kind of like a I doubt she probably even really saw her as a stepmom. Because Malee was so young. It probably was like a big sister thing and like, you know, she's so cool

23:15 and like I wanted to just be us and you know that, which you know is normal for like a young girl. I do think that that was probably like the kind of love she had and she just took it to this devastating level. I don't think she Look, I don't have all of the facts. I am not the parent of this child. I don't know, but I don't think that she really meant to harm him in that way. Yeah. I think it was just a I don't know, like you react.

23:56 You know, maybe something startled her, I don't know, and she lashed out. Yeah. No, I get what you're saying. And it's rare that you have like a case where you like almost want to sympathize with the killer, but it's like in this instance, there's there's another one where the killer is a young girl and you you do sympathize with her, which it's a case that well, we might cover because it's a case that interests me very much. But I believe it's her name was Cinnamon Brown, and she was coerced into murdering I think her mother by her father. I don't remember the exact details. I have to look into it, but either way, it's like you sympathize with her. Yeah, she was probably manipulated.

24:37 She was. And this is another case like not that this young girl was manipulated into anything, but you you almost want to sympathize with her because you know, at twelve years old, she's killed her father's she's lost her father by her own hands because of potentially this rage that she did know how to control and is something she has to live with her for the rest of her exactly. I'm not saying she shouldn't be punished because her actions warrant punishment. Absolutely, I do not think that. You know, I guess in Brazil it's a three year maximum sentence. Do I think that she deserves three years the maximum? Yes, I do, but I hope in that time that she has given the help that she needs, because again, she's going to have to live with the fact that she has taken her father's life for the rest of her life. She's going to have to know that and deal with that for the rest of her life. So I can empathize or sympathize with her being a young child and not understanding the repercussions of her actions. I agree because this isn't one of those cases is where you have like a child's killer and they're so evil and they've had these red flags. Based on my account, I mean, the only I said, the family member said,

26:11 you know, it was puppy love. We thought she'd go out of it. None of them ever gave any sort of red flag in their quotes that in those articles like yeah, she had behavioral problems, or she had this, or that you know, it was puppy love. So I don't think she was a child with behavioral issues that was like a ticking time bomb. I just think this was a girl that didn't know how to control her rage and it results in this, and she does have to live with that for the rest of her life. It's a terrible tragedy. It is. It's really sad. And I'm sorry the case was so short for you guys, but you got kind of like a case and then you know some dialogue along with it, which I don't do very often where we kind of dissect a little bit because usually the case are too long to do that. So you got a little bit of both. But I'm hoping once we get some more patrons on, we can do like a live kind of deal, like live episode. I think that would be cool, or maybe we'll just do when we record one of our episodes, we'll just do it live for you guys, and then everyone else gets to listen to it regular like on like a regular Sunday kind of thing, but you guys get it live. And again, welcome to Jen. We're really excited you're here, our little Patroon family.

27:34 But yeah, and I'm working on some spooky merch for Halloween, and we have some really really cool interviews coming up with some law enforcement officers, some retired special agents. We have a special one coming up with actually a survivor of a crime. So some cool stuff sometimes, though I will let you know if you hadn't heard that most of those interviews are done on Courtney's day off and that is usually during the week, and during the week I am at work, So if I'm not there, it's not that I don't want to be there, because some of these people are absolutely fascinating to talk to, but work schedule, you know, prevents me from doing those things.

28:33 Yes, it's not that I don't want her there, but she doesn't need me anyway. Oh stop anyway, Thank you guys. We love you guys, and we'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead, and don't forget that you can always connect with us on Instagram, you can connect with us on Twitter, and you can absolutely connect with us on Patreon. We also have a March store as well that we have frequent discount codes coming out for so that you guys can get March hand drawn by myself at a better cost. We hope you have a lovely rest of your week, and just remember, please be kind and don't forget to always stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant. Bye guys, Bye,