US Nun Read Bible Just Before Her Murder in Brazil
Date: 25-Feb-05
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Angus MacSwan
As she lay on the muddy ground, Stang's killer pumped several more bullets into her body, setting off an international furor over the slaying of the 73-year-old activist American nun.
On Thursday police reconstructed the crime with the assistance of the confessed gunman, Rayfran das Neves Salas, and his accomplice, Clodoaldo Carlos Batista, to verify their accounts of how Stang died.
The two say they were paid 50,000 reais, or about $19,300, by a rancher to kill Stang. She had campaigned for decades against illegal logging and tried to stop ranchers from encroaching on state-run peasant settlements.
"We are checking both versions. ... They are practically the same, just a few details," said Savio Bravo, the federal prosecutor overseeing the case. "The investigation is almost finished."
Yellow and black crime-scene tape was stretched across lush jungle foliage as federal troops in jungle warfare garb guarded the perimeter, keeping back curious onlookers from the nearby community of Esperanca -- Portuguese for "hope."
A wooden cross marked the spot where Stang fell.
'SHE WAS HELPING US'
"They were waiting for her nearby," said Vicente Suera, whose tiny wood and palm leaf hut is about 1,300 feet (400 metres) from where Stang died. She spent her last night on his floor.
"She was helping us as she always did," Suera said.
Roselene Silva, a lawyer for the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission, played Stang during the re-enactment. One by one, Salas and Batista walked police through the murder.
According to their re-enactment, the men approached Stang on the jungle path at around 8 a.m. on Feb. 12 as Stang walked to a community meeting. They exchanged words, and as she walked away, Salas called out to her.
Stang turned around. Salas pointed his .38-caliber revolver.
At that moment Stang held out her arms and began reading from the Bible. Standing less than a couple of feet (a half metre) away, Salas shot her, and as she lay on the ground, pumped several more bullets into her.
Embarrassed by Stang's murder, the Brazilian government has sent thousands of troops into the area around the town of Altamira in Para state, a region known for its frontier-like lawlessness.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has ordered a crackdown on crime and the killing of rural workers and land rights activists, who, like Stang, have received death threats for years with virtually no police protection.
"Brazil is not a no-man's land," Lula said this week.