Needles attack on boy was 'revenge'

A Brazilian man has publicly confessed to pushing dozens of needles into his two-year-old stepson, saying in a jail cell interview that he intended to kill the boy out of spite for his wife and didn't think he would be discovered. A Brazilian man has publicly confessed to pushing dozens of needles into his two-year-old stepson, saying in a jail cell interview that he intended to kill the boy out of spite for his wife and didn't think he would be discovered. Speaking to Globo television's Fantastico programme from the north-eastern state of Bahia, 30-year-old bricklayer Roberto Carlos Magalhaes described mixing water with wine to dope the child before he and his lover held the boy down and stuck sewing needles into him. "I did this two or three times a week during one month," Magalhaes said. The boy was too drunk on the wine mixture to cry while he inserted the needles, he said, but felt the pain after the alcohol wore off. "It was truly an unbearable suffering," said Magalhaes. "It was to get back at the boy's mother. I thought the needles would work their way through his body and kill the boy. It was a way to kill without anyone discovering." But the pain led the toddler to complain to his mother, and on December 10 she took him to a hospital where X-rays revealed about 30 needles lodged throughout his body. The boy underwent a five-hour operation in the city of Salvador on Friday to remove four rusty needles that most threatened his life, near his heart and in his lungs. On Sunday doctors said the child is doing well and it is likely he will undergo two more surgeries, the next one on Wednesday at the earliest, to extract needles up to two inches long from his abdomen and spine. Along with Magalhaes, police believe his lover, Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos, was also seeking revenge on Magalhaes' wife. The bricklayer told detectives that dos Santos would enter into trances and give him commands to insert the needles, police inspector Helder Fernandes Santana said. Magalhaes and dos Santos were both arrested, though no charges have yet been filed. They were taken to an undisclosed location for their own protection after a mob threw stones at the police station where they were being held.