A gunman has shot dead a convicted paedophile just hours after he was released from prison.
Joao Ferreira da Silva, 46, received a 42-year prison sentence for sexually abusing and murdering a nine-year-old boy in 2005.
He was murdered on a street in Sinop, a city in central Brazil, on Wednesday, December 10.
Ferreira da Silva had just began an ‘open prison’ regime, only requiring him to return to the jail at night.
He’d spent 17 years behind bars for the murder of Bruno Aparecido dos Santos, a baby he lured to an industrial site to sexually abuse.
Ferreira da Silva then killed and buried him, before being arrested ten days later for attacking one other child.
In CCTV footage, two masked men walk past Ferreira da Silva who’s stood outside a door.
Local police found three bullet casings on the scene and launched an investigation, in keeping with local media.
When Ferreira da Silva was first taken into police custody, around 500 people tried to force their way into the police station to lynch him.
He confessed to his sickening crime before backtracking at his trial, claiming he wasn’t involved.
Bruno’s mum Josiana da Silva said she was ‘completely happy’ about Ferreira da Silva’s death.
‘I’m completely happy not for my son, my son died and there isn’t a way back, but I’m completely happy that this man won’t kill anyone else, no child can be killed by him,’ she said.
She added in an interview with a neighborhood TV station: ‘Justice has been done, but for me it took too long.
‘I had the courage to go and see the person who killed my son when he was tried but I regretted it because I used to be stuffed with hatred and desired to kill him.
‘I assumed I wouldn’t have the courage to kill him, but today, seeing him dead, I do know that if I had had the chance to kill him, I might have done so, as a mother.’
Saying she missed her son, who would now be 29, day-after-day, Josiana admitted: ‘I didn’t have the courage to see Bruno after he died.
‘Today I could have my grandchildren, his children, and I don’t. I could possibly be seeing him as a person and I can’t. It hurts day-after-day.’
A police operation to discover and catch the killers, who hid their faces behind hoodies and facemasks, was ongoing today.
Police in Sinop said that they had yet to make any arrests or establish whether the shooting was linked to Ferreira da Silva’s notorious crime.
Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Son brags to police he’ll ‘get away with it’ minutes after stabbing his mum to death
MORE: Inside funeral home where decomposed bodies were left unrefrigerated for months
MORE: Paraglider falls 150ft to death after being clipped by hang glider in mid-air