After Serving Time in Prison for Killing His Mother, He Killed His Toddler
His ex-wife didn’t know she was married to a convicted murderer
In 1992, Paulo Roberto de Caldas Osório captured headlines. At the age of 18, he repeatedly stabbed, strangled, and burned his 45-year-old mother, Neuza Maria, in their home in Brasília, Brazil. He fled the scene and would only get arrested the next day. The lifeless body of Neuza Maria was discovered by her husband Paulo Jarbas, the father of the murderer.
Paulo Osório stated he didn’t know how to explain what led him to commit murder. He served ten years in the psych ward of the Papuda Penitentiary Complex in Brasília after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. But more than two decades later, his name grabbed headlines again, this time for the murder of his one-year-old son, Bernardo da Silva Marques Osório.
Tatiana da Silva, Paulo’s former wife, was not aware of his past. Throughout their marriage, he chose not to reveal what happened to his mother, and she respected his decision.
Paulo was obsessed with his son. After losing his father, Bernardo was all that was left for him. Family and acquaintances saw him as a quiet man and a great father, who wanted to spend as much time as possible with his child. Those who didn’t know his past had no reason to fear him. Unfortunately, Tatiana didn’t know what he was willing to do to get revenge on her and her mother.
According to Paulo, they forbade him from seeing his son more often ─ Tatiana disagreed, stating that he was allowed to see his son every time he wanted. In addition, his desire for revenge grew bigger when Tatiana and her mother filed a lawsuit against him for child support.
On the morning of November 29, 2019, Paulo picked Bernardo up from kindergarten. On the occasion, he told Tatiana that he would take the child back to her house at 8:00 pm, when in fact, he had planned to run away with the child to another city.
Paulo diluted three sleeping pills into a grape juice and gave it to Bernardo supposedly to make him fall asleep. At home, Bernardo felt sick and vomited. Paulo bathed the boy and dressed him in new clothes. At roughly 7 pm that evening, he left his residence by car, leaving the lights and TV on. By that time Bernardo had already passed away.
In messages sent to his ex-wife, Paulo claimed that Tatiana and her mother would never see Bernardo again. He expressed anger mainly towards Bernardo’s grandmother, referring to her as “arrogant” and “self-righteous.”
Paulo was miles away from Brasília when he decided to pull into a gas station. He looked in the rearview mirror and Bernardo’s position caught his attention. The child had his head bent and was not breathing. Once Paulo realized his son was dead, he immediately thought about getting rid of the body without anyone seeing it.
He drove to a hotel in the state of Bahia, about 340 miles (547 km) from Brasília, and spent the night while the deceased child was still in his car. The next day, he checked out of the hotel and hit the road once again, just to throw the body and the car seat into a wooded area and drive for hundreds of more miles.
It was only after three excruciating days that Paulo was arrested at a hotel. He callously confessed to murdering the toddler and revealed where he discarded the body. He was charged with aggravated murder and concealment of a human corpse.
The body, however, was found far from where the murderer had confessed, stated the police chief. It made officers believe that he had a clear intention to hinder the investigation. The toddler’s grandmother traveled to Bahia to identify the body but was unable to recognize him due to the decomposition. Additionally, she had never seen the new clothes he was wearing. The body was only confirmed as being that of Bernardo after a DNA test.
The defense required the murderer to be transferred to the psych ward of the Papuda Penitentiary Complex, but the request was denied after Paulo underwent a psychiatric examination and the report revealed that he did not suffer from any mental disorder.
Unexpectedly, on April 11, 2020, Paulo was found dead in his single cell. The prison guard who found the body stated that Paulo had a rope tied around his neck, later said to be a handmade rope, which led them to believe he committed suicide. Efforts to resuscitate him were made but were ineffective and Paulo was pronounced dead at the scene. Paulo’s lawyer blamed the authorities for his death, claiming that he was denied adequate treatment for his condition.
