Man says lover told him to stick needles into stepson’s body

THE stepfather of a two-year-old boy claimed he pushed 42 “blessed” sewing needles deep into the toddler because his lover told him to while in a trance, saying it would keep the couple together, according to police.

Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, a 30-year-old bricklayer, told detectives the woman would enter a trance and “command him to stick the needles in the boy’s body”, police inspector Helder Fernandes Santana said.

The lover, Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos, paid to have the needles, measuring up to two inches, blessed by a woman who practised the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble, and convinced Magalhaes that inserting them into the boy would somehow allow them to be together, Santana said.

Police, however, believe Dos Santos was out for revenge on the boy’s mother, though they did not say why.

“According to his confession, he acted under influence of the woman, but it was he who stuck the needles in the boy’s body,” the inspector said.

One of the needles penetrated the boy’s heart, meaning he may need an emergency operation if any bleeding starts, Brazil’s Globo TV reported yesterday.

The boy also had a fever brought on by a heart infection but he was conscious and in stable condition in an intensive care unit, the network said.

Officials at the hospital in the coastal city of Salvador have said previously that two needles were close to his heart, one was embedded in a lung and others were dangerously close to vital organs. They said doctors would hold a press conference soon to discuss the boy’s condition.

Magalhaes and dos Santos were both arrested, though no charges have yet been filed.

Dos Santos is not believed to be a member of any religious or occult group, and authorities believe she came up with the idea of the rituals on her own, Santana said.

The two were taken to an undisclosed lockup for their own protection after a mob threw stones at the police station where they were being held in the small northeastern city of Ibotirama.

It was not immediately clear whether they had legal representation.

Authorities also detained the woman who blessed the needles so she could be questioned, but Santana said he expects she will be released without charge because she did not know how they were being used.

The boy’s mother, a maid, took him to a hospital in Ibotirama, population about 25,000, on December 10, saying he was complaining of pain.

After X-rays revealed the cause, the mother told police she didn’t know how the needles got inside her son, whose name was not released due to his age.