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.