Police baffled by oil chief's murder

Rio de Janeiro’s top law enforcement official says the murder of a Shell Oil executive has baffled police, but pledged to spare no effort to solve the crime.

Todd Staheli, 39, vice president for joint ventures in Shell’s Southern Cone gas and power unit, was found dead on Sunday morning by one of his four children.

His wife Michele was found badly injured, bleeding from facial and head wounds. She remained in a critical condition yesterday at the Copa D’Or Hospital following emergency brain surgery a day after the attack in their Rio luxury flat.

Mrs Staheli is “in a deep coma and shows signs of extensive brain damage”, said a statement signed by the hospital’s director Dr Joao Pantoja.

“Solving this mystery has the police department’s full dedication,” Rio de Janeiro’s public security secretary, Anthony Garotinho, said. “We are faced with a case that is very different from the norm because we don’t even have the murder weapon.”

Earlier, police spokesman Renato Homem said the couple had been attacked with sharp devices, but not with knives. The attackers did not steal anything and it was also a mystery how anyone could have entered the heavily guarded upper-class condominium in the Barra da Tijuca beachfront neighbourhood.

The family was originally from Utah, said Shell spokesman Ricardo David.

The Staheli children – three girls aged 13, five and three and one boy aged 10 - were being cared for by family friends until the expected arrival of relatives later today.

None of the children reported hearing any sounds of a scuffle or attack during the night.

Police questioned the couple’s housemaid and chauffeur both of whom said they had been given the weekend off and were not in the house at the time of the crime.

As crime has risen in Rio de Janeiro, some companies are threatening to move their operations to other Brazilian or South American cities.

Residents of Rio de Janeiro often cite crime as their number one worry.