Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho dos Santos apologises to Cara Burke's mother
The Brazilian man accused of murdering and dismembering a British girl has apologised to her mother.
Mohamed D’Ali Carvalho dos Santos, 20, was charged with killing 17-year-old Cara Burke after her torso was found in a suitcase dumped on a riverbank.
After a four-hour police interview, in which Santos reportedly confessed to the crime, he was asked by a British reporter if he had anything to say to the girl’s mother.
He replied in English: “Tell her I am sorry. I did not know what I was doing.”
Miss Burke’s distraught mother, Anne, from Southfields, south west London, yesterday described her daughter’s killer as a “monster”.
“I’ll kill the remorseless bastard who killed my baby,” she said. “I’ll never recover from this. My baby is in bits, they can’t even find her. I need her back, I just want to get my baby back where she belongs.
“That monster has taken my girl. He took her life and I want his. She wasn’t an angel but she didn’t deserve that.”
She identified her daughter after pictures of a distinctive tattoo on her stomach were aired on a Brazilian news channel.
Speaking after the police interview, dos Santos’ lawyer Odair de Meneses said: “He confessed. But he is not fully responsible for his acts because he was taking drugs non-stop during the four days prior to the killing.”
Earlier, speaking to journalists from his cell, dos Santos claimed he was so high on cocaine he could not remember what happened.
“I don’t remember much, I had used too much drugs,” he said.
Police believe that after the murder last Saturday dos Santos went out to a funk concert before returning to cut up the body.
Officers said he killed Miss Burke after she threatened to tell his parents he was a drug dealer.
They are looking for another suspect, called Jorge, who might have helped dos Santos get rid of Miss Burke’s head and other body parts.
“I tried to put her body into the suitcase but she wouldn’t fit, so I had to cut her body,” dos Santos has said. “I know I’m a monster for doing it. I was just so desperate to get that body out.”
He is reported to have said an argument started after Miss Burke threw a plate of cocaine on the floor.
According to local newspaper Hoje Noticia, dos Santos sent a text message to his brother boasting of the murder and referring to Miss Burke as a “bitch”.
He allegedly ended the message with “Lol”, meaning laugh out loud.
He is said to have told the newspaper the dismembering process was “just like cutting beef, except for the bleeding”.
The suitcase containing the torso was found on Monday on the banks of a river in Goiânia, about a two-hour drive from the Brazilian capital, Brasilia.
Detectives found blood in dos Santos’ bedroom, living room and bathroom.
Police claim dos Santos placed her severed head on top of her torso in the manner of a Taliban execution, and took photographs on his mobile phone.
Yesterday, dos Santos took specialist officers to the river to help them locate the rest of her body. He smiled as he left the police station.
Police said Burke was dos Santos’ girlfriend until several weeks ago, but the teenager’s family have insisted the two were never a couple.