333: Her Boyfriend Tried to Murder Her – and The World Told Her to Marry Him! | Eloa Pimentel

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Speaker 1 Hey, True Crime Besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Asleep.

Speaker 1 Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Seriously with me, Annie Elise, your true crime bestie, here to break down another true crime case for you today.

Speaker 1 And let me just tell you, the case that we're talking about today, it's one that I never heard of. And you know what?

Speaker 1 I like to consider myself a true crime connoisseur of sorts, where like, unfortunately, I'm privy to most of the cases out there, especially the notorious ones, but somehow this one kind of just like completely slid or like flew by my radar.

Speaker 1 I don't know what the expression is, but you get what I'm trying to say, right? Because today's case is one of the most infamous true crime cases in the history of Brazil.

Speaker 1 A story that gripped the entire country and also, quite honestly, exposed massive failures in how the media, the police, and how society handles violence.

Speaker 1 It's filled with all sorts of twists and turns, some really shocking negligence, victim blaming, some really gross things, not just from the perpetrator, but from the institutions that we're really supposed to help.

Speaker 1 And it's the story of Eloa Pimentel. Now, in 2008, she was just 15 years old and she lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Now, for those of you who don't know, Sao Paulo is a huge city.

Speaker 1 And I don't mean huge by like Brazilian standards or huge for South America. I mean huge, period.
It's one of the the biggest cities in the world.

Speaker 1 It's more than two and a half times bigger than New York. I mean, we are talking massive.
And it was the place that Eloa called home her entire life.

Speaker 1 She was a city girl through and through, and she was also a glass half full kind of person, just always optimistic. She didn't let anything hold her back.
She was also a really great student.

Speaker 1 She took school seriously. She studied all the time and she got good grades because of it.

Speaker 1 And like a lot of teenagers, especially those growing growing up in big cities, Aloa had the desire to grow up fast, to be an adult sooner than she probably should have.

Speaker 1 And I think a lot of this can be attributed to, I think, living in a big city, but also what we're consuming in the media, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, think Gossip Girl, for example, that was huge back in 2008 and around this time period.

Speaker 1 And it glamorized these young kids having sex, doing drugs, spending lots of money, and living these very adult lives.

Speaker 1 So while I think sometimes living in a big, you know, very busy city can certainly contribute to that, I think a lot of what we are consuming and what's glamorized also does.

Speaker 1 And that was true for Eloa. She had this desire to grow up fast.
So by the time she was 15, she wanted to not only make big decisions, but she wanted to be taken seriously.

Speaker 1 And she kind of had this mindset about being older than she was that I think may have made her a little bit vulnerable.

Speaker 1 Because in 2008, she had been dating this guy named Lindenberg Alvez, and they had been dating for a little bit over two years.

Speaker 1 And he was this like courier who would deliver packages all over the city via motorcycle and was kind of all in the mix with everything going on in the city.

Speaker 1 And the biggest piece of this is that as she was only 15 years old, he was 22 years old, which remember, they had been dating for two years at this point.

Speaker 1 So that means they started dating when she was around 12 or 13 years old, yet he was around 19 or 20 years old. Disgusting, like unacceptable and so gross.
I mean, a very, very big age gap.

Speaker 1 And as if that age gap wasn't a big enough red flag in on its own, Lindenberg was also very possessive and very controlling.

Speaker 1 Anytime Elloelle hung out with her friends or made plans on her own, he just would completely lose it, just totally flip out.

Speaker 1 If she was ever hanging out with guy friends, he would accuse her of trying to hook up with them or wanting to hook up with them.

Speaker 1 If she was ever out with her girlfriends, he would claim that she was lying, that she wasn't even really with her girlfriends. She was secretly seeing another guy.
I mean, this guy was just spiraling.

Speaker 1 It didn't matter what she did. He always found a way to just twist it into some kind of weird version of his proof that she was cheating on him.
And he accused her of lying constantly.

Speaker 1 On at least one occasion, he even went to her school to stalk her, trying to catch her in what she was really doing and doing the opposite of what she said that she was going to do.

Speaker 1 I'm talking like just full-on control freak. And the fact of the matter is, when he stalked her out at school that day, she wasn't lying.
She was exactly where she said that she was going to be.

Speaker 1 Yet still, that wasn't enough for him. It didn't make him calm down or realize that he was overreacting.

Speaker 1 I think more so because in that moment, it was almost as though he couldn't handle his own ego making him wrong, if that makes sense. Like, no, I was right.

Speaker 1 Like he wasn't going to put his tail between his legs and be like, oh, you're right. You are where you said you were going to be.
My bad. It was like, I'm going to dig my heels in.

Speaker 1 And like, I can't go down as being wrong for this. So he ended up just getting angrier and angrier.
He had followed her and stalked her all the way to school, trying to catch her lying.

Speaker 1 And when he realized that she wasn't lying, it just made him more upset. And this got so extreme.
There was another example that I want to share with you.

Speaker 1 One day after school, LOL was waiting for the bus to go home.

Speaker 1 And out of nowhere, Lindenberg just came up, marching up to her, slapped her across the face, all because she was in the exact same spot that she was supposed to be.

Speaker 1 It literally didn't matter what Aloa did. It was always wrong in his eyes, always.

Speaker 1 And we know how difficult it is for people to leave abusive partners, right? Even when they are adults and have good support networks.

Speaker 1 But remember, even though she wanted to be an adult, Aloa was a child and a lot of people in her life were giving her really terrible advice.

Speaker 1 Adults who should have truly, quite honestly, known better, acted like Lindenberg was the way that he was because he was so passionate, that he was just so full of love and passion and all of these things.

Speaker 1 And that because he loved her so much, he was losing control of himself. Almost like she should have been flattered by his behavior.
I mean, truly sick and twisted.

Speaker 1 People were also downplaying his bad behavior, acting like it was just no big deal or it was something that Aloa should just learn to overlook and learn to get past. So she stayed with him.

Speaker 1 She thought that it was the right thing to do. Now, the good news is she eventually did get better advice from a friend of hers, a friend named Nayara.
Nayara was also 15 years old, just like Eloa.

Speaker 1 She also went to the same high school as her, and truly they were like best friends.

Speaker 1 Now, Nayara didn't meet Lindenberg until sometime in 2008, which remember at that point they had already been together for about two years.

Speaker 1 And I don't really know why Eloa waited so long to introduce her seemingly best friend to her boyfriend at that point, again, two years, but for whatever reason, there was a delay.

Speaker 1 But by the time they did meet, Nayara already knew that she did not like him. She had heard about that slapping incident at the bus stop.

Speaker 1 She had heard about his controlling behavior, his overly possessive and jealous ways.

Speaker 1 And even though Aloa had insisted that this was all just like a one-off thing, Nayara knew that this was a very bad sign.

Speaker 1 So every time Eloa started talking about how she was thinking about breaking up with Lindenberg, Nayara encouraged it.

Speaker 1 But when Aloa would try and break up with him, he would just kind of do what's out of the possessive boyfriend playbook.

Speaker 1 He would call her non-stop, he'd promise to change, swear he would treat her better, and sure enough, she would always take him back. But of course, to nobody's surprise, he wouldn't change.

Speaker 1 Now, the good news is that by fall of 2008, she did finally realize that this was not a healthy situation. So she decided to break up with Lindenberg permanently.

Speaker 1 He, of course, though, did not take it very well.

Speaker 1 Just like all the other times that she had tried to end things, he tried to win her back, promising he would change, begging her, you know, please one more chance.

Speaker 1 This time, though, Aloa was not having it. She was ready to get away from this abuse and this control for good.

Speaker 1 But once he became clear that she was not going to take him back, his behavior started escalating.

Speaker 1 He began following her, stalking her, showing up where he wasn't supposed to be, and she tried to just brush it off and ignore him, but he would just continue to do it over and over again.

Speaker 1 On October 13th, she was having a study session at her house. It was a Saturday.
Both of her parents had to work, and her brother also had plans.

Speaker 1 So while she could have just kicked back, rested, you know, didn't do homework, didn't study, she decided to focus and do homework. School was important to her.

Speaker 1 So she invited three of her friends to come over and study with her. One of those friends being her best friend, Nayara.
Now, the two other friends were two boys from her class, Iago and Victor.

Speaker 1 So it was around one o'clock in the afternoon. They were all four sitting together at the kitchen table, studying, reading from their textbooks, just working on homework.

Speaker 1 And that is when the front door swung open. It was too early for Aloa's parents or brother to be back home, so everyone was confused.

Speaker 1 They like look up to see who's bursting through the front door, who's coming in. And sure enough, it was Lindenberg.

Speaker 1 Nobody expected him to be there, and even Lindenberg himself looked very confused because apparently he had been planning to break into the house while Eloa was there alone.

Speaker 1 He didn't expect her to have friends at the house.

Speaker 1 He didn't know that there were going to be three other teenagers in that kitchen sitting at the table with her.

Speaker 1 But once he got his bearings and assessed the situation, he announced to the group that he was there to kill Eloa.

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Speaker 1 It turned out he was not okay with her breaking up with him. He was not going to go silently.
In his mind, she had absolutely no right to leave him.

Speaker 1 So because of that, he wasn't going to let her get away with it. She was his property.
She belonged to him, which was why he was now inside her home with a gun.

Speaker 1 And he straight up admitted that his plan was to come in, shoot her, and then leave. He thought that with no witnesses, he would have gotten away with it.

Speaker 1 It would have looked like a random homicide, somebody, you know, a break-in gone wrong, somebody trying to burglarize the place and then flee.

Speaker 1 However, now, given that there were three witnesses, well, he wasn't really sure what to do.

Speaker 1 And he did make a few comments, which translated to English, you know, translate to, you're not supposed to be here, realizing that there was now a wrench in his plan.

Speaker 1 Then he showed everyone his gun and the extra ammo that he had brought with him to really just prove that that he was serious, prove that he was prepared to commit a murder.

Speaker 1 Except Lindenberg didn't want to kill these three other kids from her school. He wasn't mentally, emotionally, or I guess physically even prepared to be responsible for four murders.

Speaker 1 He only planned to commit one. Kind of makes you think of Brian Koberger in Idaho, right?

Speaker 1 So Lindenberg also knew that at this point, he couldn't just turn away and just walk away from this and get away with this. He had vocalized what he planned to do.
He broke in.

Speaker 1 He was there with a weapon. Too many people had seen his face.
Too many people knew what he was planning and knew that he was planning to murder Elloa. So he was kind of like, okay, I can't kill her.

Speaker 1 I can't kill everyone else. I can't leave.
What are we going to do? And it turned into a hostage type situation. Nobody was able to call the police without Lindenberg seeing either.

Speaker 1 So for the next several hours, they were just trapped there and he was free to do whatever he wanted without anyone being able to stop him.

Speaker 1 So now angry, with his plan essentially collapsing right in front of his eyes, he took all of that anger and he turned it toward Eloa. She was the one responsible for this.

Speaker 1 She's the one who broke his heart, broke up with him. She had these people over.
Like, this is her fault. She is the reason that this whole plan is falling apart.
So he started beating her.

Speaker 1 nonstop, hitting her, slapping her.

Speaker 1 And her friends, Nayara, Victor, and Iago, they couldn't do anything to help her because they knew that Lindenberg was still armed, that he could easily take the gun out and shoot them if they tried to intervene.

Speaker 1 So basically, all the while, while she was tortured, this 15-year-old girl, her friends were forced to just watch. And this went on for hours from 1 p.m.
all the way into the evening.

Speaker 1 And that is when her brother arrived home. Eloa's brother didn't have a key with him, and when he tried to open the door, it was locked.

Speaker 1 So because of that, he started knocking on the door, pounding on the door. Lindenberg forced everybody to be as quiet as possible, all while her brother kept knocking and yelling, trying to get in.

Speaker 1 But eventually, with no answer and no response and not hearing anything inside, he gave up. Maybe he figured that she had left or maybe she was taking a nap and hadn't heard him.

Speaker 1 But for whatever reason, he went out to the front steps of the building and just sat there. just waiting for somebody else to come home and let him in.
So it took about an hour.

Speaker 1 But then finally, Aloa's father, Aldo, came back, and unlike her brother, he had a key.

Speaker 1 So after hearing from his son that the apartment was locked, that it was silent inside, and that they couldn't reach the daughter and her brother's sister, something just felt off to him.

Speaker 1 So Aldo walked up to the door, unlocked it, and right when he was about to step inside, suddenly Lindenberg came rushing toward him, waving his gun.

Speaker 1 He shouted that he was holding Eloa hostage, and that if Aldo didn't do exactly what he said, he was going to kill her. So Aldo took this threat very seriously.
He could see the gun.

Speaker 1 He could also tell that Lindenberg was crazed, kind of this maniac, and in this very dangerous state, he meant business.

Speaker 1 Eloa had also opened up to her father in the past about his possessive behavior, how he had slapped her at the bus stop, things like that. So he knew that this was a very serious situation.

Speaker 1 And because of that, he decided to do what he was told.

Speaker 1 He left the apartment and let Lindenberg just close and lock the door behind him and just keep his daughter trapped inside, which I can only imagine, putting myself in his shoes for a moment, how terrified and powerless he must have felt in that moment.

Speaker 1 And I'm sure a lot of you listening are like, how could he leave? Why would he just let him lock the door and all of that, which I get the frustration on that side too.

Speaker 1 But there's not really any sort of perfect reaction in this type of scenario, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, the good news was now somebody finally knew that Eloa, Nayara, Victor, and Iago were all in trouble, that they were all being held inside that house.

Speaker 1 So he was able to leave, call the police, and finally report that there was this hostage situation in progress.

Speaker 1 And sure enough, before you knew it, officers and hostage negotiators were rushing over to the house to try and save these teenagers.

Speaker 1 One of the reporting agencies or parties ended up calling the landline inside that house, which sure enough, Lindenberg picked up and answered the phone.

Speaker 1 And at that point, they were able to start negotiating. So the police started asking him, you know, release some of these hostages as just a sign of good faith.

Speaker 1 Just not all of them, but release some of them. Show us that you're willing to work with us.
And right away, he agreed.

Speaker 1 He let the boys leave, which I have to say, kind of shocked me because I would imagine that he would have had so much hatred toward them as like the competition.

Speaker 1 But no, he was just like focused all on Eloa. Which I will say this, both Victor and Iago were having like full-on panic attacks at this point, which I completely understand.

Speaker 1 And the stress was way too much for them. So Lindenberg didn't want to be responsible if one or both of them had a serious medical issue because of it.

Speaker 1 So apparently the choice and the reason, I should say, for why he let them go was because he didn't want to have any issues with them. Nayara and Eloa were much calmer, much more, you know.

Speaker 1 level-headed under pressure. So it made more sense to keep them there, subdued, while he let the other two boys go.

Speaker 1 Which I do have to say, I do wonder if that's true, if that is the real reason why he released the boys rather than the girls.

Speaker 1 Because also, I mean, take into consideration, Lindenberg wanted to punish her for breaking up with him. So there was probably no way and no world in which he was going to let her go.

Speaker 1 And maybe he also had issues with her best friend. She was the one who had encouraged her to break up with him.
So she's the opponent in all of this as well, right? She's just as much to blame.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't know what the truth is.
Now, once the boys left, Lindenberg and the police were stuck. They were at this crossroads, kind of like a stalemate, if you will.

Speaker 1 The hostage negotiators were asking him to do more. Let Nayara go, let Eloa go, then set your gun down, surrender.
But he was not going to cooperate, and he wasn't feeling cooperative at all.

Speaker 1 His stance was that he had already let half of the hostages go. So now because of that, he showed his good faith.
It's time for the police officers to do something for him.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to play a short clip of this hostage negotiation for you however i want to let you know it is in portuguese but the reason i'm playing it is because the tone of voice is very very important here

Speaker 1 The police ask Lindenberg straight up what he wants. What does he want to do in this? And he says that all he wants is to kill his girlfriend and then kill himself.

Speaker 1 Which right away, Eloa speaks up and says, I'm not your girlfriend. And that just enraged him even further.
So after that, it's just screaming. And it also sounds like he's hitting her again.

Speaker 1 Like that was not the thing. to say without setting him off.
It just enraged him further.

Speaker 1 And the point of all of this is that by the end of the day on the 13th and even into the morning on the 14th, these discussions were just at a standstill. Nobody was willing to give anything up.

Speaker 1 And once things reached this point and it had been ongoing for several hours, the media got wind of what was going on. And before you knew it, this whole situation was a massive news story.

Speaker 1 Which it makes sense, right? I mean, you have this dramatic, high-stakes hostage situation involving two helpless teenage girls. Of course, people are going to be glued to that.

Speaker 1 They're going to watch it and wanna see how this unfolds, what's going on, and how is it going to end? Like, what's happening here? And on top of that, you have the age gap, right?

Speaker 1 You have this 22-year-old guy threatening a 15-year-old girl because she broke up with him. So it had all the makings of a huge news story.
And it was also 2008.

Speaker 1 So it was before a lot of the social media that we have today.

Speaker 1 So, you know, well, before true crime podcasters or YouTubers who are live streaming breaking news stories, you just have the traditional news.

Speaker 1 And live reports of this hostage situation were taking over the airways. Everybody was tuning in to see what was going on.

Speaker 1 And the worst part is that this horrible situation was broadcast as if it was entertainment. Two different stations aired 24-7 live footage from right in front of Eloa's house.

Speaker 1 And every time Lindenberg or one of the girls walked by the window, the reporters would show their faces all over the airways.

Speaker 1 And they also were broadcasting every single move that the police made, made, which was a huge problem, right?

Speaker 1 Because Lindenberg was able to consume this news footage as well and be one step ahead of the police. Reporters were reporting everything that they had planned.

Speaker 1 For example, when the police decided to have a sniper try and shoot Lindenberg through an open window, the reporters started talking about it.

Speaker 1 And sure enough, Lindenberg was watching this coverage from inside the house.

Speaker 1 And right after that report aired, he started using her as a human shield, keeping her in front of him every time he approached the window.

Speaker 1 And every time negotiators would try a new tactic, the police would make a public statement about it.

Speaker 1 And then reporters would report on it and Lindenberg would adjust immediately to whatever they were doing. It was almost like they couldn't get out of their own way.

Speaker 1 He just stayed one step ahead throughout this whole standoff because he knew exactly what law enforcement was planning. He was watching it.

Speaker 1 It was unfolding on live TV and he was watching it just like everybody else.

Speaker 1 Which this feels so crazy because you would think that it's way easy and a solve for the police to just not release any sensitive information, right? Don't release the information to the press.

Speaker 1 That way you'll have the jump on him and he won't get, you know, five steps ahead of you. I just don't understand what was going through their thought process during all this.

Speaker 1 Maybe they were feeling the pressure because everybody was watching them and they wanted the public to know that they were making strategic moves. But I mean, image

Speaker 1 at the end of the day does not matter when it comes to the lives of these two young girls that are being held hostage.

Speaker 1 Like, maybe you don't release all the details and you execute this plan, but in any event, it was kind of just this like hamster wheel cycle.

Speaker 1 Every time they'd come up with a new plan, it was broadcast and Lindenberg knew about it and he would pivot. And this was not some short standoff.
It was hours.

Speaker 1 At this point, it was over two full days. Not saying that any hostage situation is okay, but I'm not talking about something that was like five hours or eight hours.
It went into over 100 hours.

Speaker 1 So finally, after two full days, on October 15th, the police finally, luckily decided like, hmm, maybe we shouldn't be broadcasting every single move that we make.

Speaker 1 So at that point, they stopped making statements to the press.

Speaker 1 But the area, it was still clogged with news vans, helicopters, camera crews, and reporters who were reporting live on all the things that they could see and hear, even without the police statements.

Speaker 1 And at one point, the stress of the whole situation really got to Aloa's dad. He collapsed right there on the sidewalk, right outside of the house.

Speaker 1 But of course, the reporters in true reporter fashion were right there just getting beat-by-beat coverage as he was loaded into this ambulance and driven off to the hospital.

Speaker 1 Journalists from all over the city were also camped out in front of the building. They were broadcasting every single development, all day, every day.

Speaker 1 And some of those journalists weren't just covering the story. They were also getting involved directly with it.
In particular, there was one reporter named Zelda Mailo.

Speaker 1 And starting on October 15th, two days into this hostage situation, and the same day that the officials were supposed to stop making statements to the press, the police started letting Zelda hop on that phone line that they had established with Lindenberg.

Speaker 1 They let her talk to him. They let her broadcast that conversation all over the news as well, which does not make any sense to me.
No more sense to me than it does to you.

Speaker 1 I mean, when I first heard about that, I was enraged. Like, first of all, you have this established line with this guy and you have professional hostage negotiators involved.

Speaker 1 Why are you letting this reporter get involved and have direct communication with this guy? And more than that, why are you allowing her to then broadcast those conversations all over the airwaves?

Speaker 1 It makes no sense.

Speaker 1 And just breaking it down even further, I don't know how you tell the press to stop reporting on your hostage negotiations, but then let a reporter sit in on the calls and ask her own questions.

Speaker 1 It's absolutely insane. But in this case, it's completely true.
It is what happened.

Speaker 1 Now, supposedly, Zelda was helping them negotiate, sort of telling Lindenberg something like, hey, I can make you famous. I can control how the world sees you.

Speaker 1 So it's in your best interest to really just cooperate, cooperate with me. Let Nayara and Eloa go.

Speaker 1 And if that strategy had worked, maybe I would be praising the police for their out-of-the-box thinking and doing whatever they could to save her and her friend. But the problem was, it didn't work.

Speaker 1 And of course it didn't work because Hilda did not know what she was doing. She was not a trained hostage negotiator.
And at the end of the day, who knows what the true motives were, right?

Speaker 1 Was she really there to de-escalate the situation and help? Or was she there because she wanted access to talk with with this guy firsthand and then get people to watch her show? It just felt gross.

Speaker 1 And I don't want to imply that Zelda wanted Eloa or Nayar to get hurt or anything like that, or that she wanted the hostage situation to continue.

Speaker 1 I don't know what was going on in her mind, but I will say this: that even when she was supposedly negotiating with Lindenberg, or more accurately, supposed to be negotiating with him, she was doing a very bad job of ending the situation.

Speaker 1 In fact, a lot of the time, Zelda was just interviewing him, getting sound bites for her show, not even trying to pretend that she was working toward getting the girls released.

Speaker 1 And every minute that Zelda spent on the phone was a minute where the actual negotiators could not do their jobs. They only had one line into the house, and she was the one using it.

Speaker 1 So there was, as you can imagine, a lot of criticism of the police and of the reporters, and criticism that they were treating this situation more like an opportunity to get on TV and become famous rather than taking these two teenage girls lives seriously.

Speaker 1 In fact, I haven't even gotten to the worst of it. So buckle up.

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Speaker 1 A lot of the news reports were taking Lindenberg's side, acting like Eloa was unreasonable and playing hard to get and that he was threatening to murder her to really just show how passionate and romantic he was, which

Speaker 1 really?

Speaker 1 I'm all for like the telenovelas or the soap operas and dramatics and all that. This is real life.
This was not entertainment.

Speaker 1 But again, as I mentioned before, it was not only being broadcast as entertainment, but being consumed as entertainment, positioning him as just this very passionate guy.

Speaker 1 And the girl is playing hard to get, it's a, it's either in love, they're going to come out of this okay.

Speaker 1 It was so gross.

Speaker 1 And there were a lot of different reporters and various talking heads saying that Aloa was the one who was wrong in this, that she was being cruel, that she was the one in the wrong and being mean for not giving him another chance.

Speaker 1 It's just bizarre.

Speaker 1 Because even if Lindenberg hadn't spent the two years of their their relationship stalking, harassing, controlling, being possessive of this girl who was, by the way, far too young for him, even if he had been the perfect gentleman for those two years, their whole relationship, she had the right to decide who she wanted and did not want to date.

Speaker 1 And she has the right to not only make that decision, but make that decision without fear that somebody is going to kill her because of it.

Speaker 1 Now, by this stage in the hostage situation, Lindenberg Lindenberg had even hired a lawyer. Because remember, we're going upwards of like 100 hours in this whole hostage situation.

Speaker 1 So this lawyer could tell by the way that the public sentiment was going what he needed to really lean into, what was going to work in their narrative and for his client.

Speaker 1 He even gave an interview at one point saying that he hoped that the whole situation would, quote, end well with a wedding. Can you even imagine?

Speaker 1 Like, I get that as a lawyer, it was his job to make him look as good as possible.

Speaker 1 So, of course, it made sense that he was downplaying the violence, the abuse, the hostage situation being held at gunpoint, but hoping that it ends with a wedding.

Speaker 1 He thought that this whole community was rooting for Eloa to marry this guy who was currently threatening to kill her. And some of the community was.
That is what is so unnerving about this.

Speaker 1 Saying, oh, they're in love. He's passionate.
I hope this ends with a wedding. Like, be so fucking for real right now.
It is enraging.

Speaker 1 Now, I don't know if she ever saw that particular broadcast as all of this was going on. If she did, I can only imagine what was probably racing through her mind.

Speaker 1 But I mean, imagine that for a moment. Imagine that you break up with your creepy older boyfriend.
He breaks into your house with a gun. He takes you and your friend prisoner.
You're scared to death.

Speaker 1 He threatens to murder you. And everybody's acting like it's sweet and exciting, and that it's going to be a fairy tale love story ending.
Talk about like gaslighting, right?

Speaker 1 I would imagine if you're watching that and you're seeing all these reporters and people talking about the situation being like that at 15 years old, you would probably question yourself, right?

Speaker 1 Being like, Am I overreacting? Is this all in my head? Should I have not broken up with him? Clearly, they're not all wrong, right? They're all saying this. Could it be true?

Speaker 1 Like, what are you even talking about? It's unbelievable. And all to say, the whole situation was just a cluster fuck.
The police were screwing up. The press was screwing up.

Speaker 1 Lindenberg was just in complete control of this whole situation. It was a mess.
It was a disaster.

Speaker 1 Now, the upside of all of this constant coverage was that everybody got to see it live in full color when the hostage negotiators finally managed to get one of the girls released.

Speaker 1 On the morning of October 14th, so the first morning of the hostage situation when it all first began, the police had cut the power to the apartment building.

Speaker 1 And because of that, Lindenberg, Nayara, and Eloa were sitting in the dark with no air conditioning. And late October is basically early summer in South America.

Speaker 1 So the police called him to remind him that, you know, you can't stay locked up in this apartment forever. You need to work with us and start working toward a resolution.

Speaker 1 It's going to get very hot, very stuffy, you know, all of the things. So Lindenberg agreed to release one more hostage to show that he could be cooperative.

Speaker 1 And that is how Nayara got free, which you would think is a miracle and a blessing, right?

Speaker 1 But here is where this next part of the story gets horrifying.

Speaker 1 After Nayara got free, the police pulled her aside and did all of the usual things that you would do after a hostage gets away from their captor. They made sure that she wasn't physically hurt.

Speaker 1 They asked for a statement. They wanted to get more insight into what things were like inside that apartment.
And then once she was done with that line of questioning, she got to go home.

Speaker 1 She got to be with her family. But she only was allowed to spend one night with her family.

Speaker 1 Because the next morning, the officers showed back up right at her front doorstep and they told her that they needed her help.

Speaker 1 Because she understood Lindenberg better than anybody else did, better than they did, I should say, she had more of a connection with him. She knew how to talk to him, according to the officers.

Speaker 1 So according to the police, Nayara needed to go back into the apartment, go back into that apartment with her captor to help them with this investigation. I mean, I have no words.
It's absurd.

Speaker 1 You finally rescue this 15-year-old girl who has been held hostage for days. You finally get a win and you get her out of harm's way.

Speaker 1 And then you're going to send her right back into the arms of her captor.

Speaker 1 A 15-year-old girl, it doesn't matter if she's an adult, a child, whatever, but this girl is 15. And you're going to pose it as because she's the only one who understands him?

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, try doing your mother effing job and get the experts in there, the hostage negotiators.

Speaker 1 I would imagine they are way more qualified to understand him and to reason with him than a 15-year-old girl. It's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Especially because when you really think about it, the hostage negotiators had already convinced him to release Nayara. They were making progress.
Things were going well.

Speaker 1 So they could have continued to use those same methods and tactics to try and get Eloa released too.

Speaker 1 But instead of building on the success that they had, they just wanted Nayara, who remember was only 15 years old and still in high school.

Speaker 1 They wanted her to go back into the dangerous situation, to put her life on the line, to help them. Not to mention, she had been through an incredibly traumatic experience.

Speaker 1 She was held at gunpoint for almost a full 24 hours and she had only just gotten her freedom. And you want to throw her back in there?

Speaker 1 And they had promised her that she wouldn't have to go back inside, that she could just stand outside the door and talk to Lindenberg through the door.

Speaker 1 But that was a lie because during their hostage negotiations, he said explicitly that he wanted her back inside that apartment with him. He wanted her to be his hostage again.

Speaker 1 And the police knew that she would never agree to that. So they lied to her.
And they said that it was a safer situation than what she realized, that she should go back inside.

Speaker 1 And they said, it's what you have to do to save your best friend.

Speaker 1 Can you imagine? So because of that, she agreed.

Speaker 1 On the morning of October 16th, the start of day four of this hostage situation, about a day and a half after her release, Nayara went back inside this apartment.

Speaker 1 Now, as soon as she got to the front door of the apartment, it swung open and Lindenberg just grabbed her and yanked her inside, all while none of the officers made any move to stop him.

Speaker 1 The reason being, because they made a deal with him, he could have her back. And just like that, Lindenberg was back to having two hostages, two young, teenage, helpless girls.

Speaker 1 And it's probably no wonder that this hostage situation dragged out for a full 100 hours over the course of four full days. And it was the longest hostage situation in all of Brazilian history.

Speaker 1 Because to be honest, let's just call it what it is, right? The police, they were dropping the ball left and right. They were letting reporters get in the way.

Speaker 1 They were letting Lindenberg set all the terms, call the shots, bring the hostages back in. It was a disaster.

Speaker 1 That's four days of these two girls not knowing if they were going to survive to see another day.

Speaker 1 Four days of their families waiting for good news, hopeful for good news, yet getting nothing but these updates about how great and how romantic Lindenberg is and how, you know, they hope this ends with a wedding.

Speaker 1 It is unbelievable. Now, as all hostage situations go, they come to an end, right? So, eventually, this hostage situation needed to come to an end.

Speaker 1 And on October 17th, in the late afternoon or early evening, gunshots were reported from inside the apartment.

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Speaker 1 Now, the timing of these gunshots were very controversial. It's still controversial to this day.

Speaker 1 And that's because the official reports that the police gave did not match what the witnesses saw, including witnesses that were the reporters and the people watching their broadcast from at home.

Speaker 1 According to the police, they heard gunshots inside the apartment and they realized that the situation had escalated. So they broke into the apartment and tried to save the hostages.

Speaker 1 However, the news cameras filmed something that was kind of the other way around. First, the police broke down the door, a process that was slow, very noisy, very loud.
And then the gunshots went off.

Speaker 1 Almost like perhaps Lindenberg realized that they were forcing themselves inside and then fired his gun in a panic.

Speaker 1 And if the second situation is true, which it does match the video footage, it suggests that the police are the ones who escalated the situation and put these two girls' lives in danger for no good reason.

Speaker 1 which may be why the police still insist on their version of the story and still say that they did not break down the door until Lindenberg started firing.

Speaker 1 Because of course, they don't want to be blamed for what happened next. Whatever the truth is, I do know that the police set off a small explosive outside the apartment door to blow it open.

Speaker 1 It went off, and then supposedly you can hear some gunshots afterward. And I'm going to play a short little clip for you here, but the gunshots are very, very quiet.

Speaker 1 I had to listen a bunch of times before I was able to hear anything at all, so you may may need to rewind it a couple times, but let me just play this for you.

Speaker 1 When the police finally got inside, they found Lindenberg unharmed, but they found the two girls had both both been shot.

Speaker 1 Nayara had also been hit in the face, but luckily it wasn't bad enough to knock her unconscious.

Speaker 1 She was able to walk out of the apartment on her own miraculously, and then the police were able to help her get away from the scene and, you know, get to safety, permanently this time.

Speaker 1 But Eloa, she had taken two bullets, one to her groin area and one to the head. While she was being rushed to the hospital, the police were focusing on bringing Lindenberg into custody.

Speaker 1 Except once again, this whole process was being broadcast live. And Lindenberg did not surrender easily or peacefully.

Speaker 1 So the police ended up wrestling with him inside that apartment and eventually ended up on the landing right outside of it.

Speaker 1 Meaning he and the officers were all in full view of the cameras and full view of the reporters who, once again, broadcast a complete play-by-play of this whole fight.

Speaker 1 Finally, the police got him on the ground, got their handcuffs on him, and they were able to bring him into custody. Now, the good news is, Nayara was fine.

Speaker 1 She needed treatment to make sure that her wound was healing, but almost immediately after she checked into the hospital, doctors and the police confirmed that she was going to make a full, complete recovery.

Speaker 1 When it came to Eloa's condition, things were a lot more uncertain. Her situation was critical.

Speaker 1 She had been shot twice, once in the head, once in the groin, and tragically, later that same night, a Brazilian news network reported that she had died.

Speaker 1 But remember, the media and the press coverage, it was like a circus. So almost immediately after this story aired, they retracted it.

Speaker 1 It was almost like in their rush to be the first to break the news, the reporters ran with this story without verifying it first.

Speaker 1 So then they had to go back on air with their tail between their legs and announce that they had gotten it all wrong. Eloha was still alive.
But the truth was, she was not in a good state.

Speaker 1 At just 15 years old, she had had a heart attack, she flatlined, and the doctors had to shock her back to life.

Speaker 1 And now with all of that and all of the trauma that her body has gone through, she was in a coma. Technically, she was still alive.

Speaker 1 Her heart was beating, she was breathing, and she was surviving with the help of life support. But unfortunately, she was brain dead.

Speaker 1 So her parents made some decisions, some very difficult decisions, and took some time to say their goodbyes. And then 15-year-old Eloa died in the hospital.

Speaker 1 Now, when I talk about how crazy this news story went and how viral it went, 36,000 people came to her funeral. That's how big of a news story this whole situation was.

Speaker 1 But sadly, the victim blaming continued. Even now that she was dead, people were still blaming her.

Speaker 1 A bunch of news reports basically implied that she brought this whole situation on herself, that she deserved to die, all because she hadn't hadn't given Lindenberg another chance.

Speaker 1 Now, at least the prosecutors were able to add murder to the list of charges against him.

Speaker 1 And in total, he was facing 12 criminal counts, including murder, attempted murder, and a bunch of firearm-related charges.

Speaker 1 When Lindenberg's trial began on February 13th, 2012, the judge didn't allow any press in the courtroom, which I gotta say, good on you, and it makes a whole lot of sense.

Speaker 1 Nobody wanted to repeat all of the mistakes that everybody had made during that hostage situation.

Speaker 1 And while we don't know much about how the trial actually played out itself because it was so limited, I do know that the defense tried to argue that the charges should be lighter because this, according to them, was a crime of passion.

Speaker 1 Almost like Lindenberg didn't really mean to kill her, that he just happened to break into her apartment with a loaded gun and then escalate to a hostage situation from there, that it was all just very caught up in the heat of the moment, which again, I get that defense attorneys have to put on a defense,

Speaker 1 but get real. He said that it was premeditated.
Witnesses heard that. He came into the apartment saying he went there with a plan to kill her.

Speaker 1 So this is not a crime of passion that just slowly escalated over the course of four days. This was premeditated murder.

Speaker 1 Nayara took the stand against Lindenberg, and she talked a lot about what it was like being held prisoner by him.

Speaker 1 She said that throughout the entire 100-hour crisis, he was acting scary and very erratically.

Speaker 1 One minute, he'd be very calm and collected, but then the next, he'd be flying into this rage and not even as a reaction to anything in particular. It was just completely out of nowhere.

Speaker 1 His behavior was just like a pinball machine. She also said something that just absolutely devastated me and broke my heart when I read the translations of her statement.

Speaker 1 But she said that she and Eloa had a heart to heart at one point after she had been let go and then recaptured by Lindenberg.

Speaker 1 And during that conversation, Elloa admitted that she didn't think that any of them were going to make it out alive. For her whole life, she had always been so optimistic.

Speaker 1 She had always believed that things just had a way of working out. But this 100-hour hostage situation, it broke her.
She lost her hope.

Speaker 1 At the end, she knew deep in her gut that he was going to murder her. And sure enough, that is exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 I also want to note that when Nayara gave this testimony, he was not in the courtroom with her. She was too afraid and too traumatized to even look him in the eyes when she was on the stand.

Speaker 1 So court officials ended up removing him at her request, which I got to say, thank you. Like, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 However, he was in the courtroom the rest of the time, and he even testified in his own defense.

Speaker 1 Now, I don't have these specifics of what he said, but let's just say whatever he had to say, it didn't really go over very well. Because on February 16th, he was found guilty of every single count.

Speaker 1 And he was sentenced to 98 years in prison, which when I first saw that, I was like, great, Cyanara, Adios, like could not be happening to a better guy, right?

Speaker 1 However, apparently sentences that long aren't actually legal in Brazil. So because of that, it got overturned.

Speaker 1 And the courts also had determined that the judge had been too influenced by the news coverage of the hostage situation.

Speaker 1 Like everyone else, they had been tuning into the news every single day, watching it all unfold, watching her suffering.

Speaker 1 And because of that, they said that it led to him handing down an illegal sentence. So in 2012, he was given a new sentence of 39 years in prison.

Speaker 1 He was supposed to serve it in a special facility that is specifically for famous people, too.

Speaker 1 It kind of has like these extra restrictions and extra security to prevent the press from getting in and interfering with the inmates.

Speaker 1 But it's unclear if that's exactly where he was going to serve out the duration of his sentence.

Speaker 1 Also, get this, in the Brazilian legal system, it's possible to earn an earlier release by performing certain chores and tasks while you're behind bars, kind of like earning good credit.

Speaker 1 And according to reports, he has been working pretty much non-stop since getting his new sentence, meaning he could get out even earlier.

Speaker 1 Now, through all of this, there is a big investigation into the media with questions about, you know, where the line is between free speech and the need to keep things private out of respect for victims or to not give away confidential details about police operations.

Speaker 1 On top of that, some Brazilian officials did an investigation into the officers who had blown open the door to see if their aggressiveness was a factor in her murder.

Speaker 1 At the end of the day, though, they decided that the police hadn't done anything wrong and that nobody else was to blame except Lindenberg.

Speaker 1 One good thing that came out of all of this was that in 2015, Brazil passed a law against femicide, which that's the word that's used when a woman gets killed because of her gender.

Speaker 1 Now, obviously, murder was already illegal even before this law got passed, but now it's possible to give sexist killers harsher sentences.

Speaker 1 And also, the law helps raise awareness of violence against women.

Speaker 1 However, just when you think there's something uplifting that came from all of this, I'm about to knock you back down and bum you out again, because I do want to talk about her father, Aldo, for a second.

Speaker 1 He is at the center of one more crazy twist in this whole thing.

Speaker 1 You may remember that he collapsed at one point outside of the apartment building and that he had to be taken away in an ambulance, right? His picture was broadcast all over the news.

Speaker 1 Everybody was watching this, as I said. And a bunch of viewers who saw those images recognized him.
They recognized him as a wanted criminal.

Speaker 1 So get this, way back in the 90s, Aldo had been part of a gang. And as part of this gang, he had killed a police officer.

Speaker 1 The investigators knew that he had done it, but they couldn't arrest him because he had changed his name. He had skipped town.
He married Eloa's mother. He settled down as this family man.

Speaker 1 They weren't sure where he went and who he now was. And as far as I can tell, after all of this, he did live a pretty normal life.

Speaker 1 But when all of this stuff made it to the news, It took no time at all for people to identify him and for officers to arrest him and then charge charge him and then convict him.

Speaker 1 So he also ended up being sentenced to 33 years in prison. Now you may remember earlier how I mentioned that Lindenberg had slapped Ello at that bus stop one day.

Speaker 1 Well, she had told her father what happened, but he didn't call the police. He didn't call them because he was afraid of getting caught.

Speaker 1 Which, how tragic is it that he didn't take action because he was so selfish about his own, you know, future and being caught and going to prison? And so his daughter got killed because of that.

Speaker 1 Yet then he still ends up in prison too, which I have to wonder if he regrets the choices that he made on those days. Of course, there are a lot of different opinions about this case.

Speaker 1 I mean, the story of her hostage situation and her murder is one of the most infamous true crime cases in Brazil.

Speaker 1 Nearly everyone knows her name and everyone seems to have their own take on how it all went down and who's truly to blame. But I want to hear what you think.
Do you agree? Do you disagree?

Speaker 1 Was there something that shocked you the most? I mean, let me know either in the Spotify comments or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. And if you're watching on YouTube, let me know in the comments.

Speaker 1 But I'm curious to know what your take is with all of this. And is it like full circle karma for her dad?

Speaker 1 Not that he lost his daughter, but that because of his own actions and his own selfish reasons for not acting sooner with his daughter and intervening landed him behind bars.

Speaker 1 I think that is kind of karma, right? I don't know. Just my thought, but let me know what you guys think.

Speaker 1 As always, please make sure that you are either subscribed on the YouTube channel, or if you're listening to the podcast version of this, take a quick second, look at your podcast app and follow along with the podcast, whatever little check mark it is to follow it so that you never miss a new episode.

Speaker 1 All right. Thanks again for tuning in today.
And until the next one, be nice. Don't kill people.
Don't be a freak and a possessive predator. And just always watch your back.

Speaker 1 And never go back into a house that you were once being held as a hostage in. And that's not to shame her fault, her, it's the police officer's fault.

Speaker 1 But, like, how insane is that that I even need to say that, right? Oh, God. All right, guys, thanks so much.
I'll be back with you soon. Until then, stay safe, all the things, and just be nice.

Speaker 1 Don't kill people. Bye.

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