Daniel Camargo Barbosa - Modus Operandi

Modus Operandi

Camargo selected helpless, young, lower-class girls in search of work and approached them, pretending to be a foreigner who needed to find a Protestant pastor in a church on the outskirts of town. He explained that he had to deliver a large sum of money, which he showed them as proof, and he offered them a reward if they would accompany him to show him the way. He pretended that he was a stranger to the area, and hinted at the possibility of the girls getting a job at the factory. No one was suspicious of an older man accompanying a girl or young woman who could be his granddaughter. Carmago would then enter into the woods, claiming to be looking for a shortcut in order to avoid arousing suspicion in his victims. If the girls grew suspicious and drew back, he did not prevent them from leaving. Camargo raped his victims before strangling them, sometimes stabbing them when they resisted. After his victims were dead, he left their bodies in the forest to be picked clean by scavengers.