Mesquita was shot twice in the head. He fell beside his motorcycle. A folder he was carrying also dropped to the ground. He died before help could reach him.

Despite the speed and initial efficiency of the investigation, the case went on to be practically shelved until November 2000, when the Inter American Press Association raised questions at the Rondônia Public Safety Department about why the investigation had not been concluded.

Inspector Adão Caetano Gonçalves, chief of the Rondônia state Interior Police Division, reported that the detective handling the case, Wagner Januário, in the city of Ji-Paraná, was still awaiting authorization of expenditure for police officers to go to another state to locate the fugitive suspects. Without being able to arrest them, he said, it was impossible to proceed with the investigation because there were no other leads. He believed that the arrest of the suspects could lead to identification of who was behind the murder. On December 18, 2000, Edson Simões, executive director of the Rondônia Civil Police, recalled that the week before the funds had been approved. But the suspects had still not been arrested.

The fugitive suspects are Eurico Rodrigues Chaves and a man identified only as de Nivaldo, also known as "Polaco." A warrant for their arrest had been issued in December 1998. The explanation for the delay is, as always, lack of money and wherewithal for the investigators to continue pursuing the case.

Because of the popularity of Mesquita’s television program and pressure from relatives and influential friends, the police made it a priority to find those responsible for the murder and in the first few months following the crime acted swiftly. In December 1998, the State Attorney’s Office publicly identified five suspects. Three of them were arrested – Gerim Ferreira Lacerda, Valdivino Martins da Silva and Claudiomiro Chaves. The other two – Eurico and Nivaldo – went into hiding.

The State Attorney’s Office fingered them as a result of statements made in March 1998 by Maria Fagundes de Aguiar, at the time married to Gerim, who was on the run. Gerim was jailed in September 1998 for illegal arms possession and was also wanted for attempted homicide in Mirante de la Sierra, a town of some 13,000 inhabitants located 36 miles from Ouro Preto do Oeste.

When he was jailed, Gerim confirmed what his wife had said. He stated that he had put Eurico and Nivaldo up at his home at the request of Claudiomiro (Eurico’s cousin) and Marco Antônio Moura, a.k.a. Dete, who died in Ouro Preto do Oeste in August 1998 of a drug overdose. He said that on the day of Mesquita’s murder he had gone to work with his wife and came home only that evening. Eurico and Nivaldo were not in the house. They came back the following day. They asked Gerim to call a cab after they were contacted by another of the suspects, Valdivino. According to Gerim, Eurico said that he and Nivaldo had killed Mesquita but if he said anything they would kill him, too. They left Ouro Preto do Oeste and were never seen again.

Valdivino, nicknamed "The Big Man," had a criminal record for drug trafficking and possession. Called in to make a statement, he denied having taken part in the murder. There are rumors in Ouro Preto do Oeste and in the neighboring town of Ji-Paraná that Valdivino had been arrested several days before Mesquita’s murder, perhaps on some complaint by Mesquita, and he had therefore sought revenge.

The district attorney who carried out the initial investigations, Heverton Alves de Aguiar, was unable to confirm that version, although he did not rule out the possibility of Valdivino’s involvement. "he was more a ‘boqueiro’ (owner of a place where drugs are sold) than a dealer himself," Aguiar said. His doubts were due to the fact that Valdivino did not appear to have enough money to pay for a contract killing. And he could find no record of Valdivino’s having been arrested prior to Mesquita’s murder.

Aguiar believes the crime was committed by people from out of state. From its characteristics, it would appear to have been the work of professional hit men. Perhaps they had not gone specifically to kill Mesquita – they might have been on their way through Rondônia and took the opportunity to earn some money on the side. Claudiomiro’s statement to police supports this theory. He said that his cousin Eurico and his companion Nivaldo were believed to have traveled from Paraná to Rondônia in search of drugs.

Another theory is that the suspects were hired in Paraná to kill Mesquita in Rondônia. In that case, the person ordering the murder would be someone with money to pay the high price for such a contract. That is why Mesquita’s family suspects there could have been some powerful person behind Valdivino that masterminded the murder.

In November 2000, the IAPA was unable to locate the whereabouts of either Valdivino or Claudiomiro. On the street where Valdivino lives neighbors appear to be afraid of talking about him.

Of the two jailed suspects the only one apparently to have admitted taking part in the crime, by putting up the killers, was Gerim. He is also said to have received a revolver from Eurico in payment for his help. Reportedly, the gun was used by Gerim in a murder attempt on Lourdes Ferreira de Oliveira in Mirante de la Sierra in 1998.

Despite Gerim’s statement, several problems hampered the follow-up inquiries. One was that the exhumation of Mesquita’s body was carried out one year after his death. By April 1999 no forensic tests had been carried out on the suspects’ gun to compare it with bullets retrieved from Mesquita’s body, so 27-year-old Ouro Preto do Oeste district attorney Renato Grieco Puppio, a five-year veteran of the public prosecutor’s office, requested the release of the suspects, saying they should not suffer because of the state’s inefficiency. Only on April 8 – more than a year after the murder – did forensic experts conclude that the bullets that killed Mesquita were not fired from the suspects’ gun.

Freed along with the other suspects, Gerim appeared before Ouro Preto do Oeste court on April 13 that same year to say that he was going to live in Mirante de la Sierra. Six days later, he was murdered there. Accused of his murder are the brother and husband of Lourdes Ferreira de Oliveira – whom Gerim had attempted to kill before he was jailed.

In May 1999, district attorney Puppio decided there was not sufficient evidence against Claudiomiro and Valdivino. "The only thing that pointed to them was what Gerim has testified, and he was dead now," Puppio explained. In addition, he added, there was no eye-witness who could identify the murderers, because all those at the scene said only that they saw only men running, their faces covered. If the public prosecutor’s office were to put them on trial without any evidence, there was a very good chance they would be acquitted and they could never again be tried for the same crime, but they could be indicted later if new evidence came to light, Puppio said. The investigation of Nivaldo and Eurico continues and a warrant for their arrest remains in effect.

But the district attorney believes the difficulties will continue. "Throughout Brazil expert evidence does not work. The police are ill-equipped," he said. He thinks the police failed in not arresting Eurico and Nivaldo, who are still on the run. Their apprehension, he maintains, is the key to identifying who is behind the murder. District attorney Rodrigo José Dantas Lima, who bought the initial charges against the suspects when he received the case file, agrees with his colleague. "The big deficiency was the lack of a police structure to carry out their work – material and human conditions," Lima said. "Inquiries had to be made in another state and it took a long time for them to get the funds and vehicles they needed, then when they got there no one was to be found."

Mesquita’s family and many of his friends believe it is not only lack of material resources that are keeping the case from being solved. "If this were a crime of passion, they would have solved it already because they identified the suspects very quickly and the state governor at the time called for priority to be given to the investigations," said Aurita Raquel Mesquita Libanio, the dead journalist’s sister.

The name of Rondônia state representative for the Liberal Party, Ronilton Rodrigues Reis, otherwise known as Ronilton Capixaba, a former civil police officer, was mentioned as one of those suspected in the murder early on in the investigation, following the arrest of Sebastião Leopoldino da Silva, known as Tiãozinho, a resident of Ji-Paraná, Rondônia’s second largest city with a population of nearly 100,000 and 26 miles from Ouro Preto do Oeste.

In the first police interrogation, Tiãozinho was reported to have said that he had been approached by his nephew Jaci, who told him about a "service" Rep. Ronilton Capixaba had hired him to provide – to kill Mesquita – for a payment of 10,000 reais (about $5,000). In a second statement, this time made with his lawyer present, he denied everything, saying he had been pressured by the police and neither he nor Jaci had been involved in the crime. He asserted he had no relationship with the congressman. He was freed on a court order.

Ronilton Capixaba said he first met Tiãozinho in jail, after being accused by him. He denies an involvement in the murder and recalls that right after Tiãozinho’s arrest, what he calls the real killers were apprehended. He admits having offered financial aid for the police hunt for the murderers. And he said he knew Valdivino, "The Big Man," because he used to work as a guard at city hall shortly before Capixaba became a city commissioner. In addition, Capixaba was a Civil Police officer. He believes his name came up in the investigations because it was an election year and there was a smear campaign against him.

Detective Márcio Mendes Moraes was working in Ouro Preto do Oeste when Mesquita was murdered and is now at the regional police headquarters in Rolim de Moura, also in Rondônia state. Moraes believes that Tiãozinho was pressured into confessing his involvement in the crime, because he was well known as a gunman and had killed someone in Espírito Santo. The detective recalled that the suspect’s automobile and weapon did not match the description of eyewitnesses.

A problem arose during the investigation, when a list of telephone calls made by Ronilton Capixaba was requested. "There was no call to link him to the crime," Moraes declared in recalling details of the inquiries. The fact is that although the calls had been vetted in absolute secrecy at the request of district attorney Heverton Alves de Aguiar, the news was leaked. "Several days later, Ronilton Capixaba himself went to the police precinct to ask detective Moraes what was going on," Aguiar remembers. "I looked into it – the information could only have come from the police. If there was anything to do with politics, from the moment the information was leaked it would be difficult to prove anything against him."

Two years after his first statement, the IAPA was unable to discover Tiãozinho’s whereabouts at his former home in Ji-Paraná. Neighbors there said he moved after giving his statements to the police. His nephew Jaci said that after what happened his uncle planned to open a butcher’s shop. According to Jaci, Rep. Ronilton Capixaba was always a friend of all of them.

Detective Moraes asked to be relieved of his post because word of the investigations into the disappearance of the fugitives had leaked out and were published in the local newspaper. "I don’t know who compromised the investigations, whether it was the Civil Police, people from the Homicide Division or whoever," Moraes said. The case went on to be handled by Pedro Mancebo, at the time regional police inspector in Ji-Paraná and currently head of the Arms Special Division in Porto Velho and vice president of the state police officers union.

"I pointed out who did it and now it is up to the State Attorney’s Office to bring charges or not," Mancebo said. "If there is insufficient evidence, it is not because of any shortcoming in the inquiries. If we did not do more, it was only because of lack of resources." In Aguiar’s view what was really lacking was a will on the part of the police to investigate. "In a crime of this kind, against the only reporter who provided information to the public, the police should have a greater commitment," he declared.

The family went abroad

Mesquita’s family did not want to wait for the investigations to be concluded. Following his death his children were terrified and in financial straits. They were unable to keep the television station. They paid off its debts and just kept a photocopier belonging to Rony, Mesquita’s son. Zilda, his widow, and his two other sons, Wesley and Clérisson, left the country.

Mesquita left one other person mourning his death – his companion in recent times, Neidimar Oliveira Clara, whose brother was Ronilton Capixaba’s brother-in-law. She worked as general manager of the Santa Cruz Hospital, owned by Capixaba. Shortly before Mesquita’s death, she went to Bolivia to study medicine, with Mesquita’s help. She expected to resume her three-year relationship with him on her return. But after Mesquita’s murder she did not go back to Rondônia. Many people in the city suspect that Neidimar may know something that could incriminate someone as being behind the murder. Contacted by the IAPA, she said that if she knew anything she would say so, because she was fond of Mesquita and had nothing to gain from his death as she depended on him for her survival in Bolivia.

The host of the program "Open Space" was described by his friends as a happy fellow who liked to help others. He was devoted to the elderly in Ouro Preto do Oeste and even found a home to house them. The place where he lived, as well as the Ouro Verde TV station, consisted of very simple, unostentatious woodframe buildings. He often had a hard time financially. Once he had to close the television station for four or five months because he did not have broadcast license from the Brazilian capital. He himself sold commercials to keep the station going. He also relied on government propaganda.

He was a member of the Adventist Church and according to his sister Aurita he was becoming more and more religious each day. He made a lot of plans for the future. One of the them was to set up another television station in Rio Branco, capital of the neighboring state of Acre. On the day of his death he was preparing to travel to Rio Branco to film a soccer game. "Mesquita got on well with everyone, I don’t think he had any enemies," his widow, Zilda, said.

The cause of death remains a mystery

In the small town of pavement worn by time, tinged pink by the red earth, the program "Open Space" broadcast on Sundays by José Carlos Mesquita had a ready audience – the needy. Mayors and city commissioners were frequently called to Mesquita’s Ouro Verde TV station to speak about city programs. If there was a pothole in the street, the residents would go to Mesquita. He used to seek a solution and there went a politician to promise a cure for the problem.

That is why many people were surprised when they learned that the show’s host had been murdered outside the blue-painted wooden house at the end of Tiradentes Street where Channel 3 TV operated. In Ouro Preto do Oeste, a city with a population of nearly 50,000, whose main activity was dairy farming and the cultivation of rice, coffee, beans and cocoa, practically everyone knew everyone else by sight or from chats in the street. According to his friends and colleagues Mesquita was not one to make grand denunciations or attack someone without allowing the offended person to defend himself in front of the television cameras. "He was very respectful. I went on the program often," said police inspector Márcio Mendes Moraes, who worked in Ouro Preto do Oeste.

Two theories arose about the murder. One of them concerned a row with another journalist, Antônio Alexandre Araújo, nicknamed Paraíba, that occurred in November 1997. Mesquita fell out with Araújo because the latter had taken a videotape of a soccer game without permission at Ouro Verde TV. After this incident it was said in town that Mesquita was going around calling Araújo a cattle thief. A lawyer intervened between the two and calmed things down.

The other theory derived from the fact that Mesquita had taken up in his television program a campaign to introduce a motorcycle taxi service in Ouro Preto do Oeste. Cab drivers, angered at the competition this would bring, protested. Mesquita filed a formal complaint at local police headquarters in November 1997 that he had received a threat from cab driver Gidevaldo Elias de Gois to stop talking about motorcycle taxis on his program. Gois denied he had been threatening.

The police discarded this theory and went on to follow up other leads. There was a lot of comment after the murder about Mesquita having talked informally, off camera, of his unease at irregularities in local hospitals, including the Santa Cruz Hospital, a private facility belonging to then city commissioner Ronilton Capixaba, among others. Mesquita charged that while residents were suffering from poor medical care there were powerful people making money from government Social Security payments and from the ale of medicines. Mesquita had also exposed, shortly before his death, drug trafficking in the area.

Capixaba, currently a state representative for the Liberal Party, still owns the Santa Cruz Hospital. He denies that there was ever any irregularity there. "The hospital was investigated and the Health Ministry has found nothing against it," he said. "I never had any problems with Mesquita. He was a friend and his wife was the general manager of my hospital."

The weekend before the murder Mesquita called Heverton Alves de Aguiar, Ouro Preto do Oeste district attorney. "He seemed tense, apprehensive," Aguiar recalled. Mesquita told him he needed to hand over a videotape to him, something that he was going to like a lot. He did not want to say what it was about, because he was afraid that his telephone was tapped. Aguiar invited him to go to his home that same day, but Mesquita preferred to wait until the following Monday morning.

However, on the agreed date Mesquita did not go to the district attorney’s office. Aguiar tried to call him, but got no reply. Later, as he was going home, the district attorney saw movement outside the funeral parlor and learned of Mesquita’s murder. "When I saw what had happened, I asked them to look for a videotape," he said. He looked at many of the videotapes that were found at the television station, but found nothing special. Eyewitnesses said that when Mesquita was gunned down as he exited the television station he was carrying a folder. No one knows if the videotape was in it. In any event, the folder disappeared.

At the time, Aguiar was investigating such things as complaints of corruption, including alleged irregularities in Social Security dealings with local hospitals, and of pollution of rivers by major industries in the area. The contents of the videotape could be related to any of these investigations.

Shortly after Mesquita’s death, the district attorney was promoted, transferred to the capital city and no longer pursued the case. He said that before leaving he wrote a report for the Attorney General’s Office charging the police with a lack of interest in Mesquita’s death and pointing out shortcomings in the investigation. He noted that for a while two teams had been working on the case at the same time. "It seems that the two did not get along," he wrote. Aguiar also drew attention to the leaking of information by the police to the press.

Valdir Raupp de Matos, governor of Rondônia from 1995 to 1998, who currently is working as a cattle rancher and is pursuing business studies in Brasília, said he had several times ordered the Public Safety Department to investigate the crime that occurred at the end of his term of office. He believes the motive for the murder may be political. But he admitted, "there was a lack of witnesses and evidence."

Shortcomings in the investigations

Specialists, relatives and colleagues of Mesquita point out various problems that are likely to have hampered the police investigation, among them the following:

First, for a period of time two police teams – one in Ouro Preto do Oeste, the other in Ji-Paraná – took part in the investigations, but there does not appear to have been any consensus between them. Second, when Heverton Alves de Aguiar, at the time district attorney in Ouro Preto do Oeste, requested that a telephone call search be kept secret and police inspector Márcio Moraes sent a team to look for the fugitives in another state, the news leaked out. Third, there was no sign of the videotape containing exposés that Mesquita said he was going to hand over to district attorney Aguiar some days before his death. Fourth, the ballistics examination was carried out with delay. Fifth, when police went after the suspects, they had already fled, the detectives themselves admitting that word had leaked out. Sixth, Gerim Ferreira Lacerda, the chief witness in the investigation, was not given due police protection. He was the only one who said he had heard the alleged murderers confess to having killed Mesquita. He himself was murdered right after being freed from custody. The police were aware of his involvement in other crimes and his importance for the investigation to be carried forward. Seventh, the inquiries were brought to a halt, according to the police, awaiting money needed to pursue the suspects that had fled to another state. It was only after the IAPA made contact with Public Safety Department Secretary Reinaldo Silva Simião in Porto Velho, capital of Rondônia, that a pledge was made that monies would be forthcoming to continue the search.

Rondônia, "the lawless land"

Rondônia has the fame of being a "lawless land." The conduct of former congressmen in the region contributed to that image. Such cases include those of Jabes Rabelo, arrested for giving a federal Congress advisor credential to his brother, Abdiel, a drug trafficker who used it to operate on the national border; Nobel de Moura, arrested for parliamentary misconduct, accused of offering large sums of money to other politicians to come over to his party, and Raquel Cândido, jailed for embezzlement of $800,000 from a fraudulent welfare organization, also accused of being involved in drug trafficking, though this was not proven.

As if the political offenses were not enough, in August 1995, 11 people died and 125 were injured in a clash between police and landless peasants in Corumbiara, 500 miles from Port Velho. The police were following orders to evict 500 families from a ranch they had occupied. The "Crumbiara Massacre," as it became known, called the attention of Amnesty International, which issued a statement criticizing the Brazilian legal system for having acquitted three military police officers of charges of being involved in the deaths.

In December 1999, the drug lords of Rondônia gave a demonstration of their strength when they brutally murdered a Federal Police officer conducting an investigation into a gang in Vilhena, 444 miles from the state capital. In addition, hundreds of deaths were reported in the mines but the causes were never made clear.

In this regard, impunity is enjoyed not only by those who killed José Carlos Mesquita in Ouro Preto do Oeste. In that same city, various crimes involving politicians have yet to be solved.

Impunity also surrounds another murder – that of Senator Olavo Pires, killed on October 16, 1990, in Porto Velho. He was hit by 13 shots from an assault weapon as he was leaving a farm machinery sales outlet he owned. Pires at the time was in a runoff for governor. His death cleared the way for Oswaldo Piana to assume the governorship.

The senator’s death led to the state of Rondônia being cited in a report by the federal Chamber of Deputies’ Parliamentary Investigative Commission in 1994. According to the Commission, Pires had been championing causes opposed by local political and economic interests. In 1999, there was a new attempt to follow up the investigation. But the case remains unsolved. The slain senator’s son, Emerson, notes that three witnesses have been murdered.

Opened up by Marshal Cândido Mariano Rondon early in the last century, the territory known today as the state of Rondônia was at one time called "the El Dorado of the North." Covering an area of 92,000 square miles, two-thirds covered by Amazon jungle, it is currently home to nearly 1.2 million people – most of them from southern and southeastern Brazil, attracted by government propaganda Rondônia gained its political autonomy and became a state in 1982.

Thousands of farmers, businessmen and even fugitives from justice came together at that time on lands previously belonging to the Indians. Despite having an economy based on farming, fishing, lumber and what is left of the mines, Rondônia has become popular thanks to the bad reputation of its politicians and its role in drug trafficking. The proximity of the Bolivian border and the difficulty of keeping an eye on its 1,100 miles of rivers has made the state one the main staging posts for cocaine traffic to Brazil. The highways are in bad shape and some are impassible during the rainy season, hampering police control even further.

The current Rondônia Public Safety Department chief, Col. Reinaldo Silva Simião, took up his post in March 2000 with a pledge to turn around the image of crime and impunity. "There are clear deficiencies in the police forces, accumulated over the years for not having made the investments needed in that area," Simião admitted. The result is police precincts without a basic infrastructure – weapons, fuel, equipment and certainly not computers. "The work of the police is carried out thanks to the efforts of police officers top overcome these realities, seeking alternatives with local businesses, for example, for the purchase of fuel," he declared. Simião believes change is likely to come with police forces joining together in an Integrated Operations Center. He reported that the state and federal governments have earmarked funds for the purchase of automobiles, computers and forensic equipment and to hold training and recycling courses.

Simião hopes to make a revolution in the state with the establishment of Community Safety Councils, a form of Crime Watch. But he said the federal government witness protection program has yet to be instituted in Rondônia. He hopes to work with non-governmental organizations to set up such a program locally.

Despite its bad name, Rondônia is a state with an approved ecological socio-economic plan and agrarian program.

The Rondônia-Espírito Santo connection

There is a connection between the states of Rondônia and Espírito Santo, as noted by the Parliamentary Investigative Commission on Drug Trafficking, whose findings were presented in December 2000. According to the Commission report, the so-called drugs Southeast Connection began in 1979. At that time, major flooding in Espírito Santo caused many families to migrate to Rondônia in search of fertile land.

With no steady jobs and heavily in debt, some people resorted to trafficking in cocaine on a small scale in order to survive, taking advantage of the proximity of Bolivia. Over time, they came to be sought out by small-time traffickers, mainly from Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais. As the Federal Police observed, the traffickers traveled on scheduled or clandestine buses in search of the drugs.

With an increase in control, the packages were also sent by mail, in tourists’ cars, aboard private aircraft and in trucks. According to the Commission, a large part of the cocaine that supplies to Espírito Santo market comes from Ji-Paraná in Rondônia. There could be facts, not yet investigated, linking this connection with the death of journalist José Carlos Mesquita.

Coincidences

There are certain "coincidences" in the investigation into Mesquita’s death:

1. Mesquita was born in Vitória, Espírito Santo state. From the same state were Valdivino Martins da Silva, state Representative Ronilton Rodrigues Reis, a.k.a. Ronilton Capixaba, and Neidimar Oliveira Clara.

2. Mesquita exposed drug trafficking and poor public medical care.

3. Fugitive suspects Nivaldo (not otherwise identified) and Eurico Rodrigues Chaves are believed to have traveled from Paraná to Rondônia to buy drugs, according to Claudiomiro Chaves, another suspect but later freed from police custody.
4. Suspect Gerim Ferreira Lacerda, also freed by police for lack of evidence, had confessed that the two fugitives stayed at his home and claimed they had said they had killed Mesquita. He was murdered in Mirante de la Sierra only days after being freed from custody. The story of Gerim’s death is confused and merits further investigation:

• At the time of Mesquita’s murder Gerim was living with Maria Fagundes de Aguiar. She was interrogated by the police and confirmed the presence of the suspects in her home on the day of Mesquita’s death. Tracked down by the IAPA two years after the crime, she said that details she had not given were added to her statement to police, such as that she had washed the suspects’ clothes, which would confirm eye-witnesses’ descriptions. She said the house where she and Gerim were, and where the suspects stayed, was leased by Zé Margus, who lived nearby on the property.

• José Ferreira Siqueira, a.k.a. Zé Margus, is a wary man who measures every word he says. He said that it was strange how Gerim would joke about his gun, a 38 caliber revolver. "He called it his white butt and would say, ‘this white butt knows how to make money,’" he recalled when he was tracked down by the IAPA in Mirante de la Sierra, Rondônia state. He said he did not meet Eurico and Nivaldo, even though the house where they stayed belonged to him and had been rented by Gerim.

• In Mirante de la Sierra, before he was arrested Gerim stayed for a while at the home of a girl friend of Zé Margus. During that time he had a relationship with Nerzi Marques da Silva, by whom he had a daughter. The two went to live together and worked for Lourdes Ferreira de Oliveira, Zé Margus’ daughter. Angered by Lourdes insinuating that he did not pay his debts and he had stolen some money, Gerim tried to kill her. When he was arrested for illegal arms possession and attempted homicide he allegedly confessed having taken part in Mesquita’s murder.

• On being freed from prison, Gerim returned to Mirante de la Sierra. Many people feared he would try again to kill Lourdes. Several eyewitnesses said they saw him be killed by Lourdes’ brother and husband. When one of the young men who was at the scene asked who had killed Gerim, the murderers replied that they were not bums, they were under the command "of the authority."

• When he was living with Nerzi, Gerim told her that he could not go back to Ouro Preto do Oeste because he was "dirty" there. He promised to talk to his woman about his past once they had been living together for two years.