Digital forensic solutions help solve a double murder in the Amazon

Even explicit confessions need to be backed by solid factual evidence. Brazil’s federal forensic experts took the Leica BLK360 imaging laser scanner into the heart of the Amazon to reconstruct a double murder and validate key witness testimonies.

Start reading

Malgorzata Krol

Global Director Marketing Communication, Public Safety, at Hexagon’s Geosystems division.

When conservationist Bruno Araújo Pereira and British journalist Dom Philips went missing in the Amazon rainforest, intense international media interest meant that Brazil needed to demonstrate the trustworthiness of its criminal justice system and solve the case quickly.

“In the remote Javari Valley, near the border with Peru and Colombia, you find the highest concentration of Indigenous tribes without contact with modern civilisation,” says Bruno Costa Pitanga Maia, Federal Crime Expert of the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Criminalística (INC). “The only roads are the rivers. The river water levels vary dramatically, meaning the lines between river, swamp and soil are blurred and constantly changing. You can forget heavy-wheeled flight cases full of equipment. You only take what fits in a backpack. So, when we went out to investigate the deaths of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, my main tools were the Leica BLK360 portable 3D laser scanner, my laptop and a lot of mosquito repellent.”

Bruno Pereira was a fervent advocate for Indigenous rights. Throughout his tenure at the Nacional Indian Foundation (FUNAI), from 2010 to 2019, he faced an unyielding barrage of threats from gold miners, loggers and fishermen. Later, he formed UNIVAJA, an NGO funded by the people of Javari Valley, and continued the fight against illegal fishing and smuggling. Dom Phillips was an accomplished British journalist who lived in Brazil. Employed by the British Guardian newspaper, he was researching a book on sustainable development and the Indigenous population when he teamed up with Pereira to visit the Javari Valley region. When the two disappeared, the international press quickly sounded the alarm. The Brazil Federal Police soon made progress on the case thanks to a good lead.

The shooter’s perspective is examined during the validation of the trajectory of the shotgun slug.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CRIME

The men were last seen in a boat heading up the Itaquai River with another boat in hot pursuit, manned by three men known to be poachers and illegal fishermen. Philips and Pereira disappeared on 5 June 2022. Three days later, suspects were arrested. A forensic team from Manaus arrived on 10 June, and some personal items were found a day later.

At that point, the Brasilia forensic team joined the investigation and flew into the area to begin documenting the evidence. Surprisingly, on 15 June, one of the arrested suspects confessed and agreed to lead investigators to the burial site of Phillips’ and Pereira’s bodies. Over time though, this man began to change the story he had been telling the investigators.

By reconstructing the crime timeline, forensic teams validate statements, guard against retractions, and shed light on mitigating or aggravating circumstances that affect sentencing. Consider the moment of the shooting: Did insults lead to an argument or was it a cold-blooded surprise attack? “To answer that, we borrowed two real boats and reenacted the chase based on the various testimonies. Bruno and Dom would not have heard the killers until they were right behind them. Moreover, we scanned similar boats from a warehouse and put everything into a forensic digital twin. In the above image, you can see the reconstruction of the trajectory of the shotgun slug that passed through Bruno’s upper torso to hit the front of the boat. In the other image, you see our simulation of the killer’s perspective.”

After both men had been shot, the boat ran aground. Brazil Federal Police reconstructed the site in 3D using laser scans and physical evidence, such as broken branches and footprints. While foliage reflects a laser, small gaps between the leaves make it possible to ascertain the soil topology when you scan a jungle site. From there, the killers moved them to the first dumping site. The bodies were left in the water, and some belongings were scattered. These were the first clues the investigators found. The next day, the perpetrators moved the bodies to another site deep in the forest and tried to burn the remains.

“The Itaquai River also makes the terrain very soggy, making travel very difficult. Add high temperatures and humidity, and you are grateful for robust equipment. On our first visit, the water levels were high. When we returned, the water level had dropped by 1.46 metres, exposing more evidence. Thanks to the Leica Cyclone REGISTER 360 software, we were able to superimpose the scans from the different visits with annotations for each piece of evidence to form a coherent picture.”

“Thanks to all the evidence we collected, we were able to show that the original confession corresponds to the facts of the case and is, therefore, reliable. In the end, we were able to arrest a man for whom these two Pirarucu fishermen were allegedly working.” Leica Geosystems’ forensic solutions and software helped Brazilian authorities make their case.