Death pact is one of the hypotheses being raised by the Brazilian police, which are investigating the deaths of a 13-year-old girl and her piano teacher, 31, who were found Sunday morning, November 18, in a motel in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state.
Gabriela Muratt, an 8th grader, was being sought by the police since Friday night. She was found shot, in the head with a gun in her hand, next to Marcos Maronez Júnior, her private music instructor, also shot in the head in a motel in the east side of Porto Alegre.
Police chief Eliete Matias Rodrigues from the Adolescent and Child Bureau, says that one line of investigation being pursued is the possibility that the teenager was killed by her instructor who then killed himself.
But since two guns, a .38 and a .32 caliber, were found in the motel room and both had been shot, authorities also suggest that both might have committed suicide.
"We believe something like this might have happened due to the teacher’s age and his power of persuasion," Rodrigues told reporters.
Brazil’s Child and Teenager Statute in its article 82 states that "it is forbidden the lodging of a child or a teenager in a hotel, motel and boarding house, unless authorized or accompanied by a responsible adult."
Rodrigues says that the owners of these establishments are supposed to ask for IDs for proof of age even if the woman seems to be older than 18. Violations of the law can result in fines.
In the letters found in the motel room, which seem to have been written by the couple, both blame the deaths on the opposition of the girl’s family to the relationship.
Since the girl’s disappearance on Friday, Maronez, who is the owner of the Music Conservatory 24 hs, where Gabriela studied, was the main suspect for her having vanished.
The police still don’t know where they spent Friday night and Saturday until 4 pm, when they arrived by taxi to Motel Atenas. They called the motel’s front desk around 7 pm, notifying that they would spend the night at the place and asking to be woken up at 8, Sunday morning.
They were called as agreed and the man said they would be leaving soon. Two hours later, however, noticing that they still haven’t come out and didn’t answer the phone, the motel management decided to go knock on their door.
Getting no response they ended up entering the room. That’s when they found the couple all bloodied in bed, agonizing. The were both rushed to hospital São Lucas, but the doctors there were not able to save them.
Maronez had left his own home late afternoon on Thursday and checked in into a small hotel in downtown Porto Alegre with a few bags and a backpack. He told the manager that he was fed up with his wife and all the fights at home and that he intended to stay there for weeks. He paid 88 reais (US$ 40) as advancement for the first two nights. The piano instructor was starting the process of separating from his wife.
Gabriela was buried this Monday in the Jardim da Paz (Peace Garden) cemetery in Porto Alegre. Her parents have refused to talk about the tragedy with the press arguing that they don’t wish to make the tragedy even worse by hurting the feelings of other people involved. The musician’s family also is keeping quiet.
