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Suzane
von RICHTHOFEN
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Parricide - To inherit
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders: October 31, 2002
Date of arrest:
November 9, 2002
Date of birth: November 3, 1983
Victims profile: Manfred von Richthofen, and his wife, Marisia von Richthofen
(her parents)
Method of murder: Hit
them with iron sticks before strangling them with towels
Location: São
Paulo, Brazil
Status:
Sentenced to 40 years in prison on July 22, 2006
Suzane
Louise Freiin von Richthofen (born November 3, 1983), is a
Brazilian who murdered her own parents on October 31, 2002 with help
from her boyfriend and his brother. She was put on trial in São Paulo
in July 2006 and was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment.
Background and early life
Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Suzane is the daughter
of the German engineer Manfred Albert Freiherr von Richthofen, and his
wife, Marisia von Richthofen (née Marísia Abdalla), a Brazilian
of Lebanese descent.
Her father was working as a director of the State
Company for Highway Development in São Paulo, her mother was a
psychiatrist. Suzane has a younger brother, Andreas Freiherr von
Richthofen, born in 1987. Her father claimed to be a grandnephew of
Manfred von Richthofen, German war pilot of World War I, but this is
still disputed; the German von Richthofen family denies any link to
them.
After graduating from a German High School, Suzane
studied law at Pontifícia Universidade Católica. She was described as
happy, but a little shy. Suzane was known to have a good relation with
her parents and her brother. In the summer of 1999, she started
practising Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and that's where she got to know Daniel
Cravinhos de Paula e Silva, who became her boyfriend and accomplice of
the murder.
Murder
In the late hours of October 31, 2002, Suzane von Richthofen, who had
planned the murder of her parents for months, checked if they were
already asleep, then disconnected the alarm system of the estate and
opened the door to her 21-year-old-boyfriend, Daniel Cravinhos and his
brother, 26-year-old Christian Cravinhos who had waited outside.
The Cravinhos brothers went upstairs to the parents´ bedroom and hit
them with iron sticks before strangling them with towels. Suzane was
waiting in the living room downstairs. After the murder was
accomplished, the three youngsters simulated a break-in by pocketing
money they found, spreading papers in the library and creating a mess
in the house.
Then they left, Suzane and Daniel went for a motel, Christian went to
a fast-food restaurant. Early in the Morning, Suzane and Daniel picked
up her little brother, Andreas, then aged 15, at an internet cafe and
went home, where they "discovered" the crime, called the police at
once and told them their story.
The investigating officers, however, doubted a burglary crime and
thought of someone familiar to the victims, soon began to question the
children and the employees of the Richthofen family. What made them
suspicious was not only the crime scene, with the alarm system
switched off and the papers spread very regularly, as if by design,
but also the extraordinary coolness of Suzane, who was seen in the
house's swimming pool with Daniel the day after the murder, and who
celebrated her 19th birthday with friends just hours after the
parents´ burial.
The investigators focused their attention on Suzane and her boyfriend
and began shadowing them. The clue for the arrest came with Christian
Cravinhos, who had bought a motorcycle a few days later and paid cash
in 100-dollar bills. A few days later, on November 9, 2002 he was
arrested, as well as his brother and Suzane, who soon confessed the
murder. Suzane was released from prison in May 2005, when the Supreme
Court of Justice granted her habeas corpus. She then awaited her trial
in house arrest.
Motives
Suzane's parents, who at first allowed her relationship to Daniel
Cravinhos, changed their opinion when they discovered that he used
marijuana almost daily. Also, his lower-class background and his
unwillingness to work or to attend school caused their disagreement.
In July, 2002, her parents were on vacation, so Daniel moved in with
the children for a month, much to Suzane's delight. When the parents
came back home, Suzane suggested they buy her a flat in which she
could live with Daniel, but her father refused, saying that she could
do whatever she liked to only if she earned money herself. She
continued meeting Daniel secretly. Suzane claimed that she did all for
love, for fear that Daniel would leave her if the parents were not
killed. Her lawyer, Denivaldo Barni, said that Suzane had no motive at
all, but was forced to the crime by Daniel, whom she adored like a
god.
Another part of the motive may have been the parents wealth, estimated
to about seventeen million dollars, which Suzane would inherit in case
of the parents´ death. As Prosecutor Roberto Tardelli put it, Suzane
wanted to "get her hands on the money and assets her parents had
worked so hard to obtain", she "wanted her freedom and
independence without having to work for it". On trial, Daniel
Cravinhos claimed that Suzane was physically violated by her father,
which she and her brother Andreas von Richthofen deny. It was also
claimed that the Richthofen parents were alcoholics, but in the
autopsy no alcohol was detected in their bodies.
Trial
On June 5, 2006, Suzane Freiin von Richthofen, along with the
Cravinhos, was put on trial in São Paulo, for homicídio qualificado,
the equivalent of First Degree Murder in Brazilian law. The Trial was
delayed and finally started on July 17. On trial, Suzane blamed Daniel
Cravinhos for everything, while the Cravinhos brothers claimed that
they acted upon her desire. Prosecutor Roberto Tardelli, however,
called Suzane the "mastermind" of the crime. Roberto Tardelli
called for 50 years of imprisonment for each of the three defendants.
She was described as "personification of the evil blonde".
On July 22, 2006 Suzane was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the
crime. Daniel Cravinhos got the same sentence and his brother
Christian was sentenced to 38 years for conspiracy.
As of April 2007, she is in custody in a women's prison outside São
Paulo.
Brazilian public attention
The case generated significant media attention in
Brazil due to the stark contrast between the brutal crime and the
personality of the daughter. While the Cravinhos brothers fitted in
the scheme of the uneducated, unemployed, drug-addicted killers, this
was not true for Suzane: She was a pretty, blond girl from an
upper-middle-class family of German and Lebanese descent,
well-behaved, always doing well at school, speaking three foreign
languages and doing ballet. The contrast between her affluent
upbringing and the cruelty of the crime shocked the country.
Also, as discussion emerged in the Brazilian public
about the worth of family values and the effects of education, the
question as to whether Suzane was the evil mind behind the crime or
just Daniel's tool was also heavily discussed. Many people who
initially were emotionally on Suzane's side, changed their opinion
when a TV interview with her was shown. Before the interview, when the
cameras were already on, she was instructed for the interview by her
lawyer. He told her to cry out loud during the broadcast, to create
public sympathy. In the outcome, however, the interview was a major
blast for her credibility. In court, Suzane still was very cool, while
the Cravinhos brothers were crying most of the time. At one occasion,
she even started to laugh. One correspondent tried to explain Suzane
through Hannah Arendt's theory of the "Banality
of evil".
Red Baron heiress killed parents
BBC.co.uk
July 23, 2006
A relative of the German World War I flying ace
known as the Red Baron has been sentenced to 39 years in jail for
killing her wealthy parents in Brazil.
Suzane von Richthofen, 22, whose father was a great
nephew of fighter pilot Baron von Richthofen, was found guilty of the
murders by a Sao Paulo court.
Her ex-boyfriend and his brother were also jailed
for some 40 years each for the killings that took place in 2002.
The case has attracted a storm of publicity in
Brazil.
Chief Prosecutor Roberto Tardelli described Suzane
von Richthofen as the "mastermind" of the crime.
He said she was motivated by a desire to "get her
hands on the money and assets her parents had worked so hard to
obtain", the Associated Press news agency reports.
He said she "wanted her freedom and independence
without having to work for it".
Packed courtroom
Suzane von Richthofen's former boyfriend, Daniel
Cravinhos, and his brother, Christian, have already confessed they
beat her parents to death in their Sao Paulo home.
A lawyer for the brothers said the young woman had
urged the brothers to commit the crime by claiming her parents had
mistreated her.
However, a lawyer for Richthofen said Daniel
Cravinhos was the driving force behind the attack.
"This crime was committed only because Daniel
wanted to," he said. "He was the only one with a motive - money."
Suzane von Richthofen's parents are believed to
have opposed their daughter's relationship with Daniel Cravinhos, who
came from a poorer family.
Lawyers for the three are expected to appeal the
verdict.
Some 200 people filled the courtroom to hear the
verdict being delivered on Saturday, the Associated Press news agency
says.
Baron von Richthofen was shot dead during a
dogfight over the River Somme in 1918, ending the career of one of
Germany's most skilful - and most feared - fighter pilots.
Murder in Brazil #5 – The von Richthofen Case
Manfred von Richthofen.
When they hear that name, most folks think of this
guy, the famous WWI fighter pilot shot down over the Western Front in
April of 1918.
But in São Paulo, in the spring of 2002, everyone
would have thought you were talking about someone else: a distant
relative of the Red Baron who shared his name - and whose life also
came to a sudden and violent end.
Here’s the happy family before the tragedy. The
Brazilian Manfred was an engineer. His wife, Marísia, was a
psychiatrist. Andreas, their son, was fifteen. Suzane Louise, their
daughter, was just short of her nineteenth birthday.
They all lived in a comfortable house, beyond this
wall, in the Campo Belo neighborhood of the city.
At the time of the murders, and for the previous
three years, Suzane been carrying-on a torrid love affair with a young
man her parents deeply disapproved of. Twenty-one year-old Daniel
Cravinhos de Paula e Silva didn’t study, didn’t work and had
introduced their daughter to drugs.
They pressured her to break-off the relationship.
She refused.
And when they threatened to cut-off her allowance,
she decided to murder them.
On the night of the 31st of October, 2002, (Yes, I
did say it was springtime; this is the Southern Hemisphere, remember?)
she took her brother to a cyber-café to meet friends and play video
games. Then Suzane, her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s brother,
twenty-six year old Cristian, went to her home.
Earlier that evening, she’d disengaged the burglar
alarm and turned-off the video security cameras. Upon arrival, she
actuated the electric gate. They drove into the garage. The men put on
hoods and entered the house.
She preceded them up the stairs to her parents’
bedroom, turned on the light in the hall, and verified that Manfred
and Marisía were asleep.
Then she went downstairs and sat on the couch, in
the living room, while her accomplices set to work with bludgeons
they’d previously prepared.
The killers thought to make quick work of it, but
they were in for a surprise:
In cases of severe brain trauma, when the
individual doesn’t die immediately, the tongue often loses support at
the base and drops back into the throat.
Causing a loud and most disturbing snore.
Daniel ran to the bathroom and came back with two
wet towels. They put them over their victim’s faces in an attempt to
drown-out the sounds. It didn’t work. So he ran down the kitchen,
returned with a pitcher of water and set to drowning them with it.
That did it for Manfred, but not for Marisia. So
they tied her head into a plastic bag until she finally expired.
Once it was over, Suzane came up for a look – and
then she went downstairs and started ransacking the house.
The brothers did the same on the upper floor, all
designed to make the house look as if it had been burglarized. But
they didn’t do a good job of it. They left valuables, they left cell
phones, they left a firearm, all things burglars would be unlikely
ever to do. They did, however, take the von Richthofen’s stash of
cash, a considerable amount of it in both US Dollars and Euros.
Then they left – and Daniel and Suzane checked-into
a motel to establish an alibi.
Just before three in the morning they checked-out.
Suzane dropped her boyfriend off, picked up her brother and they went
home to “discover” their parents dead.
As the investigation progressed, it was ultimately
discovered that, only ten hours after the crime, Cristian had bought
himself a motorcycle, paying with thirty-six bills of
one-hundred-dollars each. And he couldn’t prove where he got the
money.
They grilled him. He broke down. And then the
others did too.
The investigation was over within a week.
But Brazilian law is such that, if an individual
isn’t apprehended in the commission of a crime, it’s likely they’ll
await their trial in liberty – and that’s what happened.
Suzane was free for a year, even launched a lawsuit
to take over complete control of her parents’ estate (to the tune of
more than five million US Dollars) and she might have won it, too, if
investigators hadn’t feared for the life of her brother – and found a
revolver hidden in a teddy bear in her room.
In July of 2006, almost four years after the
murders, the trio finally went to trial. (There’s a considerable
backlog of cases in the Brazilian justice system.)
The lovers were sentenced to thirty-nine years and
six months each. Cristian got a year less.
In 2009, Suzane tried to get her sentence changed
to house arrest. Her appeal was denied.
She tried again, two years later, with the same
result.
But she’ll keep trying, and people who know about
these things have told me it isn’t likely she’ll do all of her
sentence as hard time.
In 2011, Andreas sued his sister for her half of
the inheritance, including the money paid-out on her parents’ life
insurance.
