Maria Jose Ferreira, also known as Zeze, is probably one of the fiercest and strongest woman I have met. She often acts like my mother too, calling me up to see if I've eaten properly. I met her on the sixth floor of the Prestes Maia 911 building in downtown Sao Paulo. The building has been occupied for over four years and Zeze along with her son Jose Heron Ferreira were among the original 468 families who took over the abandoned building. Heron managed to move out and find a decent place to live in October of 2006 but was murdered on December 22, two months later for suspected organ trafficking. His partner and daughter survive him.
Heron was a freelancer, selling pirated DVD's in the Bras neighborhood from 4 to 8 am. Bras is tumultuous market district full of stores and itinerant merchants. He worked the night shift because it was easier to dodge the authorities and the already protesting established store merchants. Hundreds of thousands of people from the periphery arrive into Bras every morning by bus, train and subway to supply the freelancers.
It had taken Heron months to land a space out there and when he did, it was larger than he needed. According to Zeze, he began sharing it with an older man, Jeremiah Melekias, who had nothing. Little by little this elderly man began demanding more space until he began claiming it was his and acutally tried to kick Heron out. Obviously frictions began to surface. Jeremiahs drank a lot and would often harass the women in the area. Heron didn't like his manner and finally confronted him on December 22. Two hours later, with his back to Jeremiah, Heron would turn around and be stabbed in the heart by Jeremiah. Blood flowed quickly and with the aid of his partner he was put into a cab and taken to the Tatuape public hospital. A military police officer chased after saved Jeremiah's life, as a crowd tried to lynch him. Zeze would not arrive at the hospital until 10 am, since Heron's partner had called in saying it wasn't critical. (Above: Zeze holds a picture of her son's murderer, Jeremiah, who was released within a couple hours of his arrest due to lack of evidence, even after two witnesses came forward.)
When Zeze arrived and demanded to see her son, she discovered he wasn't registered in the hospital. She panicked after finding Heron's partner who told her he was in intensive care. "Why? You said he was alright, what's going on, where is my son?!" She found him in the emergency ward, sitting up and holding the wall. When he saw her he tried to stand up and reach her, naturally she moved closer, but was abruptly stopped by a medic.
The doctor came to her and told her it was serious and that she should be prepared for the worst. A total of four doctors would try to convince her it was serious, but none explained to her what was going on. The doctors kept repeating
they could not operate until they knew what was going on. At 2:40 pm, almost 9 hours after his arrival, Heron was being taken on a stretcher into surgery. Zeze recalls the time because he passed right in front of her. At 5pm Zeze was told he was dead.
She could not believe it. Distressed she recalls exiting the hospital ward into the waiting room. Almost immediately four women approached her asking her to donate her son's organs. They consistently pressured her about how her son's vital organs could benefit and save lives. By law in Brazil, it is prohibited to donate organs from a violent death. Zeze told me she immediately knew something was wrong, she could smell it, but it was not until she had calmed down several days later that she began to put the dots together.
It took the hospital another four hours to hand over the body and when they did they refused to let her see it. In fact the only one to see the body in the casket was her other son and he only saw the head because the casket was already sealed.
Three months later Zeze legally exhumed the body. This would be the first time a judicial order in the state of Sao Paulo would be excecuted to investigate an allegation of organ trafficking. Zeze would carefully bring in her own forensic scientist from Brasilia, Eduardo Reis from the Federal Police. By law the delegate of the county must attend the exhumation and bring its own forensic scientist.
We arrived at the Vila Formosa I cemetery. The exhumation was programmed for 9 am. The cemetery had received no official announcement. The delegate and her forensic team arrived an hour later and was completely surprised to see that the mother's victim had brought her own forensic scientist. The delegate immediately announced that no pictures or video could be taken. Zeze of course had her own judicial orders allowing her to film and shoot. The NGO, Contra o Trafego de Orgaos, led by sister Enilda dos Santos, had helped her through months of bureaucracy to obtain these permissions.
I admit I know little of forensic science, but what I saw that morning was incredibly absurd. The official forensic scientist began un-burying the corpse before the morgue vehicle arrived. He pulled the body out of the ground with no care at all as you can see in the pictures where he's practically crushing the skull. The exhumation was an official criminal investigation and this official had barely put on a pair gloves and was using no medical instruments. He began manipulating the evidence before our very eyes with a very large cooking knife. He stabbed the eye sockets twisting and turning and then calling out to the delegate so she could see that the corneas had not been removed. I was flabbergasted, can you tell really see this on a three month old corpse? Incredibly enough the forensic from Brasilia, Reis, demanded they stop. He went off to collect his full body medical suit and offered one to the Sao Paulo forensic, which of course he refused. This wacko actually wanted to do the autopsy right beside the grave. He wanted to open the body with a pair of household scissors, remove the visceras and take them down to the lab. What??? I mean of all the crazy things I have seen this was unbelievable, someone was deliberately trying to destroy evidence.
Eventually under Reis' protest and the threat to report this abnormality, the delegate and her crew abandoned the scene leaving the corpse under a threatening thunderstorm. They excused themselves claiming they could not wait all day for the morgue to arrive. Shouldn't the morgue have been their with them? This of course was further proof that they were attempting to tamper with the corpse. Legally you can't leave a body out in the open, Tthe cemetery wanted to re bury the body which legally then would require another judicial order for exhumation. Burying the body would also damage it further.
Eventually we stood our ground, protected the body, buried it with plastic and flowers as we waited another two hours for the morgue to arrive. The body has been analyzed by both forensic scientists and we are now awaiting for their report. Reis was unable to provide any information until that report is released in case it contradicts what he saw. He did tell me to stick around, because there would be a big surprise.
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