Serial killer sentenced to 20 years in prison in Goiás

Security guard Thiago Henrique Gomes da Rocha, aged 28, was sentenced Wednesday (Mar. 2) to  20 years in prison for the murder of Juliana Neubia Dias, 22. She was shot dead with her boyfriend in a car in the Setor Oeste district in Goiânia, Goiás, in July 2014.

Convicted by jury trial, he will serve his jail term at Odenir Guimarães penitentiary.

The sentencing hearing lasted about three hours. The jury found Thiago Henrique guilty of aggravated murder with two aggravated circumstances, for a base motive and with deliberately keeping the victim from defending herself.

Serial killer

Thiago Rocha has been charged with committing a series of murders between 2011 and 2014. He would approach strangers on a motorcycle, especially women, and then shoot.

Thiago Rocha was arrested in October 2014. He confessed to committing 39 murders, and became known as “the serial killer of Goiás”. A few months later, on the advice of his defense counsel, he said he killed fewer people than he had admitted before. According to his lawyers, Rocha has mental problems and believes he has a mission to kill.

Translated by Mayra Borges