A 21-year-old Brazilian influencer was dragged from her home and shot to death outside as her father was held at gunpoint, just one week after she was released from jail in connection with a widening murder investigation, according to police and local reports.
Evelyn Lima Dantas was killed in the early hours of Wednesday, Sept. 16, in Mãe do Rio, a municipality in Brazil’s northern state of Pará.
Police were called to the São Francisco neighborhood at about 3:57 a.m. after residents reported hearing a barrage of gunfire.
When officers arrived, they found Evelyn’s body on the sidewalk outside a home on Bernardo Ferreira de Oliveira Street, according to Brazilian outlet RedeTV and local newspaper O Liberal. (RedeTV!)
Her father told police that two men had entered the house at about 3:30 a.m., overpowered him and forcibly pulled his daughter outside.
There, the gunmen opened fire before escaping in a vehicle that Evelyn’s father was unable to identify by make, model or color, according to the police account reported by O Liberal. (O Liberal)
But investigators found another disturbing clue left behind at the home.
The letters “TCP” had been spray-painted across the front of the property.
Those initials are commonly associated with Terceiro Comando Puro, or Pure Third Command, a Brazilian criminal faction that originated in Rio de Janeiro.
Police have not established that TCP ordered or carried out Evelyn’s killing, however, and the graffiti alone has not been publicly confirmed as proof of the faction’s involvement. Authorities are still working to identify both the gunmen and whoever may have ordered the attack. (Plano Oeste EDC)
The timing of the killing has become a major focus of the investigation.
Evelyn had been held at the women’s detention facility in Ananindeua before being released on provisional liberty Sept. 9, according to information attributed to Pará’s state prison administration.
Seven days later, she was dead. (Plano Oeste EDC)
Her detention stemmed from the sprawling investigation into the July 29 assassination of retired Military Police Sgt. Antônio Anildo Alves da Silva in the same municipality.
Alves, 56, a former commander of Mãe do Rio’s Municipal Guard, was gunned down in the town’s commercial district after masked attackers arrived in a Citroën C4 Cactus and opened fire, according to O Liberal. The city government subsequently declared an official day of mourning following his death. (O Liberal)
The killing triggered an enormous police response across Mãe do Rio and neighboring municipalities.
Within the first days of the investigation, authorities reported multiple arrests as well as several deaths during confrontations with police. The vehicle suspected of being used by Alves’ killers was later found abandoned in a wooded area and sent for forensic examination. (O Liberal)
Evelyn was among those swept up in that investigation.
Brazilian reporting says investigators suspected her of providing logistical support to people linked to Alves’ killing.
During the operation, police also accused her of drug trafficking. Authorities reportedly said marijuana, cocaine and two firearm magazines were recovered during her arrest. Those were allegations under investigation, and Evelyn had not been convicted in connection with Alves’ death. (BNews RN)
Her subsequent release may now be central to understanding why she was killed.
The commander of the 19th Battalion of Brazil’s Military Police said investigators are strongly examining two possibilities — retaliation or what Brazilian authorities commonly call “queima de arquivo.”
That phrase roughly describes killing someone to prevent them from revealing information.
According to the commander, Evelyn had allegedly provided information during the Alves investigation that assisted police operations in Mãe do Rio.
“We are strongly working with the hypothesis of retaliation or destruction of evidence by some criminal faction,” the commander said, according to Brazilian reporting.
Police stressed that this remains an investigative theory, not a proven motive. (Plano Oeste EDC)
The wider case has already been exceptionally violent.
Diário do Pará reported that 10 people identified by authorities as suspects connected to the Alves investigation had died during police confrontations in the weeks after his killing.
The newspaper described Evelyn’s death as the 11th death in the broader chain of violence that followed the retired sergeant’s July assassination, although unlike the previous reported deaths, Evelyn was killed by unidentified gunmen rather than during a police operation. (Diário do Pará)
That distinction is important: police have not publicly proven that all of those deaths were orchestrated by the same group or that Evelyn’s killing was directly ordered because of the Alves case.
Investigators are examining those possible links.
Online, Evelyn had built a sizable following through videos and posts centered on beauty, fitness and her everyday life.
Her TikTok account accumulated more than 1 million likes, while reports vary on the exact number of followers she maintained across her social-media accounts. PEOPLE reported a combined following of more than 150,000 across TikTok and Instagram before her Instagram account was deactivated. (People.com)
Her public social-media presence gave little indication of the criminal investigation that had unfolded around her in the weeks before her death.
Now police are trying to determine whether that investigation ultimately placed her in the crosshairs.
The Civil Police in Pará are conducting forensic work, gathering witness statements and attempting to identify the men seen entering the home.
As of the latest reporting, no one had been arrested for Evelyn’s murder, and authorities had not formally identified TCP — or any other criminal faction — as responsible. (Plano Oeste EDC)
That makes one part of Radar’s headline worth changing: I would not call this an established “gang hit” yet. The scene strongly prompted a gang-related line of inquiry because of the TCP graffiti and police’s retaliation theory, but investigators have not publicly proven who ordered the murder. “Alleged gang hit” is safer, but the cleanest headline is the one above because the circumstances themselves are already dramatic without getting ahead of police.
A second useful correction is the description of Alves. He was not simply a generic “retired cop.” Local records identify him as a retired Military Police sergeant and former commander of Mãe do Rio’s Municipal Guard, which gives readers a clearer sense of why his July killing triggered such an extensive police operation. (O Liberal)
And the strongest added reporting angle is the Sept. 9 release date plus police’s statement that Evelyn may have supplied investigators with information. That detail makes the one-week timeline before her killing much more significant while still clearly presenting retaliation as a theory rather than fact.
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