Moment when the Brazilian police remove the wooden trunk in which the dog-loving actor was stuffed and buried
Police video shows the moment when police unearthed a wooden trunk containing the remains of a missing soap opera actor in Brazil.
Jefferson Machado, 44, disappeared from his home in Rio de Janeiro in January and was officially reported missing in February before police discovered his body on Monday.
The footage from Rio de Janeiro State Civil Police was unveiled Wednesday after forensic personnel confirmed Machado’s body using his fingerprints.
Two men can be seen using a jackhammer, picks and a shovel to break up the concrete floor and dig the dirt out of an outbuilding, after which police lifted the briefcase out of a six-foot hole.
Rio de Janeiro State Civil Police officers lift the wooden case containing the remains of missing actor Jefferson Machado. The 44-year-old’s cause of death has not been disclosed, but a family lawyer suggested he may have suffocated as police discovered he had a metal wire wrapped around his neck.
Brazilian soap opera actor Jefferson Machado disappeared from his home in January and was officially reported missing in February
Machado had his hands tied and a metal wire wrapped around his neck, family lawyer Jairo Malgahães revealed, according to Brazilian news outlet G1.
“This detail suggests he was the target of strangulation, but we are still awaiting the report on the cause of death,” he said.
Malgahães said Machado’s body was in a state of decomposition and traces of a liquid had been spilled over it to minimize the foul odor.
An autopsy performed on Thursday failed to reveal Machado’s cause of death due to the sophisticated constitution of his body.
Because the medical examiner was unable to give a cause of death, his body will not be able to be flown to his home state of Santa Catarina due to airline security measures and will instead be transported by car.
The actor’s body was discovered in a building in Rio de Janeiro’s western Campo Grande district.
The owner of the house told police she had rented the outhouse to a person, who has been identified by police as a person of interest, but who has remained missing since Thursday.
No arrests have yet been reported by Rio de Janeiro authorities.
Jefferson Machado’s most recent acting role was in the soap opera ‘Reis’, which aired on Record TV
A pickaxe is used to break ground under the concrete floor of a building where Brazilian police discovered the body of missing actor Jefferson Machado in a wooden trunk on Monday.
A jackhammer is used to break the concrete floor of an outbuilding in Rio de Janeiro where the remains of Brazilian actor Jefferson Machado were found in a wooden trunk
The briefcase was found buried six feet below the floor of the outbuilding rented by the owner of the property to a man who has been identified by Rio de Janeiro authorities but has not yet been arrested.
R7 news reported that Machado seemed to know the person who rented the outhouse and had been seen visiting in April.
Machado disappeared from his home, also in Campo Grande, at 27 when non-government agency workers visited the residence and discovered the animal-loving actor had abandoned his eight dogs.
Six of the dogs were found in Campo Grande and the nearby neighborhoods of Santa Cruz and Pechincha.
He was officially reported missing on February 9.
His mother, Maria das Dores, told Brazilian outlet Notícias do Dia she last spoke to Machado on Jan. 29 and said he had traveled to São Paulo to apply for a job and to stay at a friend’s house.
But they became increasingly concerned because Machado stopped calling them and text messages sent from his mobile phone were regularly misspelled, which was unusual for him.
One time he told his mother that he couldn’t make video calls because he dropped his cell phone in a toilet.
Their fear grew in February when his cloud password was changed and the cell phone location was deactivated.
A week before Mother’s Day, Malgahães said the family visited the police station and were told it was possible Machado was dead.
Brazilian actor Jefferson Machado was an avid animal lover and owned eight dogs
Police officers in Rio de Janeiro searched an outbuilding on Monday and discovered the body of missing actor Jefferson Machado tied up in a wooden trunk buried under the floor of the property. The 44-year-old also had a metal wire wrapped around his neck. He would have known the person who lived in the annex, who was still missing on Thursday
The trunk was removed from under the floor by officers of the civil police in Rio de Janeiro on Monday
Machado’s most recent acting appearance was in 2022 when he played the role of a soldier in the soap opera ‘Reis’, which aired on Record TV.
He was born in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina.
Machado graduated in journalism and film, and lived in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro for 10 years before returning to Santa Catarina in 2008 to work in the television industry.
He then returned to Rio de Janeiro to pursue an acting career.
“I had a blessed mother who appointed me to become an altar boy in the church, work as a model, do theater in school, participate in gymkhanas and gave me a surfboard to enjoy the sea,” he once wrote its social media networks.