«I have doubted myself, I thought it would disgust me. But I was convinced of one thing. I'm really sick." The Pioz massacre marked a before and after in the Spanish black chronicle; for his hardness, and for all the questions he left in the air. On August 17, 2016, 19-year-old Brazilian Patrick Nogueira murdered his uncle Marcos, his wife Janaina and their two children, David and María, aged one and four, dismembered them and put them in several garbage bags that he abandoned in the living room of his chalet, in an urbanization of Guadalajara. The strong smell of the corpses provoked the call of the neighbors.
In a race against time and almost, almost against human logic, the police found the perpetrator, who is serving three sentences to reviewable permanent prison and another 25-year prison sentence for treacherous murder. But there was more: the dismemberer was not alone in his feat. He was recounting and portraying the minute by minute of his night of fury with his best friend on WhatsApp.
"This crime has an important social dimension due to the dilemmas and debates it puts on the table," says producer Luz Aldama, who breaks down Nogueira's personality in Don't tell anyone, the investigative documentary series that premieres on Sunday Atresplayer Premium and that has submerged her for a year in the questions, many unanswered, that the event left in the young man's environment in Brazil. The main one, of course, if that atrocity could have been avoided.
Pioz's crime contains the keys to issues of our time
«Why did that student from a wealthy family who wanted to be a footballer decide to kill? Why wasn't that enough for him, but he had to share it in real time? Why didn't that other teenager who was watching everything in the distance do anything? Why did the group of young people who had access to these messages remain silent, and only a 17-year-old girl dared to bring it to the attention of the police?" Aldama launches, "Pioz's story contains the keys to the themes of our time".
There is a chapter in Patrick Nogueira's biography that should have set off all the alarm bells... but it didn't. Three years before the Pioz massacre, he stabbed a teacher in the middle of a class. Everything was recorded by security cameras and the video traveled the Brazilian geography from phone to phone. The violent explosion only cost him 45 days of community work and a psychological evaluation to which no one except his parents ever had access. They all knew there was a problem, they all knew the true nature of the monster, they all attended the birth of the psychopath. And everyone was silent.
«There is an essential difference between Brazilian and Spanish society in terms of the treatment that justice gives to people of one social class or another, and that marked the family's reaction to such an atrocious event: that was diluted, not only in their environment but in society and in the judicial system”, explains Carlos Arroyo, director of the series. That psychological report could have marked a different ending for the Pioz family, and yet Patrick started from scratch in another city, living with his sister. "It's funny how in this new environment he becomes a leader, despite the fact that everyone knew what he had done," continues the producer, who wonders how no one saw the signs; or if they simply did not want to see them: "That was how the psychopath was built."
There is an essential difference between Brazilian and Spanish society in terms of the treatment that justice gives to people of one social class or another
The Atresmedia team traveled to Brazil for three weeks to tour Nogueira's life scenes and gather testimonies from his closest circle. The result is a parade of voices, some serene, others emotional, but all with one thing in common: guilt. "Their lives have been somehow cut short by what happened, they blame themselves for not having done anything," says Aldama, "how would we have acted in the face of something like this?" For Arroyo, there may be a certain understanding towards family, a father, a grandmother could never assume that her son is a potential murderer, but friends... "They trivialized it," she concludes.
It is one of these friends who makes the difference in the story of Don't tell anyone. Marvin Henriques appears smiling before the cameras, a notebook in his hands. The day before accepting the interview, a judge acquitted him of complicity in Pioz's crime. It was the first time that the guilt of a direct but remote witness was assessed, who not only received messages and photos, but also participated: «It is said that one should not return to the scene of the crime. What could you have left there? "It was very impressive to listen to Marvin," the producer acknowledges, "until he saw that there was a court decision in his favor, he did not decide to speak."
When I received the first message I put it hahaha, but it was out of nervousness, to try to distance myself from it
"I thought those messages were deleted, I didn't even remember, I found out that I kept them when Patrick told me they were going to call me to testify," says the young man, who recalls that day: "When I received the first message I put hahaha, but it was out of nervousness, to try to distance myself from it." Marvin realized that what his friend was saying was not a joke with the first image. Still, he stayed online. Reading. Replying. Suggesting escape plans.
For Aldama, the case transcends the simple event: "It points to many of our controversies regarding how young people face their relationship with the networks and how these affect their behavior." The macabre conversation fell into the hands of dozens of young people through a WhatsApp group. Only one girl, Jordana, dared to take the captures to the police.
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