Elize Matsunaga: Once Upon a Crime (2021) s01e02 Episode Script
A Princess Life
[Elize's lawyer] The defendant
never changes the story if it's true.
She told the same story four times.
She proved she was being honest.
[prosecutor] The technical aspects
of her version were completely fake.
Absolutely nothing happened
in the way she described.
[reporter] It's fascinating
to see those speeches dueling.
A single story can be described
in two completely different ways.
[ominous music playing]
[police sirens wailing]
MAY, 2012
JUNE, 2012
15 DAYS AFTER THE CRIME
[Elize Matsunaga] The police
came to my house and
then I understood that at that moment
maybe I could actually go to jail.
[police sirens continue wailing]
I don't know how I reacted at that moment
because I knew it would happen
at some point.
I just didn't know the day
or the precise moment.
[shutters clicking]
Up to that point, I had no idea
how serious things would get.
I had no idea. Absolutely no idea.
[Elize] The first night,
I remember
I sat in the corner of the cell.
[cell door squeaks]
[water dripping]
I could hear water dripping from a faucet.
And I could only think about my daughter.
Up to a certain point,
I had no intention of saying anything.
[Luciano] She spent the whole day
by herself, inside a police station cell.
So, she stops and she says,
"I can't hold it anymore.
I want to talk."
I made one single deal with Elize
at that moment,
"There are no half-truths,
just like there are no half-lies.
If you're gonna talk,
then I want you to tell the truth.
Don't change your version,
and tell them exactly what happened."
[Elize] When I confessed,
I was so relieved.
It was like this weight
was lifted from my shoulders.
[reporter 1] Right now, exclusively
The deposition started with
a surprising confession from the widow.
She willingly confessed
[reporter 2] Elize spills it out
[reporter 3] The crime
was considered solved but
[Elize's friend]
I got home, and my mom said,
"Zé, come here, quickly!"
And the TV
I asked, "What is it?"
And there was this news report on
talking about her arrest.
But I didn't actually see her.
Then my mom asked,
"Isn't that your friend?"
[reporter 4] Elize, the suspect,
has just arrived
[Machado] And actually,
I met her as Elize Araújo.
We were in the same class.
She sat by my left during college.
Eventually I calmed down a bit
when the coverage showed
my law professor, Luciano,
entering the Homicide Division with her.
[clamoring]
[Machado] But I wasn't calm
for more than five minutes.
"It's not going to be good."
Nothing good could come out of it
when it goes to that criminal court
in the hands of that prosecutor
who loves the spotlight.
[prosecutor] Is my speech
whistling too much?
[Machado] That's not just my opinion.
He's known for that.
No, it's just pretty tough for me
right now.
- [interviewer] What is?
- No, just speaking.
I've been
in the Public Prosecution's Office
for about 35 years.
I was president
of the Attorney Association.
Now, I'm a prosecutor,
and I was recently elected counselor
of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
[soft music playing]
ELIZE MATSUNAGA'S CONFESSION TAPE
[Cosenzo] Her version was totally fake.
At the Homicide Division police station,
Deputy Mauro started talking to Elize,
and suddenly he noticed contradictions.
[Dias] Elize, from this moment on
I'll start your interrogation
and I'll be taping it.
- Okay?
- Okay.
[chuckles]
She confessed after
I had already gotten all the proof, right?
And the confession mitigates the sentence.
A confession could be a good thing
for the accused.
It could help them
get a sentence reduction.
[keyboard clacking]
She built a version that made it clear
it was a crime of passion.
So that was an excellent play
by her lawyers at that moment.
That is, she confessed.
She accepted that she had made a mistake,
but she wanted a three-year sentence.
[D'Urso] She reveals the murder
while she was already structuring it
to build a self-defense case.
It's a really strange version.
It's supported exclusively by her word
that, upon knowing
she had hired a private detective,
he had slapped her on her face.
If, by any chance,
this were a crime of passion
with concealment of a dead body,
a seven-year sentence
could be reduced by two-thirds
since she was a first-time offender.
[somber music playing]
The forensic reports verify
that her statements
were completely inconsistent.
So the charges were made
with three aggravators.
[reporter 1]
José Carlos Cosenzo charged Elize
with aggravated first-degree murder.
[reporter 2] Foul motive,
which would be vengeance and money.
Cruel means, for dismembering the body.
And the impossibility of defense
by the victim.
[Cosenzo] Aggravators are circumstances
that aggravate the seriousness
and intensity of the crime.
If it's a qualified crime,
the minimum sentence already gets doubled.
Instead of starting from 12,
it starts from 30.
If she were a victim,
you can rest assured I would've made
a fair adjustment to the sentence
based on her behavior.
But that person who was being called
a victim of circumstance,
who chopped her husband's body
just as a survival instinct,
that wasn't exactly how it happened.
[suspenseful music playing]
From the day I apprehended her
to the day after the trial,
she was in jail. She didn't ever leave.
It wasn't a jail sentence.
It was a remand.
[Elize] Prison is really tough.
It was a very
a very deep experience for me
and it was also very scary.
I've been through hell.
[Luciano] I didn't even fight much
to get her out.
Because if she had been out of remand
since 2012,
she wouldn't have even started
to do her sentence yet.
See how different it would've been?
[reporter] She's been in jail
for over four years
but now Elize Matsunaga
is finally going to face justice
in a trial that's expected to get
the entire country's attention.
THE TRIAL
BARRA FUNDA COURTHOUSE
[reporter 2] If the defense proves
it was second-degree murder,
Elize Matsunaga may serve
six to 12 years in jail.
Since Elize has already served
four years in jail,
there's a possibility
she'll walk right out the front door.
[reporter 3] The prosecution claims
the crime was premeditated.
Elize killed her husband
in order to inherit his money.
For that she could serve
up to 30 years in jail.
I believe there were two reasons.
The first is revenge,
the second is economic interest.
The prosecution is presumptuous
and filled with assumptions.
They're inferring a lot of facts
but they don't have any evidence.
[judge]Elize Araújo Kitano Matsunaga.
It is now 2:08 p.m.
The trial? I was there.
It was completely crazy. Crazy.
I wrote a piece for Piauí magazine
about the Matsunaga case.
AN INFAMOUS CASE
[Scarpin] The press is one
of the main characters in this story.
[reporter 1]with her hair
tied up to the side,
a button-up shirt
closed all the way up to the neck.
[reporter 2]a black blazer
and braided hair
[reporter 3]modest clothes
and a tissue to dry her tears.
A few months ago,
Elize's hair was dyed red.
But her attorneys advised her
to dye it back to blonde
as it was at the time of the murder.
She spent most of her time
with her head down, like this.
Also kind of laying back in the chair
with her head down.
Almost like in a repentance posture.
The prosecution wanted her
to wear a prison uniform,
but the defense asked
if she could wear regular clothes.
I think that
one of the defense's best plays
was just Elize's existence.
The way she speaks,
the way she carries herself.
[judge] I have authorized this
but only this time.
- Do you understand?
- Yes, Your Honor.
Did you see her at the trial?
She gives the impression
that she is fragile, weak,
this tiny, skinny woman.
She, in fact, used this this strategy.
She created this
this persona of a helpless woman
to try to justify what she did.
[Cosenzo] Even my own mother,
who's a person really
My mom wasn't very cultured.
She reads a lot
but wasn't formally educated.
She called me and said, "Oh my."
"You'll be the one accusing that poor girl
whose husband was abusive?"
"Who assaulted her? That's not fair."
[Elize] I was really, really nervous
at the trial.
I was I was feeling extremely anxious.
It was It was so stressful.
I'd never felt so stressed before.
[judge] Why didn't you come back
to São Paulo
on the same day to solve everything?
I came back on Saturday.
[judge] And what time
did you arrive in São Paulo?
Um
It was about 6:00 or 5:00?
I can't remember.
- A.m. or p.m.?
- P.m.
P.m. Okay.
THE DAY OF THE CRIME
[Elize] Marcos picked me up
at the airport.
Then we decided to order a pizza.
I think it was
before he went down to get it.
I can't remember exactly.
I know he got nervous from a call he got.
I'm sure it was his lover.
He said, "After we finish dinner,
I gotta go to my dad's house."
Boy, when he said that
I should've held it together,
but I couldn't.
"Stop lying! Stop lying!"
"I know you're not going to your dad's."
He looked at me, shocked,
"What do you mean?"
I said, "You won't."
"I already know everything."
MAY, 2012
JUNE, 2012
POLICE RECONSTRUCTION
18 DAYS AFTER THE CRIME
[man 1] We're here.
- [whispering] She's there.
- [man 2] Where?
[Elize] I went back there with the police.
I had already been arrested, and we were
going to work on the reenactment.
MEDICAL EXAMINER
[woman] Yeah, go in there.
I'll go ahead first.
- [man 3] Sure.
- [Elize] Excuse me.
Doing that was
It was really hard and
I did all that,
I had to go through all of that
in front of my aunt, for example,
who was there.
My daughter was there as well.
Until then, she hadn't told me anything.
Told that
Later on, I connected the dots.
Then I understood.
[man] You started talking about him
on that day, right?
- That I had found out
- That you found out about his affair.
Right.
What did he do?
He was sitting down and then what?
Was he quiet? Did he get up?
- Punch the table?
- Yes, he was completely out of his mind.
And started
- Started cursing at you?
- Yes.
- [woman] Make some gestures.
- [man] Do it like this.
Yeah, something like that.
- [woman] Just make some gestures. Yeah.
- [man] Okay.
Okay. And then what happened?
Then we started arguing.
He started cursing at me,
and he slapped me.
- [man] Were you sitting down?
- No, I got up.
All right, get up then.
[Elize] "You think I'm like your dad?
I'm not a bum."
He said that. He used those words.
"I took you out of the trash."
[man] And then what? What happened?
- Then, I left.
- [man] You left. How did you leave?
[Elize] This way.
I didn't know how to react.
I wasn't expecting it.
I didn't think he would do that.
And inside the cupboard, there was a gun.
We kept it in there.
My reaction was to leave the room
and get the gun.
Because I was scared
of what he'd do to me.
- [man] Then what?
- [Elize] Then I went that way.
- And?
- To the cabinet.
[Elize] I was scared
he could really hit me.
I don't know what he could do.
He was so angry.
He completely lost it
when I told him about the PI.
[indistinct chatter]
[atmospheric music playing]
Maybe someone might hear this
and think that she was afraid
that he could kill her and all that.
That's not true.
He wasn't a violent guy.
And especially in that situation.
As long as I knew him,
I never saw him lose his cool.
I never saw him raise his voice,
fight, hit someone.
He was a shy guy.
If he didn't like something,
his reaction was to keep silent.
And I had known him for 25 years.
It's so surreal.
In my head, this is just so surreal
that it's hard to say
if it happened or not.
YOKI CASE: EXECUTIVE IS BURIED
Because usually
death is like a rite of passage
but it didn't happen this time.
It was just emptiness.
His brother actually asked us
not to attend his funeral.
It was really painful.
And it's something
I always tell my children.
For them to take good care of each other,
[voice breaking]
because it's so painful to lose a brother.
[sorrowful music playing]
[Flávio] At first,
I really thought about not going.
But one of the guys
put some sense into me.
He said, "Regardless of anything,
he'd want us to be there."
[D'Urso] They're extremely shocked.
This family is going through a lot.
They not only lost a son,
but they also lost him
under these circumstances.
I was traumatized myself.
I had panic attacks,
I had to go to therapy.
I have trust issues.
Besides everything that she did,
she still kept looking for him,
asking for help.
She manipulated everyone.
So, nowadays,
it's hard for me to trust someone
because I never thought
she'd do something like this.
So, I just kept thinking,
"How can someone be this manipulative?"
[Patricia] She actually went
to the family's house,
showed them the video
and said Marcos had left her,
and his family even said they'd help her.
They told her not to worry,
that they'd help her,
that she'd have everything she needs.
It seems to us that actually
she created this story about the threats
and all just to justify
everything she did.
FURLOUGH
[tense music playing]
[Cosenzo] I just had this feeling
and I said,
"Look, society is treating her
like this big victim, right?"
"So I have to turn the tables."
My strategy was to try to undermine
the defendant's credibility
and counteract what the media was saying.
[Elize] Is there an opening
for a blow-dry?
[stylists chattering indistinctly]
- Sit right here. Just a blow-dry, right?
- Thank you. Yes, thank you.
[Cosenzo] We didn't
make up the expression.
It was said by many witnesses
along the process.
That she had the life of a princess.
[D'Urso] He treated Elize like a queen.
He was the kind of guy that
would pull out her chair for her to sit.
She had the life that any woman
from a humble background would like,
with all the luxury she had.
[Cecilia] She had everything she wanted,
financially speaking.
[Machado] I never understood, for example,
how can a woman pay such a fortune
for a handbag.
What is it called?
That brand you all love. It's
You know. Oh, my goodness.
It has a fleur-de-lis.
Louis Vuitton! That's it!
[Cosenzo] All of her handbags
were top of the line.
I don't understand a lot about it.
Like the ones from the latest collection.
[Dias] Elize is a person
who got an opportunity in life.
And she grabbed that opportunity.
We were talking about
the owner of a big company
that had just been sold for two billion.
She was a gold digger.
I have no doubt about it.
In case Mr. Mitsuo retired,
Marcos would take his place.
[all laughing]
[Cosenzo] The way I see it,
she had a rough life,
then she got extremely lucky
and found the man
she had been dreaming of.
But she saw her dream fall apart.
So, she turned into
an extremely dangerous person,
an extremely violent and reckless person.
[somber music playing]
[reporter] The prosecutor is certain
Elize killed her husband for money.
I showed people she was interested
in revenge because of his affair
and also an economic interest
because she'd become rich. Very rich.
When it comes to marriage,
if one of the spouses dies,
the spouse who survives
now holds half of the said patrimony.
[judge] You were with your aunt
when Marcos was found dead
and your aunt said something
about the patrimony, correct?
Right, she did. She said to Elize,
"I think you won't have any money issues
because Marcos had life insurance.
His paycheck has just
He had just gotten it, I think."
Because people started talking
about money and all that.
[D'Urso] She said Marcos left her
but she still wants
to be part of that family.
She wants to keep everything
that Marcos provided her with.
I JUST CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW.
MARCOS
And she was aware
of a transaction history
of another account of theirs
from selling wine.
Because they had a company together.
They sold wine to collectors.
Very expensive wine.
It's true. They had two enormous rooms
that were turned into wine cellars.
[Cosenzo] A wine cellar
that was worth over two million.
We were going to work with wine
because the company was being sold,
so, it was something we planned
on doing together afterwards.
Everyone says,
"Man, why did this girl kill this guy?"
Why didn't she just leave him?"
This allegation
that she killed him for money,
that was the prosecution's focus.
[Cosenzo] For me,
there was a technical certainty:
she would simply lose
that status that she had achieved
and she would lose that luxurious life.
Her goal was to go unpunished.
She would still be part of the family,
enjoying all the benefits.
[Machado] He turned Cinderella
into a princess.
But at midnight, her crystal shoe pfft!
And then what?
[Elize] It looks great.
Thank you so much.
[stylist] Thank you.
[inquisitive music playing]
[Elize] Having your bills paid
helps you smile.
It helps a lot.
But it doesn't guarantee your happiness.
It really doesn't.
Obviously, it wasn't for that. Obviously.
If this was a money thing
like the prosecution always claimed,
no one kills the goose
that lays the golden eggs. No one.
It's so easy to draw conclusions
from the outside.
But I refuse to believe
that a good financial condition
is worth the psychological damage
that a toxic relationship
can cause in a person.
[reporter]
The expectations are high on this new day
of Elize Matsunaga's trial,
when a key prosecution witness
will be heard.
Before the witness even started talking,
and throughout the statement,
Elize Matsunaga cried
at least three times.
Throughout the entire process,
throughout the entire investigation,
she never shed a single tear.
Today, when she realized
that all of her claims were refuted
and refuted by someone
who knows the facts,
she obviously tried to go
for the strategy to avoid declaring
that she was there all the time.
[Luciano]She's not worried
about the trial exactly.
She's worried about how it can affect
her relationship with her daughter.
[reporter]Didn't she think of that
when she decided to kill her husband?
Of course not.
She didn't even want to kill her husband.
[judge] What was your conclusion
in regard to the reason behind this crime?
Revenge, fear of losing
the princess life she had,
that kind of stuff.
[Elize's lawyer] Elize's trial
was extremely sexist.
Unfortunately, we can see it's cultural.
It's something deep-rooted, you know?
It's tough. It's really tough.
[judge] Do you remember
if she was humiliated?
Yes, he humiliated her a lot.
- Do you remember the words?
- I'd rather not say it, sir.
You can say it, actually.
I'd rather not.
There are women in the room.
But he would offend her. He would go back,
he would refer to her humble past,
and her former occupation.
Let's leave it at that.
Many people might have wondered
and I also wondered to myself,
"Was that really necessary?"
"How is that relevant at all?"
The sexism in people's point of view,
it was heavy.
I felt all that weight.
They really insisted on trying
to bring back Elize's past.
I didn't want to judge Elize
and I didn't
for her past.
But then on the other hand
it was a different reality.
A strange reality.
[Elize] He started yelling,
calling me names.
[judge] Like what?
That I was a
I don't know if I'm allowed to say it.
Yes, you are.
We're all adults here,
and this is a serious, severe matter.
And you have the right to describe it.
Go ahead if you want to.
He said I was a whore.
[crying]
What is true and what isn't.
There are absurd things people say
and there are
well, facts.
We were having a class
with our trade law professor.
He asked me,
"Who's that blonde girl over there?"
I said I didn't know.
You know, she just sat next to me.
It was our first class.
He looked and said,
"Machado, she's a CG."
"She's a CG."
I said, "Marcelo, come on.
Please don't judge."
He's a retired deputy,
so he's got a nose for it.
And he said she was a CG.
- [interviewer] What is a CG?
- Call girl.
One quick glance and he knew it.
[Thaís] From a small-town girl
to a big-city escort.
- [reporter] Former escort
- [reporter 2] Escort
[reporter 3] During the first testimonies,
a new piece of information
was controversial.
Do you remember the Matsunaga case
with the blonde one?
The blond prostitute?
[reporter 4] A pretty
and sexy young lady.
[reporter 5] Her escort name was Kelly,
a very affectionate blondie.
Her girl-next-door ways
caught the eye of the Yoki heir.
[reporter 6] Marcos met Elize
on an escort website.
The heir of one of the greatest fortunes
in the country,
fell in love with the escort
born in the countryside of Paraná.
[reporter 7] He turned the prostitute
into a madam and a mother.
But inside of her there was a monster
he couldn't erase.
We knew about it,
but we avoided talking about it.
But, yes, everyone knew.
Every time it came up
people said she was a gold digger.
She was just after his money.
In that regard,
I think Marcos was a little
He lacked a little bit of street-smarts,
you know?
I was terribly shocked by it.
On my 55th birthday,
Marcos called me
and said he'd bring a date.
But he said, "It's a reliable person.
We've been together for two years."
Then I found out.
I didn't think he would bring
an escort.
With all due respect.
I think it's a really tough profession.
[interviewer] On a busy day,
how many dates would you go on?
About ten.
I remember because I was in São Paulo
during Formula 1.
So, there were a lot of foreigners.
[race-car whooshes past]
Men would call me and say,
"Look, I'm at" whatever hotel it was,
"Can you come over?"
So I'd go.
[D'Urso] Humans judge.
Judging is part of our nature.
[Cosenzo] It was actually funny.
I was working.
It was around 9:00 in the evening.
My mom called, we talked.
And she said,
"Look, you were right, you know."
"'Cause I just heard in the evening news
that she really did kill him for money."
The decision to disclose
that she was an escort,
it was made, in my opinion,
in an absolutely derogatory way.
[Thaís] The fact that she was an escort
is only one element in Elize's life.
FATAL WOMAN:
THE STORY OF ELIZE MATSUNAGA
I see they did it in a way
to completely devalue me as a woman.
Because a man hiring an escort
is something completely normal.
Completely understandable.
But for a woman to be in that situation
is not right.
It's immoral.
[Juliana] As soon
as Elize was sent to jail,
her wish was that her family would be
in charge of taking care of her daughter.
Then one day, Mr. Mitsuo called
saying he would get a DNA test
because they doubted
that Marcos was really her father.
The test came back positive.
Marcos really was her father.
So, then judge decided the kid should stay
with her paternal grandparents.
The way I see it, that's a sexist society.
Brazil has changed a lot between 2012,
when the crime happened,
and 2016.
In 2012, it wasn't common
to talk about women's rights.
This is a really significant progress
in such a short time
and I believe we can't separate that
from Elize's case.
[judge] Did you know
or did any family member know
that Elize had been a prostitute
in the past?
Never. Never.
I don't know if my uncle
would've allowed their marriage.
[Elize's grandmother]
I haven't watched anything.
- [interviewer] No?
- I didn't want to.
Everyone did,
but I didn't want to watch it.
When they announced on the radio
that they would talk about it
[sniffles]
usually when they'd talk about it,
we would change stations,
you know, or go do something else, so
[interviewer] Who knew
you worked as an escort?
No one from my family.
No one from my family.
[Roseli] We mentioned a few things,
talked about a few things,
but we didn't show her
what the media was showing.
You know, the pictures, the reports,
the way people talked to her,
the tone they used when talking of her.
When they talked about her,
we tried not to talk about it with my mom.
CHOPINZINHO
COUNTRYSIDE OF PARANÁ
[Elize] And what was supposed
to be kept buried
surfaced.
Shame doesn't put food on the table.
Pride doesn't put food on the table.
Even though prostitution is seen
as something that's degrading
it was all I could do at the time.
It was my bargaining chip.
My family
has always been humble and
my mom had to work hard
to raise me and my sister,
and my grandmother would take care of me.
[Maria Sebastiana] She was very cute.
Her hair was
It was very blonde and curly.
But she decided to straighten it.
[interviewer] How was the place
where you lived?
[Roseli] It was small.
It wasn't paved.
[Elize] I remember that
I believed in Santa Claus.
We hardly ever got any presents,
so the excuse was always,
"Well, we live too far away.
Santa can't find this place.
It's in the middle of nowhere."
From an early age, Elize would always say
that the town was too small for her.
[Elize] I remember my mom
looked at me and said,
"Look, if you want to change that,
you should study."
And how would I do that if I had no money?
So at that moment in my life,
it was the only way I found
to be able to get my college degree.
That was my goal and I wanted to do that
and that was it.
That was private.
I wouldn't tell anyone.
The only people who knew
were the ones I met while working.
Obviously Marcos knew.
That's how I met him.
[interviewer] Where did you meet?
He asked me to go to a motel.
It was close to his work, actually.
[Luciano] Marcos visited a website
called M. Class,
and that's when he spent a day with her.
He liked Elize.
He hired her a few more times,
and that's when they started
getting to know each other better.
And then they dated.
Then they got married,
and made some sort of deal to leave it.
Because they both knew
what each other used to do before.
She was an escort.
He hired escorts.
[Juliana] And the deal
she made with Marcos
was that she would get out of that world.
Because if they were together,
she wouldn't need to work anymore.
And on the other hand,
he committed to raising a family with her.
And to stop hiring prostitutes.
[Elize] He offered
to help me with my bills.
He said he would take care of that
and I'd be with him exclusively.
[Juliana] Marcos asked her to take down
her ad from the escort website.
When he offered me that, I thought,
"No, I think I won't accept it."
I paid for my own college,
I paid my own rent,
I paid for a health insurance plan.
Suddenly I'd become dependent
on a single person.
But on the other hand,
I was already in love with him.
[Flávio] I can understand
why they wanted to be left alone.
And I don't judge them, you know,
because, I mean,
things could've been different
and they could've lived
happily ever after.
[Elize] That's why it hurt me so much
because when he started offending me
he said he'd taken me out of the trash.
And I remember I was so shocked
when I heard that,
that I couldn't answer back.
I I was silent.
I couldn't believe
he was saying that to me.
THE NIGHT OF THE CRIME
And when I grabbed the gun,
I wasn't thinking at that moment.
[man] All right. So, when you looked
over there, did you see him?
No, I heard him and I went this way.
When I saw him, I came this way.
Halfway through I thought,
"Shit, what am I doing?"
So I was going to go back
to put the gun back,
I heard him coming,
so I thought, "No, he's coming."
So, instead of going back,
I turned to the kitchen.
Then he came after me. He followed me.
[man] He was looking towards here.
He was looking towards the area
between the living room and
He stopped there.
Then he saw I had the gun.
- Then I pointed the gun at him.
- [woman] So, do it.
So he started saying that I didn't have
the guts to do that and stuff.
I took a step back,
and he walked slowly towards me.
I think it was there.
He stopped. Then, I shot him.
- [woman] You shot him?
- Yes.
- [woman] That's when you fired the gun?
- Yes.
"Shoot me."
"Do you think any judge
would grant custody to a whore?"
[crying] He was coming at me,
I didn't know what he would do.
We were arguing, he was calling me names,
calling my family names.
I couldn't take that anymore.
I couldn't take it anymore.
[judge] Okay,
but couldn't you leave the house?
I could've done so many things.
I could've kept my mouth shut,
when I shouldn't have said anything
about the detective.
I shouldn't have said that.
But I ended up telling him.
I could've done a million things.
But I wasn't myself at that moment.
I don't know, I wasn't myself.
I hadn't slept in two days,
the detective kept calling me.
I couldn't take it anymore
every time he said I was crazy,
when I said he had someone else.
[sniffles]
[somber music playing]
[interviewer] Do you believe her version?
But it's not just that
I don't believe her version.
This version is absolutely impossible
according to the forensic report.
This version of hers
is completely inconsistent
with the forensic report.
So let's go ahead and
and discredit her version.
First, Marcos was around 5'9"
and she was around 5'.
So if she's a lot shorter than he is,
and she had the gun here, at this height,
she has to shoot upwards, right?
According to the report,
the shot hit his left front,
right here.
Here, downwards.
That would be impossible.
If you shoot upwards, the shot
can't go into the skull downwards.
It's a matter of studying some geometry.
If she were indeed facing Marcos,
the bullet would have had
an ascending trajectory,
never a descending one.
If it hit maybe somewhere else,
if it bounced somewhere
and then hit him, but it didn't.
That's the first absurd thing
in her version.
So when you grabbed the gun, he came?
- No, he stopped
- He stopped here?
Yes, we kept arguing
and he kept coming towards me slowly.
And cursing and cursing.
- Okay. He went like this?
- Yeah.
But you said you shot him
from about this distance.
Yeah.
Secondly,
she says that she shot him
from a distance of approximately six feet.
During the crime scene simulation,
she showed us where she was,
and where he was when she shot him
and it was about six feet apart.
MOMENT ELIZE SHOOTS WHEN THREATENED
SHOOTING SPO
VICTIM IMMOBILIZATION SPO
[judge] And what was the distance
between you and him approximately?
I can't tell exactly.
It would be an estimate.
A foot? Two feet?
More.
More than that.
[uneasy music playing]
The distance makes a lot of difference.
Because it means that the person
The closer they were, it means they had
less of a chance to defend themselves.
[Cosenzo] At a distance of six feet,
the shot would only leave an entry wound.
A shot fired at a short distance,
or a close-range shot,
would cause something we call
burns or tattoos.
The bullet left, right at the entry wound,
a tattooed mark and burns on the skin.
That gunpowder,
at the moment the shot was fired,
was too close to the skin,
so much, it burned it.
Technically, the distance
that makes this tattoo possible
is at most 20 inches.
Dr. Jorge who is the specialist
who performed the autopsy,
was quite clear.
There were tattoos and burns,
and that's typical for close-range shots.
[Pereira] He had bruising in some areas,
which weren't directly caused
by the bullet,
but by gases originated
from a close-range shot.
So that means she had to be
this far from him at most.
And not standing up facing him
at a distance of almost two meters,
pointing the gun and shooting him
while he walked towards her.
It wasn't like that. That was all made up.
So it didn't happen
the way she described it.
Not at all.
She made it all up.
All of these details,
when looking at the big picture,
caused some suspicion that we were facing
an orchestrated, premeditated action.
[judge] So, from what you're saying
it was a close-range shot?
Or not?
It was.
THE NIGHT OF THE CRIME
THE PROSECUTION VERSION
[D'Urso] We started sustaining a version
in which the only chance she would get
would be with a surprise factor,
so, he wouldn't be able to react.
[judge] According to your investigation,
did the argument happen
before he went down to get the pizza
or afterwards?
I can say for sure that it was before
because he was evidently nervous then.
By analyzing the forensic report,
the crime scene and the bullet trajectory,
she shot him as soon as he got back
into the apartment with the pizza.
He didn't stand a chance.
[D'Urso] We are convinced that
when he came back and opened the door,
she was standing behind the door
holding the gun,
ready to shoot and kill him.
[Dias] It's a defense strategy. You say
it was at a distance, unintentionally.
It's a way she found to try
and defend herself, get away with it.
[somber music playing]
[D'Urso] The only thing he did
was crouch down.
It's instinctive. When you point
a gun at someone, they'll crouch down.
And when he crouches down,
his head is down
and the bullet hits his head.
[gunshot]
[somber music continues]
All these facts clearly show
it was premeditated.
There's no doubt it was premeditated.
I have no doubts that it was premeditated.
She found out he had an affair,
and decided to kill him as revenge.
[somber music continues]
[gunshot echoing]
[Elize]
I didn't premeditate that situation.
I was desperate and I acted upon that.
I wasn't expecting any of that to happen.
If I had premeditated it, for example,
I would've done it on a trip
to Mato Grosso.
We went hunting there several times.
I would've shot him with a .12 gauge
in the middle of an indigenous village.
I doubt anyone would find him.
If I had premeditated it,
I would have never done it
in my own house.
THE DEFENSE VERSION
[Luciano] Nothing was premeditated.
Nothing was premeditated.
So much so, there were so many reasons,
that I proved
the forensic report was fake,
and not her version.
We made a video simulation.
So I was able to demonstrate to the jury.
I narrated it and they could see
on the screen exactly what happened
because we didn't change our version.
Sometimes the prosecution thinks
people were at a shooting range,
standing there with a fixed target.
But they aren't.
They move, they walk.
You can never know the exact distance.
I know he was there,
walking towards her way.
[inaudible]
[gunshot echoing]
So who was right in the end?
Me or the prosecution?
I still can't tell you
what kind of emotion
made me pull that trigger.
I can't describe it to you.
"I felt that, then I pulled the trigger."
FURLOUGH
[knife thuds]
Something takes over you,
and you just feel
your heart pounding desperately.
Thump, thump, thump.
As if it was trying
to get out of your chest.
[Thaís] We cannot forget
that we're not talking about a woman
who just shot her husband.
But a woman who shot her husband
and dismembered his body
in several pieces.
Why?
[tense music playing]
[Elize] I can't even tell you what I felt.
Because I saw him collapsing
and and at that moment,
it seemed the world had stopped.
I could only think about hiding it.
"I have to get him out of here.
But how am I going to do it?"
So, I had the
unfortunate idea
of dismembering him.
[dark version of Beethoven's
"Bagatelle No. 25 (Für Elise)" playing]
never changes the story if it's true.
She told the same story four times.
She proved she was being honest.
[prosecutor] The technical aspects
of her version were completely fake.
Absolutely nothing happened
in the way she described.
[reporter] It's fascinating
to see those speeches dueling.
A single story can be described
in two completely different ways.
[ominous music playing]
[police sirens wailing]
MAY, 2012
JUNE, 2012
15 DAYS AFTER THE CRIME
[Elize Matsunaga] The police
came to my house and
then I understood that at that moment
maybe I could actually go to jail.
[police sirens continue wailing]
I don't know how I reacted at that moment
because I knew it would happen
at some point.
I just didn't know the day
or the precise moment.
[shutters clicking]
Up to that point, I had no idea
how serious things would get.
I had no idea. Absolutely no idea.
[Elize] The first night,
I remember
I sat in the corner of the cell.
[cell door squeaks]
[water dripping]
I could hear water dripping from a faucet.
And I could only think about my daughter.
Up to a certain point,
I had no intention of saying anything.
[Luciano] She spent the whole day
by herself, inside a police station cell.
So, she stops and she says,
"I can't hold it anymore.
I want to talk."
I made one single deal with Elize
at that moment,
"There are no half-truths,
just like there are no half-lies.
If you're gonna talk,
then I want you to tell the truth.
Don't change your version,
and tell them exactly what happened."
[Elize] When I confessed,
I was so relieved.
It was like this weight
was lifted from my shoulders.
[reporter 1] Right now, exclusively
The deposition started with
a surprising confession from the widow.
She willingly confessed
[reporter 2] Elize spills it out
[reporter 3] The crime
was considered solved but
[Elize's friend]
I got home, and my mom said,
"Zé, come here, quickly!"
And the TV
I asked, "What is it?"
And there was this news report on
talking about her arrest.
But I didn't actually see her.
Then my mom asked,
"Isn't that your friend?"
[reporter 4] Elize, the suspect,
has just arrived
[Machado] And actually,
I met her as Elize Araújo.
We were in the same class.
She sat by my left during college.
Eventually I calmed down a bit
when the coverage showed
my law professor, Luciano,
entering the Homicide Division with her.
[clamoring]
[Machado] But I wasn't calm
for more than five minutes.
"It's not going to be good."
Nothing good could come out of it
when it goes to that criminal court
in the hands of that prosecutor
who loves the spotlight.
[prosecutor] Is my speech
whistling too much?
[Machado] That's not just my opinion.
He's known for that.
No, it's just pretty tough for me
right now.
- [interviewer] What is?
- No, just speaking.
I've been
in the Public Prosecution's Office
for about 35 years.
I was president
of the Attorney Association.
Now, I'm a prosecutor,
and I was recently elected counselor
of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
[soft music playing]
ELIZE MATSUNAGA'S CONFESSION TAPE
[Cosenzo] Her version was totally fake.
At the Homicide Division police station,
Deputy Mauro started talking to Elize,
and suddenly he noticed contradictions.
[Dias] Elize, from this moment on
I'll start your interrogation
and I'll be taping it.
- Okay?
- Okay.
[chuckles]
She confessed after
I had already gotten all the proof, right?
And the confession mitigates the sentence.
A confession could be a good thing
for the accused.
It could help them
get a sentence reduction.
[keyboard clacking]
She built a version that made it clear
it was a crime of passion.
So that was an excellent play
by her lawyers at that moment.
That is, she confessed.
She accepted that she had made a mistake,
but she wanted a three-year sentence.
[D'Urso] She reveals the murder
while she was already structuring it
to build a self-defense case.
It's a really strange version.
It's supported exclusively by her word
that, upon knowing
she had hired a private detective,
he had slapped her on her face.
If, by any chance,
this were a crime of passion
with concealment of a dead body,
a seven-year sentence
could be reduced by two-thirds
since she was a first-time offender.
[somber music playing]
The forensic reports verify
that her statements
were completely inconsistent.
So the charges were made
with three aggravators.
[reporter 1]
José Carlos Cosenzo charged Elize
with aggravated first-degree murder.
[reporter 2] Foul motive,
which would be vengeance and money.
Cruel means, for dismembering the body.
And the impossibility of defense
by the victim.
[Cosenzo] Aggravators are circumstances
that aggravate the seriousness
and intensity of the crime.
If it's a qualified crime,
the minimum sentence already gets doubled.
Instead of starting from 12,
it starts from 30.
If she were a victim,
you can rest assured I would've made
a fair adjustment to the sentence
based on her behavior.
But that person who was being called
a victim of circumstance,
who chopped her husband's body
just as a survival instinct,
that wasn't exactly how it happened.
[suspenseful music playing]
From the day I apprehended her
to the day after the trial,
she was in jail. She didn't ever leave.
It wasn't a jail sentence.
It was a remand.
[Elize] Prison is really tough.
It was a very
a very deep experience for me
and it was also very scary.
I've been through hell.
[Luciano] I didn't even fight much
to get her out.
Because if she had been out of remand
since 2012,
she wouldn't have even started
to do her sentence yet.
See how different it would've been?
[reporter] She's been in jail
for over four years
but now Elize Matsunaga
is finally going to face justice
in a trial that's expected to get
the entire country's attention.
THE TRIAL
BARRA FUNDA COURTHOUSE
[reporter 2] If the defense proves
it was second-degree murder,
Elize Matsunaga may serve
six to 12 years in jail.
Since Elize has already served
four years in jail,
there's a possibility
she'll walk right out the front door.
[reporter 3] The prosecution claims
the crime was premeditated.
Elize killed her husband
in order to inherit his money.
For that she could serve
up to 30 years in jail.
I believe there were two reasons.
The first is revenge,
the second is economic interest.
The prosecution is presumptuous
and filled with assumptions.
They're inferring a lot of facts
but they don't have any evidence.
[judge]Elize Araújo Kitano Matsunaga.
It is now 2:08 p.m.
The trial? I was there.
It was completely crazy. Crazy.
I wrote a piece for Piauí magazine
about the Matsunaga case.
AN INFAMOUS CASE
[Scarpin] The press is one
of the main characters in this story.
[reporter 1]with her hair
tied up to the side,
a button-up shirt
closed all the way up to the neck.
[reporter 2]a black blazer
and braided hair
[reporter 3]modest clothes
and a tissue to dry her tears.
A few months ago,
Elize's hair was dyed red.
But her attorneys advised her
to dye it back to blonde
as it was at the time of the murder.
She spent most of her time
with her head down, like this.
Also kind of laying back in the chair
with her head down.
Almost like in a repentance posture.
The prosecution wanted her
to wear a prison uniform,
but the defense asked
if she could wear regular clothes.
I think that
one of the defense's best plays
was just Elize's existence.
The way she speaks,
the way she carries herself.
[judge] I have authorized this
but only this time.
- Do you understand?
- Yes, Your Honor.
Did you see her at the trial?
She gives the impression
that she is fragile, weak,
this tiny, skinny woman.
She, in fact, used this this strategy.
She created this
this persona of a helpless woman
to try to justify what she did.
[Cosenzo] Even my own mother,
who's a person really
My mom wasn't very cultured.
She reads a lot
but wasn't formally educated.
She called me and said, "Oh my."
"You'll be the one accusing that poor girl
whose husband was abusive?"
"Who assaulted her? That's not fair."
[Elize] I was really, really nervous
at the trial.
I was I was feeling extremely anxious.
It was It was so stressful.
I'd never felt so stressed before.
[judge] Why didn't you come back
to São Paulo
on the same day to solve everything?
I came back on Saturday.
[judge] And what time
did you arrive in São Paulo?
Um
It was about 6:00 or 5:00?
I can't remember.
- A.m. or p.m.?
- P.m.
P.m. Okay.
THE DAY OF THE CRIME
[Elize] Marcos picked me up
at the airport.
Then we decided to order a pizza.
I think it was
before he went down to get it.
I can't remember exactly.
I know he got nervous from a call he got.
I'm sure it was his lover.
He said, "After we finish dinner,
I gotta go to my dad's house."
Boy, when he said that
I should've held it together,
but I couldn't.
"Stop lying! Stop lying!"
"I know you're not going to your dad's."
He looked at me, shocked,
"What do you mean?"
I said, "You won't."
"I already know everything."
MAY, 2012
JUNE, 2012
POLICE RECONSTRUCTION
18 DAYS AFTER THE CRIME
[man 1] We're here.
- [whispering] She's there.
- [man 2] Where?
[Elize] I went back there with the police.
I had already been arrested, and we were
going to work on the reenactment.
MEDICAL EXAMINER
[woman] Yeah, go in there.
I'll go ahead first.
- [man 3] Sure.
- [Elize] Excuse me.
Doing that was
It was really hard and
I did all that,
I had to go through all of that
in front of my aunt, for example,
who was there.
My daughter was there as well.
Until then, she hadn't told me anything.
Told that
Later on, I connected the dots.
Then I understood.
[man] You started talking about him
on that day, right?
- That I had found out
- That you found out about his affair.
Right.
What did he do?
He was sitting down and then what?
Was he quiet? Did he get up?
- Punch the table?
- Yes, he was completely out of his mind.
And started
- Started cursing at you?
- Yes.
- [woman] Make some gestures.
- [man] Do it like this.
Yeah, something like that.
- [woman] Just make some gestures. Yeah.
- [man] Okay.
Okay. And then what happened?
Then we started arguing.
He started cursing at me,
and he slapped me.
- [man] Were you sitting down?
- No, I got up.
All right, get up then.
[Elize] "You think I'm like your dad?
I'm not a bum."
He said that. He used those words.
"I took you out of the trash."
[man] And then what? What happened?
- Then, I left.
- [man] You left. How did you leave?
[Elize] This way.
I didn't know how to react.
I wasn't expecting it.
I didn't think he would do that.
And inside the cupboard, there was a gun.
We kept it in there.
My reaction was to leave the room
and get the gun.
Because I was scared
of what he'd do to me.
- [man] Then what?
- [Elize] Then I went that way.
- And?
- To the cabinet.
[Elize] I was scared
he could really hit me.
I don't know what he could do.
He was so angry.
He completely lost it
when I told him about the PI.
[indistinct chatter]
[atmospheric music playing]
Maybe someone might hear this
and think that she was afraid
that he could kill her and all that.
That's not true.
He wasn't a violent guy.
And especially in that situation.
As long as I knew him,
I never saw him lose his cool.
I never saw him raise his voice,
fight, hit someone.
He was a shy guy.
If he didn't like something,
his reaction was to keep silent.
And I had known him for 25 years.
It's so surreal.
In my head, this is just so surreal
that it's hard to say
if it happened or not.
YOKI CASE: EXECUTIVE IS BURIED
Because usually
death is like a rite of passage
but it didn't happen this time.
It was just emptiness.
His brother actually asked us
not to attend his funeral.
It was really painful.
And it's something
I always tell my children.
For them to take good care of each other,
[voice breaking]
because it's so painful to lose a brother.
[sorrowful music playing]
[Flávio] At first,
I really thought about not going.
But one of the guys
put some sense into me.
He said, "Regardless of anything,
he'd want us to be there."
[D'Urso] They're extremely shocked.
This family is going through a lot.
They not only lost a son,
but they also lost him
under these circumstances.
I was traumatized myself.
I had panic attacks,
I had to go to therapy.
I have trust issues.
Besides everything that she did,
she still kept looking for him,
asking for help.
She manipulated everyone.
So, nowadays,
it's hard for me to trust someone
because I never thought
she'd do something like this.
So, I just kept thinking,
"How can someone be this manipulative?"
[Patricia] She actually went
to the family's house,
showed them the video
and said Marcos had left her,
and his family even said they'd help her.
They told her not to worry,
that they'd help her,
that she'd have everything she needs.
It seems to us that actually
she created this story about the threats
and all just to justify
everything she did.
FURLOUGH
[tense music playing]
[Cosenzo] I just had this feeling
and I said,
"Look, society is treating her
like this big victim, right?"
"So I have to turn the tables."
My strategy was to try to undermine
the defendant's credibility
and counteract what the media was saying.
[Elize] Is there an opening
for a blow-dry?
[stylists chattering indistinctly]
- Sit right here. Just a blow-dry, right?
- Thank you. Yes, thank you.
[Cosenzo] We didn't
make up the expression.
It was said by many witnesses
along the process.
That she had the life of a princess.
[D'Urso] He treated Elize like a queen.
He was the kind of guy that
would pull out her chair for her to sit.
She had the life that any woman
from a humble background would like,
with all the luxury she had.
[Cecilia] She had everything she wanted,
financially speaking.
[Machado] I never understood, for example,
how can a woman pay such a fortune
for a handbag.
What is it called?
That brand you all love. It's
You know. Oh, my goodness.
It has a fleur-de-lis.
Louis Vuitton! That's it!
[Cosenzo] All of her handbags
were top of the line.
I don't understand a lot about it.
Like the ones from the latest collection.
[Dias] Elize is a person
who got an opportunity in life.
And she grabbed that opportunity.
We were talking about
the owner of a big company
that had just been sold for two billion.
She was a gold digger.
I have no doubt about it.
In case Mr. Mitsuo retired,
Marcos would take his place.
[all laughing]
[Cosenzo] The way I see it,
she had a rough life,
then she got extremely lucky
and found the man
she had been dreaming of.
But she saw her dream fall apart.
So, she turned into
an extremely dangerous person,
an extremely violent and reckless person.
[somber music playing]
[reporter] The prosecutor is certain
Elize killed her husband for money.
I showed people she was interested
in revenge because of his affair
and also an economic interest
because she'd become rich. Very rich.
When it comes to marriage,
if one of the spouses dies,
the spouse who survives
now holds half of the said patrimony.
[judge] You were with your aunt
when Marcos was found dead
and your aunt said something
about the patrimony, correct?
Right, she did. She said to Elize,
"I think you won't have any money issues
because Marcos had life insurance.
His paycheck has just
He had just gotten it, I think."
Because people started talking
about money and all that.
[D'Urso] She said Marcos left her
but she still wants
to be part of that family.
She wants to keep everything
that Marcos provided her with.
I JUST CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW.
MARCOS
And she was aware
of a transaction history
of another account of theirs
from selling wine.
Because they had a company together.
They sold wine to collectors.
Very expensive wine.
It's true. They had two enormous rooms
that were turned into wine cellars.
[Cosenzo] A wine cellar
that was worth over two million.
We were going to work with wine
because the company was being sold,
so, it was something we planned
on doing together afterwards.
Everyone says,
"Man, why did this girl kill this guy?"
Why didn't she just leave him?"
This allegation
that she killed him for money,
that was the prosecution's focus.
[Cosenzo] For me,
there was a technical certainty:
she would simply lose
that status that she had achieved
and she would lose that luxurious life.
Her goal was to go unpunished.
She would still be part of the family,
enjoying all the benefits.
[Machado] He turned Cinderella
into a princess.
But at midnight, her crystal shoe pfft!
And then what?
[Elize] It looks great.
Thank you so much.
[stylist] Thank you.
[inquisitive music playing]
[Elize] Having your bills paid
helps you smile.
It helps a lot.
But it doesn't guarantee your happiness.
It really doesn't.
Obviously, it wasn't for that. Obviously.
If this was a money thing
like the prosecution always claimed,
no one kills the goose
that lays the golden eggs. No one.
It's so easy to draw conclusions
from the outside.
But I refuse to believe
that a good financial condition
is worth the psychological damage
that a toxic relationship
can cause in a person.
[reporter]
The expectations are high on this new day
of Elize Matsunaga's trial,
when a key prosecution witness
will be heard.
Before the witness even started talking,
and throughout the statement,
Elize Matsunaga cried
at least three times.
Throughout the entire process,
throughout the entire investigation,
she never shed a single tear.
Today, when she realized
that all of her claims were refuted
and refuted by someone
who knows the facts,
she obviously tried to go
for the strategy to avoid declaring
that she was there all the time.
[Luciano]She's not worried
about the trial exactly.
She's worried about how it can affect
her relationship with her daughter.
[reporter]Didn't she think of that
when she decided to kill her husband?
Of course not.
She didn't even want to kill her husband.
[judge] What was your conclusion
in regard to the reason behind this crime?
Revenge, fear of losing
the princess life she had,
that kind of stuff.
[Elize's lawyer] Elize's trial
was extremely sexist.
Unfortunately, we can see it's cultural.
It's something deep-rooted, you know?
It's tough. It's really tough.
[judge] Do you remember
if she was humiliated?
Yes, he humiliated her a lot.
- Do you remember the words?
- I'd rather not say it, sir.
You can say it, actually.
I'd rather not.
There are women in the room.
But he would offend her. He would go back,
he would refer to her humble past,
and her former occupation.
Let's leave it at that.
Many people might have wondered
and I also wondered to myself,
"Was that really necessary?"
"How is that relevant at all?"
The sexism in people's point of view,
it was heavy.
I felt all that weight.
They really insisted on trying
to bring back Elize's past.
I didn't want to judge Elize
and I didn't
for her past.
But then on the other hand
it was a different reality.
A strange reality.
[Elize] He started yelling,
calling me names.
[judge] Like what?
That I was a
I don't know if I'm allowed to say it.
Yes, you are.
We're all adults here,
and this is a serious, severe matter.
And you have the right to describe it.
Go ahead if you want to.
He said I was a whore.
[crying]
What is true and what isn't.
There are absurd things people say
and there are
well, facts.
We were having a class
with our trade law professor.
He asked me,
"Who's that blonde girl over there?"
I said I didn't know.
You know, she just sat next to me.
It was our first class.
He looked and said,
"Machado, she's a CG."
"She's a CG."
I said, "Marcelo, come on.
Please don't judge."
He's a retired deputy,
so he's got a nose for it.
And he said she was a CG.
- [interviewer] What is a CG?
- Call girl.
One quick glance and he knew it.
[Thaís] From a small-town girl
to a big-city escort.
- [reporter] Former escort
- [reporter 2] Escort
[reporter 3] During the first testimonies,
a new piece of information
was controversial.
Do you remember the Matsunaga case
with the blonde one?
The blond prostitute?
[reporter 4] A pretty
and sexy young lady.
[reporter 5] Her escort name was Kelly,
a very affectionate blondie.
Her girl-next-door ways
caught the eye of the Yoki heir.
[reporter 6] Marcos met Elize
on an escort website.
The heir of one of the greatest fortunes
in the country,
fell in love with the escort
born in the countryside of Paraná.
[reporter 7] He turned the prostitute
into a madam and a mother.
But inside of her there was a monster
he couldn't erase.
We knew about it,
but we avoided talking about it.
But, yes, everyone knew.
Every time it came up
people said she was a gold digger.
She was just after his money.
In that regard,
I think Marcos was a little
He lacked a little bit of street-smarts,
you know?
I was terribly shocked by it.
On my 55th birthday,
Marcos called me
and said he'd bring a date.
But he said, "It's a reliable person.
We've been together for two years."
Then I found out.
I didn't think he would bring
an escort.
With all due respect.
I think it's a really tough profession.
[interviewer] On a busy day,
how many dates would you go on?
About ten.
I remember because I was in São Paulo
during Formula 1.
So, there were a lot of foreigners.
[race-car whooshes past]
Men would call me and say,
"Look, I'm at" whatever hotel it was,
"Can you come over?"
So I'd go.
[D'Urso] Humans judge.
Judging is part of our nature.
[Cosenzo] It was actually funny.
I was working.
It was around 9:00 in the evening.
My mom called, we talked.
And she said,
"Look, you were right, you know."
"'Cause I just heard in the evening news
that she really did kill him for money."
The decision to disclose
that she was an escort,
it was made, in my opinion,
in an absolutely derogatory way.
[Thaís] The fact that she was an escort
is only one element in Elize's life.
FATAL WOMAN:
THE STORY OF ELIZE MATSUNAGA
I see they did it in a way
to completely devalue me as a woman.
Because a man hiring an escort
is something completely normal.
Completely understandable.
But for a woman to be in that situation
is not right.
It's immoral.
[Juliana] As soon
as Elize was sent to jail,
her wish was that her family would be
in charge of taking care of her daughter.
Then one day, Mr. Mitsuo called
saying he would get a DNA test
because they doubted
that Marcos was really her father.
The test came back positive.
Marcos really was her father.
So, then judge decided the kid should stay
with her paternal grandparents.
The way I see it, that's a sexist society.
Brazil has changed a lot between 2012,
when the crime happened,
and 2016.
In 2012, it wasn't common
to talk about women's rights.
This is a really significant progress
in such a short time
and I believe we can't separate that
from Elize's case.
[judge] Did you know
or did any family member know
that Elize had been a prostitute
in the past?
Never. Never.
I don't know if my uncle
would've allowed their marriage.
[Elize's grandmother]
I haven't watched anything.
- [interviewer] No?
- I didn't want to.
Everyone did,
but I didn't want to watch it.
When they announced on the radio
that they would talk about it
[sniffles]
usually when they'd talk about it,
we would change stations,
you know, or go do something else, so
[interviewer] Who knew
you worked as an escort?
No one from my family.
No one from my family.
[Roseli] We mentioned a few things,
talked about a few things,
but we didn't show her
what the media was showing.
You know, the pictures, the reports,
the way people talked to her,
the tone they used when talking of her.
When they talked about her,
we tried not to talk about it with my mom.
CHOPINZINHO
COUNTRYSIDE OF PARANÁ
[Elize] And what was supposed
to be kept buried
surfaced.
Shame doesn't put food on the table.
Pride doesn't put food on the table.
Even though prostitution is seen
as something that's degrading
it was all I could do at the time.
It was my bargaining chip.
My family
has always been humble and
my mom had to work hard
to raise me and my sister,
and my grandmother would take care of me.
[Maria Sebastiana] She was very cute.
Her hair was
It was very blonde and curly.
But she decided to straighten it.
[interviewer] How was the place
where you lived?
[Roseli] It was small.
It wasn't paved.
[Elize] I remember that
I believed in Santa Claus.
We hardly ever got any presents,
so the excuse was always,
"Well, we live too far away.
Santa can't find this place.
It's in the middle of nowhere."
From an early age, Elize would always say
that the town was too small for her.
[Elize] I remember my mom
looked at me and said,
"Look, if you want to change that,
you should study."
And how would I do that if I had no money?
So at that moment in my life,
it was the only way I found
to be able to get my college degree.
That was my goal and I wanted to do that
and that was it.
That was private.
I wouldn't tell anyone.
The only people who knew
were the ones I met while working.
Obviously Marcos knew.
That's how I met him.
[interviewer] Where did you meet?
He asked me to go to a motel.
It was close to his work, actually.
[Luciano] Marcos visited a website
called M. Class,
and that's when he spent a day with her.
He liked Elize.
He hired her a few more times,
and that's when they started
getting to know each other better.
And then they dated.
Then they got married,
and made some sort of deal to leave it.
Because they both knew
what each other used to do before.
She was an escort.
He hired escorts.
[Juliana] And the deal
she made with Marcos
was that she would get out of that world.
Because if they were together,
she wouldn't need to work anymore.
And on the other hand,
he committed to raising a family with her.
And to stop hiring prostitutes.
[Elize] He offered
to help me with my bills.
He said he would take care of that
and I'd be with him exclusively.
[Juliana] Marcos asked her to take down
her ad from the escort website.
When he offered me that, I thought,
"No, I think I won't accept it."
I paid for my own college,
I paid my own rent,
I paid for a health insurance plan.
Suddenly I'd become dependent
on a single person.
But on the other hand,
I was already in love with him.
[Flávio] I can understand
why they wanted to be left alone.
And I don't judge them, you know,
because, I mean,
things could've been different
and they could've lived
happily ever after.
[Elize] That's why it hurt me so much
because when he started offending me
he said he'd taken me out of the trash.
And I remember I was so shocked
when I heard that,
that I couldn't answer back.
I I was silent.
I couldn't believe
he was saying that to me.
THE NIGHT OF THE CRIME
And when I grabbed the gun,
I wasn't thinking at that moment.
[man] All right. So, when you looked
over there, did you see him?
No, I heard him and I went this way.
When I saw him, I came this way.
Halfway through I thought,
"Shit, what am I doing?"
So I was going to go back
to put the gun back,
I heard him coming,
so I thought, "No, he's coming."
So, instead of going back,
I turned to the kitchen.
Then he came after me. He followed me.
[man] He was looking towards here.
He was looking towards the area
between the living room and
He stopped there.
Then he saw I had the gun.
- Then I pointed the gun at him.
- [woman] So, do it.
So he started saying that I didn't have
the guts to do that and stuff.
I took a step back,
and he walked slowly towards me.
I think it was there.
He stopped. Then, I shot him.
- [woman] You shot him?
- Yes.
- [woman] That's when you fired the gun?
- Yes.
"Shoot me."
"Do you think any judge
would grant custody to a whore?"
[crying] He was coming at me,
I didn't know what he would do.
We were arguing, he was calling me names,
calling my family names.
I couldn't take that anymore.
I couldn't take it anymore.
[judge] Okay,
but couldn't you leave the house?
I could've done so many things.
I could've kept my mouth shut,
when I shouldn't have said anything
about the detective.
I shouldn't have said that.
But I ended up telling him.
I could've done a million things.
But I wasn't myself at that moment.
I don't know, I wasn't myself.
I hadn't slept in two days,
the detective kept calling me.
I couldn't take it anymore
every time he said I was crazy,
when I said he had someone else.
[sniffles]
[somber music playing]
[interviewer] Do you believe her version?
But it's not just that
I don't believe her version.
This version is absolutely impossible
according to the forensic report.
This version of hers
is completely inconsistent
with the forensic report.
So let's go ahead and
and discredit her version.
First, Marcos was around 5'9"
and she was around 5'.
So if she's a lot shorter than he is,
and she had the gun here, at this height,
she has to shoot upwards, right?
According to the report,
the shot hit his left front,
right here.
Here, downwards.
That would be impossible.
If you shoot upwards, the shot
can't go into the skull downwards.
It's a matter of studying some geometry.
If she were indeed facing Marcos,
the bullet would have had
an ascending trajectory,
never a descending one.
If it hit maybe somewhere else,
if it bounced somewhere
and then hit him, but it didn't.
That's the first absurd thing
in her version.
So when you grabbed the gun, he came?
- No, he stopped
- He stopped here?
Yes, we kept arguing
and he kept coming towards me slowly.
And cursing and cursing.
- Okay. He went like this?
- Yeah.
But you said you shot him
from about this distance.
Yeah.
Secondly,
she says that she shot him
from a distance of approximately six feet.
During the crime scene simulation,
she showed us where she was,
and where he was when she shot him
and it was about six feet apart.
MOMENT ELIZE SHOOTS WHEN THREATENED
SHOOTING SPO
VICTIM IMMOBILIZATION SPO
[judge] And what was the distance
between you and him approximately?
I can't tell exactly.
It would be an estimate.
A foot? Two feet?
More.
More than that.
[uneasy music playing]
The distance makes a lot of difference.
Because it means that the person
The closer they were, it means they had
less of a chance to defend themselves.
[Cosenzo] At a distance of six feet,
the shot would only leave an entry wound.
A shot fired at a short distance,
or a close-range shot,
would cause something we call
burns or tattoos.
The bullet left, right at the entry wound,
a tattooed mark and burns on the skin.
That gunpowder,
at the moment the shot was fired,
was too close to the skin,
so much, it burned it.
Technically, the distance
that makes this tattoo possible
is at most 20 inches.
Dr. Jorge who is the specialist
who performed the autopsy,
was quite clear.
There were tattoos and burns,
and that's typical for close-range shots.
[Pereira] He had bruising in some areas,
which weren't directly caused
by the bullet,
but by gases originated
from a close-range shot.
So that means she had to be
this far from him at most.
And not standing up facing him
at a distance of almost two meters,
pointing the gun and shooting him
while he walked towards her.
It wasn't like that. That was all made up.
So it didn't happen
the way she described it.
Not at all.
She made it all up.
All of these details,
when looking at the big picture,
caused some suspicion that we were facing
an orchestrated, premeditated action.
[judge] So, from what you're saying
it was a close-range shot?
Or not?
It was.
THE NIGHT OF THE CRIME
THE PROSECUTION VERSION
[D'Urso] We started sustaining a version
in which the only chance she would get
would be with a surprise factor,
so, he wouldn't be able to react.
[judge] According to your investigation,
did the argument happen
before he went down to get the pizza
or afterwards?
I can say for sure that it was before
because he was evidently nervous then.
By analyzing the forensic report,
the crime scene and the bullet trajectory,
she shot him as soon as he got back
into the apartment with the pizza.
He didn't stand a chance.
[D'Urso] We are convinced that
when he came back and opened the door,
she was standing behind the door
holding the gun,
ready to shoot and kill him.
[Dias] It's a defense strategy. You say
it was at a distance, unintentionally.
It's a way she found to try
and defend herself, get away with it.
[somber music playing]
[D'Urso] The only thing he did
was crouch down.
It's instinctive. When you point
a gun at someone, they'll crouch down.
And when he crouches down,
his head is down
and the bullet hits his head.
[gunshot]
[somber music continues]
All these facts clearly show
it was premeditated.
There's no doubt it was premeditated.
I have no doubts that it was premeditated.
She found out he had an affair,
and decided to kill him as revenge.
[somber music continues]
[gunshot echoing]
[Elize]
I didn't premeditate that situation.
I was desperate and I acted upon that.
I wasn't expecting any of that to happen.
If I had premeditated it, for example,
I would've done it on a trip
to Mato Grosso.
We went hunting there several times.
I would've shot him with a .12 gauge
in the middle of an indigenous village.
I doubt anyone would find him.
If I had premeditated it,
I would have never done it
in my own house.
THE DEFENSE VERSION
[Luciano] Nothing was premeditated.
Nothing was premeditated.
So much so, there were so many reasons,
that I proved
the forensic report was fake,
and not her version.
We made a video simulation.
So I was able to demonstrate to the jury.
I narrated it and they could see
on the screen exactly what happened
because we didn't change our version.
Sometimes the prosecution thinks
people were at a shooting range,
standing there with a fixed target.
But they aren't.
They move, they walk.
You can never know the exact distance.
I know he was there,
walking towards her way.
[inaudible]
[gunshot echoing]
So who was right in the end?
Me or the prosecution?
I still can't tell you
what kind of emotion
made me pull that trigger.
I can't describe it to you.
"I felt that, then I pulled the trigger."
FURLOUGH
[knife thuds]
Something takes over you,
and you just feel
your heart pounding desperately.
Thump, thump, thump.
As if it was trying
to get out of your chest.
[Thaís] We cannot forget
that we're not talking about a woman
who just shot her husband.
But a woman who shot her husband
and dismembered his body
in several pieces.
Why?
[tense music playing]
[Elize] I can't even tell you what I felt.
Because I saw him collapsing
and and at that moment,
it seemed the world had stopped.
I could only think about hiding it.
"I have to get him out of here.
But how am I going to do it?"
So, I had the
unfortunate idea
of dismembering him.
[dark version of Beethoven's
"Bagatelle No. 25 (Für Elise)" playing]