Elize Matsunaga: Once Upon a Crime (2021) s01e03 Episode Script

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES
[interviewer] Why did Elize
dismember the body?
Because she had to get it
out of the apartment.
How would she do that
without dismembering it?
The case shows that she is evil.
It shows she is evil.
[somber music playing]
THE NIGHT OF THE CRIME
[Elize Matsunaga]
At that moment, I panicked.
[voice breaking] I saw a pool of blood,
and there was Marcos
and I had caused that.
I did that. He was there because of me.
I killed him. He's dead.
I felt like throwing up.
I felt like jumping, screaming,
pulling my hair out.
I didn't I didn't know what to do.
[judge] After the shot was fired,
did you think about helping Marcos?
I wanted to call the police, but if I did,
I would have been arrested there and then.
And I didn't want to be taken away
from my daughter.
I didn't want them to take her away.
I thought about running away.
Packing some stuff,
getting my daughter and running away.
Afterwards, almost instantly
I thought, "No."
"I won't put her at risk."
MAY, 2012
JUNE, 2012
POLICE RECONSTRUCTION
[Elize's lawyer] She was desperate
to stay with her daughter. To protect her.
And that led her to make
a series of wrong decisions.
[reporter] She dragged the body
50 feet to a bedroom in the apartment.
Then waited 12 hours to dismember it
without their being too much blood.
[judge] And, miss,
when you dragged the body there,
why did you do that?
To hide it.
I didn't want people to find out.
I didn't want
my mother-in-law to find out.
I didn't want my family to find out.
Legally, a homicide
is a much more relevant crime
than the crime of hiding a body.
Because they're already dead, you know?
A human life is already gone.
- [tech] Then, exactly here?
- [Elize] This is where I left him.
[judge] You just decided
what you were gonna do
in the middle of the night?
I think it was,
but I can't remember the exact moment.
Okay, at that moment
in the middle of the night,
what did you decide to do with the body?
I just wanted to get it out of there.
How?
Unfortunately, the only way
I could think of was dismembering him.
Unfortunately.
[Marcos' friend] There's no explanation.
And I can't imagine the chain of thought
that would have gone
through somebody's mind
to make things
for things to turn out like that.
It really is like a horror movie.
[deputy] What happened next?
- Can we take a break?
- Yes, of course.
[inaudible]
THE YEAR OF THE TRIAL
[judge] Sir, you took part
in the victim's autopsy
of Marcos Matsunaga?
Yes, that's correct.
[judge] According to your conclusions,
what was the cause of mortis?
You see,
I received pieces of the body.
They were all
processed at different times.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Pereira] The body talks.
An ideal coroner
is the one that is able to find the cause
from what he is examining.
Now, that doesn't mean
simply taking a look
and expecting the body
to talk on its own.
You have to ask.
You have to get close to the body and say,
"Look, brother,
this stuff is hard, huh?
Help me out here, so we can
let you go."
That's when you get it.
[interviewer]
What did Marcos' body tell you?
It told me everything.
His cause of mortis
was respiratory asphyxia
due to blood flooding
the respiratory airways.
[judge] Does that mean
he was still breathing when he was cut?
Precisely.
[reporter 1] According to the coroner
who performed the autopsy,
Elize Matsunaga supposedly cut
her husband's head
while he was in agony.
[reporter 2] This information
further complicates Elize's situation.
There may still be more gory details.
[prosecutor] The shot
could've killed him, but it didn't.
He was still breathing.
[inhales heavily]
And that explains why there was
so much blood inside the lungs.
That means there was cruelty.
Marcos was alive when she began.
[reporter 3] One of the main theses
the prosecution will try
to pursue in court
is that Elize acted with cruelty.
It was revenge.
It came from a thirst for revenge.
If Marcos was still alive
when he was dismembered,
that's not a mere detail.
If the members of the jury decide
the prosecution's theories make sense,
she could get the maximum penalty.
When this report came in,
I got the autopsy report
and confronted her.
"If this is really true and you're lying
to me, I'll drop the case."
She said, "It isn't. Trust me.
You can trust me."
"I am telling you the truth.
He wasn't alive when I dismembered him."
"This report is lying."
SÃO PAULO CEMETERY
[Luciano]
What did I realize at that point?
That I would only be able
to reverse the public opinion
if I destroyed that report's liability.
MEDICAL EXAMINER
Dr. Jorge's report is indestructible.
It's like you're married to the report.
Let go of it. Get a divorce.
I am completely certain
of the information
on that report that I made.
Dr. Jorge's report was flawless.
Flawless.
Well, if by "flawless" he means
no one can question the report,
I'm afraid we're not even having
the same conversation.
All investigative reports
are questionable.
[Luciano] Sami is a fantastic coroner.
He performed autopsies overseas
for the UN.
He was hired because he is the best.
[judge] You took part
as a technical assistant.
Hired by the defense
to oversee the exhumation.
[Thaís] Elize's defense
asked for the exhumation.
[reporter] Experts will determine
the exact time
the businessman was killed.
I think it's extremely disrespectful
to the family.
This is pretty much another burial.
It's like he died once again.
There was no need for this.
[Thaís] What may seem like a simple detail
is extremely important
for Elize's defense
as it could reduce her sentence
in the trial.
If he wasn't conscious,
we can't talk about suffering.
There's no cruelty aggravator to it.
Once the medulla is destroyed,
the entire nervous system
immediately shuts down.
There is a vital core and without it,
it's impossible to have life.
And that core is the brain stem.
[judge 2] Since the shot hit regions
that are responsible for vital functions,
can I affirm
that he was immediately unconscious?
[tense music playing]
That is the definition
that allows a diagnosis of brain death
and that is what allows
an organ transplantation.
Right? When we have organ donors
in line for transplantation,
their hearts are still beating.
So, we either agree
with Harvard's consensus
of 1968
that the destruction of the brain stem
causes death
at the very instant
the brain stem is destroyed,
or we will have to question,
in this case,
all organ transplants ever
in this country.
Regardless of all that,
my point is, it doesn't matter.
What matters is that, for that to happen,
it wasn't an act of fear or anger.
No, not at all.
That was an act of savagery, you know.
She had to disconnect herself
from her humanity
to be able to go through with it.
FURLOUGH
[Elize] If I had been able
to think straight
for just one second there,
I would've never done it.
There isn't a single moment, a single day
that I don't think about it.
It's always there, stored in my head.
I've even dreamed about
his head talking to me, for example.
With
his head covered in blood,
talking to me.
[somber music playing]
[Juliana] When people are desperate,
they can do unspeakable things.
But even then, the person uses
the resources they have.
And that is what she did.
She did what she knew how to do.
[judge 2] We saw the pictures
of the two of you hunting.
How was that? What did you hunt?
[Elize] Boars, white-lipped peccary,
collared peccary.
Some deer too.
[judge 2] And the two of you
prepared the animals for cooking?
Yes.
You would skin them, and what else?
Skin them,
sometimes we would remove the bones
or cut them.
I grew up watching chickens
and pigs being slaughtered.
People would say, "Whoa,
you're in the middle of the jungle."
But that's where I came from.
That's normal for me. It's ordinary.
There's nothing extraordinary to me
about the situation.
What I thought was extraordinary
was coming to São Paulo
without knowing anything here.
That was extraordinary.
One thing that stuck with me
is that he used to say,
"Wow, I never met a woman
that was okay with hunting,
let alone one that would hunt with me.
I never even dreamed
such a woman existed."
Yeah, well. [laughs]
[footsteps rustling]
What I enjoyed about it
was walking in the woods,
tracking down the animal,
listening to the trees,
to the birds singing.
- [rustling]
- [birds chirping]
Hearing a sound and not immediately
recognizing what it was
then getting curious,
then going after it, and
[faint chuffing]
I couldn't see it through the naked eye.
It was far. About a thousand feet away.
So I raised the scope
and it was looking at me.
It knew I was there.
[gunshot echoing]
[pensive music playing]
After you take down the animal,
you have to take it out of the woods.
You take it to a proper place
where you'll clean it up.
Remove the organs that won't have any use,
you wash the meat, chop it into pieces.
There's a proper technique
to skin the animal
so you can turn it into a trophy,
for example.
You can't make a wrong cut.
If you make a wrong cut, you'll ruin it.
At home I have the trophy
of this deer I caught.
It's pretty cute, actually.
I think it would cause an impact because
I mean, I feel sorry for the poor thing
but my goal wasn't just to kill it.
I wanted to to eat it.
I I'm a carnivore.
This one, in particular,
we ate it with herb sauce.
Venison in herb sauce is really good.
I recommend it.
That made a lot of sense to me.
"Of course!
Why didn't anyone think about this?"
It makes total sense.
People were thinking
of her background as a nurse
but it didn't add up.
But the hunting stuff, yeah.
It's not like I see her as a psychopath
or someone with
any serious mental illness.
All I see is the hunter Elize that,
out of despair,
needed to get that corpse
out of the apartment.
[tense music playing]
Our friendship faded a bit
after this one dinner party.
Elize kindly invited me
over to the apartment for dinner.
We were looking at a trophy of hers
and I asked, "Why did you slaughter it?"
The trophy was a stuffed animal.
I asked her why she killed it.
"I want to keep it close."
That was tough. Sad.
Marcos was my best friend in Brazil.
We talked a lot about horses,
even more about wine.
We would shoot together.
We liked to go shooting together.
It's a feeling of power.
It demands precision.
[gunshot]
There was this one time I missed a shot,
so Marcos made fun of me.
"Hey, how could you miss it?"
And whatever
Blah, blah, blah.
I'd have to put up with his jokes.
He would tease me and just [chuckles]
He made the mistake of taking his wife
to shoot with him.
I didn't know about it.
The first time I fired a gun
was with him.
He taught me.
As a matter of fact,
he gave me a gun as a gift.
He invited me to go
to a shooting range to try it.
I said, "All right. I'll learn."
I like learning new things.
[D'Urso] Elize sure learned it.
Not only did she learn it,
she turned out to be
an extraordinarily skilled shooter.
For a regular woman,
she was a fantastic shooter.
[keyboard clacking]
[deputy] How many guns are registered
under your name, Elize?
- Four.
- Four guns.
[Elize] I really liked my pistol.
I really liked this one submachine gun
It was
Al Capone's gun.
A .45 Thompson.
It was very nice shooting with it.
[Gallardo] I was in Mato Grosso
with Elize once.
I took my rifle and put it under my bed.
My bed.
I'm intuitive.
[interviewer]
And what was your intuition about her?
That it would end up badly.
It had a bad start, it'd have a bad end.
[tense music playing]
[Thaís] I'm sure this crime
wouldn't have happened
if there weren't so many guns
in that apartment.
The guns were scattered around the place.
They were placed
where we could access them
in case someone broke in
without us knowing, for example.
It was a matter of security, you know.
Especially in a city like São Paulo.
In the neighborhood
few people were aware of how wealthy
Marcos and Elize were.
The couple had a discreet life
outside their home.
But behind closed doors,
inside that penthouse,
it was a different story.
In an acclimatized wine cellar,
the businessman had R$ 2.5 million
in wine bottles.
Expensive and sophisticated wine bottles.
Dozens of boxes
of Cuba's most expensive cigars
were kept in a room,
with a value of R$ 500,000.
[Thaís] They weren't just rich.
They were eccentric rich.
[Elize's friend] Gigi.
That was
That was the snake's name, Gigi.
[laughing]
Oh, Gigi.
Oh, my God, how people fussed about her.
[Marcos] Isn't it too much?
[Elize] This one is small, honey.
You should've seen
the other one I gave her.
[Marcos] Hmm.
She always gets them by the head.
[Elize] Marcos told me
he wanted to have a pet snake.
That was another situation
where he would look at me and say,
"Wow, you seriously don't mind that?"
Maybe some people
could find that shocking, but I don't.
I like animals.
It peed, that son of a gun. The rat peed.
- [Marcos] Really?
- [Elize] Yeah, in the corner. Dang it!
Oh, that scared me! [laughing]
They got so involved in their own world
that these things became normal.
[Luciano] Inside one of the rooms,
there was a closet door
hiding another secret door
that was the entrance
to what would have been a bathroom.
Inside that room, there was an arsenal.
Thirty-three guns.
[Dias] Ranging from
a collectible .22 revolver,
with ten bullets in the cylinder,
up to last generation rifles,
like a Benelli semi-automatic rifle.
A million reais worth of guns.
[Luciano] The cops would grab the guns.
They wanted to take pictures with them.
They were over the moon.
[Dias] When we opened that door
and saw all that,
it was like women going into a shoe store.
We could tell the hobby was growing.
He would tell us
about the things he would buy and all.
But no one in the group
shared that interest.
It was just his thing. He liked it.
When we went over to his place,
our only concern would be
for all that stuff to be locked away.
[birds chirping]
[Elize] Having access to a gun
in certain situations,
like in a fight, for example,
is not a good thing.
Maybe you could do something
and regret it later.
But there's no going back.
Once you pull the trigger, it's done.
[D'Urso] He was the one
that got her into shooting.
Even the gun that was used to kill him,
the .380 pistol,
he was the one who gave it to her
as a gift.
So, the couple's fate was a fate
that he also charted.
[ominous music playing]
People ask me,
"Elize really acted this way?"
And I always reply, [clicks tongue]
"Elize reacted this way."
[Elize] Marcos was the jealous type.
Back in college,
there was this study group.
He would always ask me,
"Will there be men there?"
"Yes, my male classmates
who study with me."
Marcos would call her every 30 minutes,
or every 40 minutes or something.
And Elize would ask us
for a really weird favor.
Whenever he called and she answered,
she asked that us guys kept quiet,
so that he wouldn't hear
male voices around her.
He would even ask Elize,
"Who is there with you?"
"I'm with so-and-so."
"Oh, so let me talk to so-and-so.
I want to make sure
you're really with her."
Isn't that absurd?
I was a little jealous, too.
I liked him. I didn't want him
to go out with other woman.
[reporter 1] In these images,
Marcos is seen with another woman
the day before he was killed.
[reporter 2] The woman next to Marcos
is Nathalia.
She's an escort.
She had her pictures
on the same escort website
which led Marcos to Elize.
[Dias] How did you meet Marcos?
On a dating website.
- Online.
- What kind of website?
- For escorts.
- For escorts.
- You were an escort then?
- Yes.
Okay.
[keyboard clacking]
Was Marcos married at the time?
Yes.
Did you know he was married?
- Did he have kids?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- He did?
- A boy or a girl?
- A daughter.
He had a daughter.
So, you were his mistress, is that right?
Yes.
- Were you?
- Yes.
[Dias] They were both escorts.
He met them both on the same website.
He dated both.
It was the same story.
Elize didn't know
that Nathalia was an escort,
but she must have figured it out
and thought,
"The same thing that happened before
can happen to me."
"He ditched his wife to be with me.
He will ditch me to be with her."
"He'll do the same thing."
I think that was the moment
Nathalia's story is similar to Elize's.
Just like the girl from Paraná,
Nathalia left her mother's home
to use her body and looks
to earn a living in São Paulo.
That is how Nathalia met Marcos Matsunaga.
[sighs heavily]
I felt humiliated.
I felt worthless,
as if I was just another woman.
[Luciano] It's a cycle.
When he started dating Elize,
he was married and had a young daughter.
He fell in love with Elize.
He takes her away from prostitution,
transforms her life
into the life of a princess.
The same thing happens later.
He is married to Elize,
has a young daughter,
then he starts dating Nathalia.
[reporter 1] The mistress said Marcos
paid her R$ 4,000 monthly since March,
and he even offered her R$ 27,000
for her to take down her pictures
from the escort dating website.
Marcos' mistress said
the businessman gave her a car as well.
[Luciano] It was an armored
Mitsubishi Pajero TR4.
The exact same car he gave Elize.
Nathalia made it very clear
that he was in love with her,
and that once the company's negotiation
was done,
they would get married and move to Miami.
[reporter 2] Nathalia's lawyer said
their relationship went back even further
than what had been published.
They were boyfriend and girlfriend.
[Dias] For how long did you maintain
a relationship with Marcos
while he was married?
One year? Two years?
Three years.
You dated him for three years
while he was married. Is that it?
[reporter 3] Nathalia's lawyer
goes even further.
He doesn't rule out
that Nathalia should get a part
of Marcos Matsunaga's inheritance.
It's her right, in my opinion.
She loved him.
[reporter 4] According to the escort,
Marcos said his marriage
wasn't going well.
There was a lot of fighting.
[Nathalia] Marcos would forget
about his problems
when we were together, you know?
He said he was afraid
she would do something to him.
He wanted to get divorced
as soon as possible as to avoid that.
Marcos told me a little story
when we met, too.
[Dias] Did he ever complain to you
that his marriage was troublesome?
- He always did.
- Always? Even on the first date?
He always did.
[keyboard clacking]
Everyone has a little story to tell.
[music box plays tune]
[judge] I would like you to explain
an expression you've used before.
"He was a man every woman wished for."
Yes, because he's always been a gentleman.
Like, "She's never been to Cancun,
so I took her to Cancun."
You could see that he wanted
to make her wishes come true, you know?
For instance, if I had a daughter
who got married to a guy like him,
of course I would think
that she was set for life.
Because he was a true gentleman.
She wouldn't sit if he wasn't there
to pull out the chair for her.
He'd open car doors.
When he liked something,
he really liked it.
Really. A lot.
He didn't have a couple bottles of wine,
he had two gigantic wine cellars.
He didn't have a gun,
he had an arsenal.
He didn't have a cigar,
he had a cigar cellar.
I didn't even know
there was such a thing as a cigar cellar.
So everything was superlative with him.
We realized that when he liked someone,
he really liked that person.
He would put them up
on the highest pedestal.
On the other hand,
when he didn't like that person anymore
[judge 2] About a thing you said
in the first stage of the trial
You said, "Marcos was the husband
every woman wished for."
Would you like to have a cheating husband?
No.
[Gallardo] Marcos was a faithful man,
but he liked women.
So, we would look at women together.
We would classify them. Give them scores.
Was she a seven? Or an eight?
Or maybe a nine?
[interviewer] But did you two talk about
how he avidly hired prostitutes?
Yes.
- Tell me about it.
- No.
No. It's too intimate.
It's just too intimate.
[Luciano] I talked to all
the major journalists in the country.
There was one, Roberto Cabrini,
who asked me
if I had anything unheard of.
Something that had
never been published before.
At that moment, I had.
[intense music playing]
[Roberto Cabrini] Here,
Marcos goes by the name Hore Rider.
In one of the forums,
the goal is to evaluate the date.
Marcos gave the escort a high rating.
He was very satisfied.
He showers the luxury escort with praises.
[Luciano] I had some information on Marcos
frequenting a social network of escorts,
and he was posting about it.
He posted what they did in bed,
reviewed their bodies, and so on.
They dug deeper into that information
and published it.
That was fantastic material for me
to use in court later.
[Thaís] I thought
that was really shocking.
People thought that was condemnable.
You know when you can hear
people whispering and all that?
Look how the entire narrative
built by the defense
is starting to get in people's heads.
I remember the prosecutor asking,
"Are you saying he is this Hore Rider?"
I replied, "I'm not.
Roberto Cabrini is saying that."
He used a nickname.
If he could guarantee that it was Marcos,
then it would be valid evidence.
But if the guy is called Jack,
Jonas, Miguel, José, or whatever,
what could I do?
Marcos was a good person.
He was an exemplary man.
Hardworking, righteous,
the kind of man who built an empire.
What if he liked women?
That's not a crime.
LAST VISIT MAY 19TH, 2012, 11:17 A.M.
His last post
is from May 19th, 2012.
Precisely the day it happened.
Fine. Give him the award
for the world's worst husband.
That doesn't change anything.
It doesn't justify it.
It doesn't justify the savagery.
It doesn't justify the action.
It doesn't justify the lack of affection
or whatever towards other people.
She could be mad at him,
but what fault does his mother have in it?
Usually,
women that are the victim to femicide
have their conduct questioned.
It was the first time
I saw something like that in my life.
A man having his conduct questioned
as a way to possibly justify
what happened to him.
I disagree that the victim's life
should be investigated
and exposed like that.
That day,
I went home with that on my mind.
Had Marcos been revictimized?
Because if it was the other way around,
if a man
was on trial for the murder of a woman,
I would definitely question
this kind of strategy.
THE YEAR OF THE TRIAL
[judge 2] So, tell me something.
Did you feel hatred
while you were dismembering Marcos' body?
I
[judge 2] What did you feel?
[reporter 1] Elize wasn't feeling well
and asked to leave
when the pictures of Marcos' body
were shown.
How can someone dismember their husband?
The father of their child?
Any desperate mother
would do exactly as Elize did.
- Commit murder?
- Commit murder.
Dismember a body?
Anyone who was as desperate as she was
would do that.
[Thaís] Everyone was waiting
for that answer at the trial.
It's always been the explanation
I wanted to hear from her.
It's really tough for me
to have to remember all those things,
to have to remember
everything that happened.
[reporter 2] For the prosecution,
Elize's difficulty
to describe how she got rid
of the body of Marcos Matsunaga
is a sign that she had help doing it.
From my military experience,
it was all planned.
And you don't make a plan alone.
You may come up
with an initial idea by yourself
but there had to be someone else.
STORY OF THE DAY
Finally, the story I've been promising
since the show started.
The story that catches the eyes of,
not only the people of São Paulo,
the place where the crime happened
four years ago,
but the whole nation.
This woman, Elize Matsunaga.
Is it possible
that this petite, skinny woman
committed this crime all alone,
without any help?
Listen, I'm pretty sure
this woman didn't act alone.
She didn't act alone.
Mark my words.
Someday, the criminal truth
will see the light of day.
No one can convince me
that this psycho acted alone
to dismember that guy.
That is my opinion
which is even shared
by some police officers.
[police sirens wailing]
[Pereira] Miss, if you ever try to move,
all by yourself,
an unconscious person,
not even a dead one,
you'll see how difficult it is.
It's a little naive
and even a little misogynistic to think
that a woman isn't capable
of committing a crime
that a man could commit.
[Pereira] I, as a coroner, am unaware
of what technique was used.
The body had a midsection cut.
There were no visceral wounds,
nor on the intestinal loops,
nor the liver.
[Lucas] When we found it, I thought,
"Are we sure this isn't a doll
and we're all making fools of ourselves?"
Because it looked like a wax figure.
There wasn't any blood.
Usually, dismembering involves
a lot a blood.
[interviewer] Does that prove
whoever did it knew what they were doing?
Absolutely.
It was a professional
who knew how to do it.
[Paula] She was skilled with knives.
She knew how to dismember, how to debone,
how to do a bunch of things.
I assume it wasn't so different.
[Pereira] The anatomy of a large animal
differs from that of a human being.
So, it's a case that
raises questions.
If she had an accomplice,
the defense's version
that it wasn't planned
would change completely.
If I hadn't done it,
maybe I would look at myself and say,
"No, you are not capable of doing that."
"It wasn't you."
But it was. I did it.
I did it.
[Cosenzo] Why would she snitch
on whoever helped her,
if that wouldn't improve her situation
and may harm that other person?
The next step was to identify that person.
THE SEARCH FOR THE ACCOMPLICE
[reporter 1] The prosecution asked
for a new investigation
on the murder case of Marcos Matsunaga,
heir to the Yoki group.
The prosecutor, José Carlos Cosenzo,
states Elize Matsunaga was lying
on parts of her deposition.
I'm asking for a new investigation
to identify a third, or more, parties
at the crime scene.
I have a technical certainty
that shows
that another person was involved.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Pereira] What I can affirm is,
there were two types of cuts.
[reporter 2] The forensic report
notes that the cuts made on the abdomen
and lower limbs were precise,
and seem to have been made
by someone with knowledge of anatomy.
Meanwhile the cuts made on the upper limbs
appeared less precise,
indicating a possible lack
of anatomical knowledge.
It's not possible
that someone would make a cut
without skill here,
and then go make the next cut
and suddenly,
they're enlightened by a spirit
and they make a surgical cut?
I don't know how to explain it
because I wasn't worried
about cutting him like this or like that.
All of that just happened.
[Lucas] Police searched
the CCTV footage
of the building where the couple lived.
If one of the cuts made to the body
suggests the act of a surgeon,
and there is a surgeon in the building,
they should be questioned.
They asked for another investigation.
I didn't think it was necessary.
I said, "I'm not gonna look for a ghost."
[Luciano] That idea is absurd.
There was a third person
at the crime scene,
but she still takes the bags down
by herself?
How did the other person leave?
Did they fly away?
[judge] After you were done, all alone,
did it take you long to leave?
I don't think so.
I left right after that.
[D'Urso] Was it possible that
someone got in and out of the building
and the apartment without being seen?
[Cosenzo] We can see her
going down in the elevator,
opening the door and then disappearing.
The prosecutor found out
that despite seemingly to be
fully monitored by cameras,
the luxurious building in West São Paulo
actually has several blind spots.
The main one
on the second floor underground
precisely where Elize's car
was parked that night.
[Cosenzo] There are two buildings
on top of a single platform.
If you go down the fire escape,
you can walk across the entire platform
on the second floor underground
and go up the fire escape
on the second building
without being seen.
Why would I involve other people
who have nothing to do with it?
I thought to myself, "You fucked up."
"Now you have to deal with it."
[reporter] She left the building
and got on the road.
She told the police
she was going to Chopinzinho,
her hometown in the state of Paraná.
[Elize] I started driving.
And I drove and drove
[reporter] But when she reached
Capão Bonito,
140 miles away from São Paulo,
she decided to go back.
Because if I'd gone to Paraná,
I would have definitely
said something to my family.
I would have told my aunt, for instance.
And it wouldn't be fair
to get her involved in all of that.
[reporter] On her way back,
a smart speed camera detected
that her vehicle's license had expired.
She was pulled over while the car
still had the three suitcases
that contained the dismembered body.
She got a ticket
and then she was free to go.
[reporter 2]
But the Yoki businessman's family
still has unanswered questions.
"Why haven't they questioned
the cop who stopped her?"
"Was there someone else
in the car with Elize
before she disposed
of her husband's corpse?"
COTIA
18 MILES FROM SÃO PAULO
[reporter 3] Forensic experts,
police officers on duty
the day the body was found,
and the prosecutor, have gone through
Elize's entire journey from that day.
This reenactment was made
so that the forensic experts
could calculate
exactly how long she spent
on each spot where she dumped
the businessman's body parts.
[Elize] I drove round and round.
I went one way, then another way.
I got on a road,
then I took an exit, then I went back.
I don't know.
I don't know how I got there.
[reporter 3] This information may confirm
what the prosecution is certain about:
that Elize Matsunaga didn't act alone.
The prosecutor is contradicting
the entire investigation
that has already been made
by the Homicide Department.
He spent a lot of taxpayer money
conducting new forensic investigations,
moving a dozen police cars.
They could be on the streets
catching bad guys,
but they were looking for something
that didn't exist.
[reporter 4] The forensic lab
that analyzed the crime scene
found genetic material and blood
from three different people:
the victim, a woman's,
believed to be Elize,
and another man.
That means there was another person
at the crime scene.
But can you tell if that was
from the moment the crime happened?
No, that man could have been there
20 years ago.
If he still believes
there was a third person there,
he hasn't studied the case at all.
I'm sorry. I'm just being honest.
[Thaís] The Court of São Paulo
dropped the investigation
to find out if Elize Matsunaga
had an accomplice.
Due to lack of consistent evidence,
the topic probably won't be discussed
at the trial.
I have the impression that
the investigation never advanced.
In the other tower, the other building,
there were three doctors.
Why haven't they been heard?
We came to the conclusion that,
checking the people
who were there, would be
not exactly pointless,
but it would be technically and socially
It wasn't right to expose
the integrity of those other people
who could be considered suspects.
People with a lot of money
live in that building.
A lot of important people live there.
[interviewer] If this crime didn't happen
in such a luxurious building,
would you have the same moral concern?
Oh, absolutely.
To me I worry
immensely about
people's respectability.
Do you think
they would have been this careful
if it had happened in a favela,
for instance?
Absolutely not.
[Dias] I don't work with opinions.
I work with evidence.
The evidence shows, undoubtedly,
that she did it all by herself.
[Sami] Indeed, the cuts presented
different characteristics.
Well, I would have been surprised
if they had found a body
where all the cuts
had identical characteristics
on every part,
that would make me think that,
at the very least,
the person took a break
and sharpened the knife.
Everyone, the police,
as well as the prosecution,
as well as the public,
they all want an answer.
And we've already got one.
We have someone who confessed.
And that should be enough
for the people
who are involved in this story.
- [interviewer] Is it enough for you?
- No.
No.
[ominous music playing]
I hope that she tells
the whole truth about this crime.
How can I tell him,
"Hey, I did it like this and like that."
I don't even know! And I'll never know.
I don't want to remember.
I don't want to go back to that situation.
There's one person.
I could only sit down face-to-face
and talk about everything that happened
with just one person.
I'd tell her every single detail
if she wanted to know.
And that is my daughter.
She's the only one that can answer that.
I think she's the only one
that can answer that.
I can't
talk about everything.
There is stuff here
that I wasn't able to expose,
that I couldn't dive into,
that I couldn't put into words.
And there are
secrets in life
that we take with us to the grave.
There are secrets that are forbidden.
And I will take them to the grave.
[somber music playing]
They won't be said here.
At any moment.
[Thaís] This may be the last time
Elize Matsunaga is seen in public
before she gets the verdict.
Under no circumstance,
would I be satisfied
if the sentence is shorter than 28 years.
[Thaís] Depending on what the jury decides
she may walk out of Barra Funda Courthouse
through the front door.
I'm here to win over a jury.
It was all about the best speech.
Who is Elize Matsunaga?
A cruel, cold-blooded murderer
that killed for money? That planned it?
Or a woman, a victim
of psychological abuse
who, in a burst of anger,
killed and dismembered the man
to whom she promised eternal love?
Which narrative will win?
[somber music playing]