Overview
- The case dates to June 2013 at a makeshift pitch in Centro do Meio in northeastern Brazil.
- After being injured, 19-year-old Otávio Jordão da Silva Cantanhede moved from player to referee and had brought a knife to the game.
- A caution to Josemir Santos Abreu escalated into a fight in which Cantanhede stabbed Abreu twice; Abreu died before reaching a hospital.
- Police report that at least four of Abreu’s friends then restrained and assaulted Cantanhede, running him over and stabbing his throat, before his decapitation and dismemberment documented by hospital images.
- Experts describe the episode as part of wider societal violence in Brazil rather than soccer hooliganism, and the new reports add no investigative or judicial updates.