BRAZIL: A bicycle mechanic accused of being Brazil's most prolific serial killer has gone on trial in the northeastern state of Maranhao for the murder of a 15-year-old boy in 2003.
Prosecutors believe Francisco das Chagas Rodrigues de Brito (41) was behind the deaths of 42 boys and teenagers between 1991 and 2003, including Jonnathan Silva Vieira, whom he is accused of molesting, stoning and then strangling to death.
The wave of murders became known as the "case of the emasculated boys" because of the killer's habit of castrating his victims after sexually abusing them.
Thirty of the killings took place in Maranhao and another 12 in the state of Para, an often lawless region at the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Since the trial began on Monday, morbid revelations about child abuse and the mutilation of children have shocked the seven jurors and others following the trial.
Chagas, who on Monday confessed to the murder of the 15-year-old, told the jury he had been sexually abused by his grandmother's employee, known as Carlito, when he was seven years old.
"You don't know how difficult it is to talk about this here," he told a packed courtroom, according to an account in a local newspaper. "I never knew what love was."
He said he could not remember how he had killed the boys, but blamed his actions on his own experience of abuse.
"When I saw the boys it was as if it was Carlito who was in front of me," he said.
Chagas was arrested in 2004 when the bodies of two boys were found buried under the shack where he lived in São José do Ribamar, 30km (19 miles) from the state capital, São Luis.
When asked why forensics officers had found many of his supposed victims without their genitals, he replied: "It's because they didn't look properly."
Authorities have welcomed the trial, saying it will pave the way for further convictions.
But human rights activists have accused the police of ignoring the murders for 10 years simply because the victims were poor.
The children's group Matraca said the government was partly responsible for placing the boys "in a vulnerable situation" because of the absence of infrastructure and policing where they lived.