Lead Masks Case

The Lead Masks Case (Portuguese: O Caso das Máscaras de Chumbo) was a series of events which led to the death of two Brazilian electronic technicians: Manoel Pereira da Cruz and Miguel José Viana. Their bodies were discovered on August 20, 1966.

Miguel José Viana and Manoel Pereira da Cruz

 

On the afternoon of August 20, 1966, a young man was flying a kite on the Morro do Vintém (Vintém Hill) in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when he came upon the bodies of two deceased males and reported them to the authorities. The Morro do Vintém had difficult terrain, and the police were unable to reach the bodies until the next day. When a small team of police and firefighters arrived on scene, they noted the bodies' odd conditions: The two males were lying next to each other, slightly covered by grass. Each wore a formal suit, a lead eye mask, and a waterproof coat.

 

Murders in Southern California (Goleta, Ventura, Dana Point, and Irvine, California) were not initially thought to be connected. One Sacramento detective strongly believed the East Area Rapist was responsible for the Goleta attacks, but at first the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department attributed them to a local career criminal who had himself subsequently been murdered. Investigating the crimes that did not occur in Goleta caused local police to follow false leads related to men who had been close to the female victims. One suspect, later acknowledged to be innocent, was charged with two murders. Linking all of the cases together was achieved almost entirely by DNA testing, which was not done until many years later.

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