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01x03 - Elize's Unfortunate Idea

Episode transcripts for the TV show, "Elize Matsunaga: Once Upon a Crime". Aired: July 8, 2021.*
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The crime shocked Brazil: Elize Matsunaga shot and dismembered her rich husband.

01x03 - Elize's Unfortunate Idea

Post by bunniefuu »

[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 k*lled 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 k*lled 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 k*lled.

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.

[g*nsh*t 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 k*ll 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 k*lled 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 sh**t together.

We liked to go sh**ting together.

It's a feeling of power.

It demands precision.

[g*nsh*t]

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 sh**t with him.

I didn't know about it.

The first time I fired a g*n

was with him.

He taught me.

As a matter of fact,

he gave me a g*n as a gift.

He invited me to go

to a sh**ting 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 sh**ter.

For a regular woman,

she was a fantastic sh**ter.

[keyboard clacking]

[deputy] How many g*ns are registered

under your name, Elize?

- Four.

- Four g*ns.

[Elize] I really liked my p*stol.

I really liked this one submachine g*n

It was

Al Capone's g*n.

A .45 Thompson.

It was very nice sh**ting with it.

[Gallardo] I was in Mato Grosso

with Elize once.

I took my r*fle 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 g*ns

in that apartment.

The g*ns 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 g*n. 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 g*ns.

[Dias] Ranging from

a collectible .22 revolver,

with ten b*ll*ts in the cylinder,

up to last generation r*fles,

like a Benelli semi-automatic r*fle.

A million reais worth of g*ns.

[Luciano] The cops would grab the g*ns.

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 g*n

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 sh**ting.

Even the g*n that was used to k*ll him,

the .380 p*stol,

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 k*lled.

[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 g*n,

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 prostit*tes?

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 m*rder 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 m*rder?

- Commit m*rder.

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 m*rder 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 f*cked 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 m*rder*r

that k*lled for money? That planned it?

Or a woman, a victim

of psychological abuse

who, in a burst of anger,

k*lled and dismembered the man

to whom she promised eternal love?

Which narrative will win?

[somber music playing]