Boyfriend held in Brazil body probe

12 April 2012

A Brazilian accused of murdering and dismembering a British teenager was helping police locate the missing parts of her body.

Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho Santos, 20, was charged with killing Cara Burke, 17, after her torso was found in a suitcase dumped on a rural riverbank.

The alleged drug addict took specialist officers to the scene outside the city of Goiania in central Brazil to help them locate the rest of her body.

Police said Santos was charged after confessing to killing her before photographing her remains on his mobile phone.

Santos accompanied a team of searchers to the isolated riverbank at first light, police spokeswoman Lenita Alves de Brito said.

Miss Burke was identified by her family after pictures of a distinctive tattoo on her stomach were aired on a Brazilian news channel.

Her distraught mother, Anne, was accompanied by police officers as she left the family home in Southfields, south London.

Michael Burke, Cara's brother, said the family asked Scotland Yard to help them speed up the investigation in Brazil.

He said: "Me and my mum have asked for police help to get the liaison officer to be able to contact the Brazilian Embassy to try to get things speeded up. We are going to be taken now to a London police station. From there my mum can get her head together and get her thoughts together."

When asked what his sister was like, Mr Burke, clearly moved, said: "She was my sister."

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