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Posted on 04/01/2004 6:52:02 PM PST by yonif
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, April 1 (Reuters) - Brazilian police arrested a man on Thursday who confessed to murdering a U.S. oil executive and his wife in Rio de Janeiro four months ago in a crime that had until now mystified authorities. Jossiel Conceicao dos Santos, a caretaker at the luxury condominium in Rio where the Utah couple lived, told reporters he killed Todd Staheli and his wife Michelle with a crow bar because they had mocked him and used racist slurs.
"Every time I was working in the neighbor's house they laughed and made fun of me. I became hateful," the 20-year-old said when authorities presented him to the media.
Santos said he jumped over the walls of the Staheli's home the night of Nov. 30 and waited for the family to go to sleep before entering the house through an open door to the kitchen.
He then proceeded to beat the couple to death in their bedroom while they slept, saying he had intended to kill only Todd Staheli but murdered his wife because she awoke and saw him committing the crime.
"She saw me so I beat her and then I beat him. I was only going to kill him," Santos said.
Rio de Janeiro state's public security secretary, Anthony Garotinho, said Santos confessed to the crime after he was arrested burglarizing a house in the same guarded condominium where Todd Staheli, 39, and Michelle Staheli, 34, lived.
Staheli was Shell's (SHEL.L: Quote, Profile, Research) (RD.AS: Quote, Profile, Research) vice president for joint ventures in natural gas and power in southern South America, and police initially suspected the murder might have been tied to his work.
Santos denied anyone had instructed him to kill the couple, but police said it was still too early to rule out a professional motive behind the murder.
"The crime has been partially solved. The accused has confessed, the weapon was identified, but we still have to investigate the motive," Garotinho said.
There were no signs of a break-in or a fight at the house and nothing was stolen during the killing, which at one point led police to believe one of Staheli's children could have been involved.
The four children, ages 3, 8, 10 and 13, left for Utah in December after a judge questioned the eldest daughter.
The daughter had told a judge her father was worried about a long report he had to write for Shell and that he had received a threatening work-related phone call days before the murder. Shell said it knew of no such problems.
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