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Suspect Recants Killing Shell Executive and Wife, Says Two Others Committed Crime RIO101 Apr 2, 2004 By Michael Astor/ Associated Press Writer/ RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - A day after a public confession, a handyman denied Friday he killed an American couple and blamed two other Brazilians for the crime. Jociel Conceicao dos Santos, 20, was placed into Brazil's witness protection program after recanting his confession delivered at a police news conference, said Rio state security secretary Anthony Garotinho. Dos Santos claimed that two others "were the real authors of this crime and he only collaborated with them," Garotinho...

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...

Brazil Handyman Confesses to Killing American Couple By Michael Astor Apr 1, 2004 Associated Press Writer RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - A 20-year-old handyman confessed Thursday to the bludgeoning deaths of an American Shell Oil executive and his wife in their high-security home last year, saying he was upset about an alleged racial insult. Jociel Conceicao dos Santos was arrested early Thursday and later admitted to the killings during a police news conference, the latest chapter in a case that has sparked international attention and intense local coverage. Todd and Michelle Staheli were beaten to death as they slept...

RIO JOURNALAn American Family Abroad: Horror Strikes in the Night By TONY SMITH IO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 2 — The detectives at Rio de Janeiro's homicide division are a world-weary bunch, inured to the horrors of violent crime by their daily hunting down of killers in one of the world's most dangerous cities. But the grisly assault last weekend that left Zera Todd Staheli, a 39-year-old American oil executive, dead and his wife, Michelle, 34, in a coma has shocked even the most case-hardened officers. [Michelle Staheli died of her wounds early Thursday, Reuters reported.]According to the police chief, Álvaro...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - An American executive with Shell oil company was found slain in his Rio home, and the city's top police official said Monday investigators are trying to determine how attackers entered the heavily guarded house. Todd Staheli, 39, vice president for joint ventures in the Southern Cone gas and power unit of oil giant Shell, was found dead Sunday morning by one of his four children. His wife, Michele Staheli, suffered face and head wounds and remained in critical condition Monday at the Copa D'Or Hospital following emergency brain surgery. Mrs. Staheli is "in a deep...