Jeff Machado’s dogs were instrumental in locating the actor’s body, says police. Killers rented the house where the actor was found dead a month before the crime
Police said 44-year-old Jeff Machado’s dogs were instrumental in finding the actor’s body. It was from the location of the abandoned animals that the NGO Indefesos began to investigate whose animals they belonged to, at first, hold the guardians accountable, and then give decisive clues that Jeff was having a problem, since it seemed unlikely that he abandoned his 8 Setter dogs.
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The first animal to be found was the setter Cazuza — they all had the names of MPB idols. The dog was found on January 30, abandoned on the streets of the Santa Cruz neighborhood, in the West Zone of the city.
Until then, Jeff was not reported missing and apparently kept in touch with the family via WhatsApp text messages. It was later discovered that someone else was impersonating him.
On January 31, it was no longer just one dog, there were two: Vinícius de Moraes had also been found in conditions similar to those of Cazuza in Santa Cruz.
On Wednesday, February 1st, Nando Reis and Tim Maia were also found, which aroused suspicion about the “eviction” of setters in Santa Cruz. A friend of the NGO informed on their page that this breed is more restricted in Brazil and that breeders usually use identification chips on their animals.
That’s how the identity of the owner of the four dogs was arrived at: they all belonged to actor Jeff Machado. He began to be sought after to rescue the animals or be blamed for abandonment.
One person contacted the NGO, pretending to be a guardian, saying that he was traveling, that he had left the animals with a friend, but that they had fled.
In the meantime, the NGO researched the actor’s social media, and saw that he actually had 8 dogs of the breed. Thus began a real rescue operation to try to find the three missing animals.
On February 3, the pets Elis Regina, in Paciência, also in the West Zone, and Rita Lee, who was already dead, the victim of a car accident, were found in the same neighborhood.
On the 4th, it was Caetano Veloso’s turn to be located, in Campo Grande, the same neighborhood where Jeff’s body was found. The animal was badly hurt. Gilberto Gil was never found.
Meeting the abandoned dogs in West Zone neighborhoods was fundamental for the family to put an end to a doubt: that it was not Jeff who was talking to them on WhatsApp.
The actor’s mother, Maria das Dores, was already suspicious of the person’s way of expressing himself, but had no way of proving that it was not her son and that he was, in fact, missing. The abandonment of the dogs was fundamental evidence for the police to go after Jeff, taking January 28 as the date of the actor’s disappearance. The dumping of dogs across the West Side also pointed a direction as to where Jeff might be.
Concrete body in trunk
Jeff Machado’s body was found with both hands tied in concrete at a depth of two meters inside a trunk, which belonged to him and was removed from his home. The information appears in the investigation by the Police Station for the Discovery of Whereabouts (DDPA), and was confirmed by the family’s lawyer, Jairo Magalhães.
“This trunk belongs to Jeff, it is similar to another one he has at his house, and it was removed from there. It’s another clue that led the police station to suspect who was involved in the case: that it was a person who had access to Jeff’s house”, said Jairo Magalhães.
The place where the body was found belongs to a woman, who was heard at the DDPA and said she didn’t know Jeff, but rented the space to a man. The police already have his ID.
The team that went to the site to remove the body consisted of nine men: two operating a jackhammer, two civil police officers who took turns with pickaxes and shovels, and five men from the Civil Defense.
The murder suspects rented the house where the actor was found a month before the crime. The owner of the property stated that she never saw Jeff at her residence and never had contact with him.
A neighbor of the property denied seeing Jeff at the residence where the body was found. Police have no information that the actor went to the scene before being killed.
The police already have a hypothesis about the authorship of the crime, but for now the family intends to keep the information confidential: “In order not to disturb the investigations, at this moment, we keep it confidential, waiting for the indication of the authors of this barbaric crime”, says the family lawyer.
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