The night of 12 September 2004 was a festival night in the Aldeia da Figueira. The traditional São Miguel party was underway as shown in these amateur videos given to RTP, which show no signs of Joana. But in one scene you can see António Leandro, the girl's stepfather.
The Portimão GNR continued with searches over the following days around the Aldeia da Figueira. Posters about the disappearance were put up. But there were no traces of Joana.
The mother began giving interviews to the media.
Leonor Cipriano, Joana's mother: "Everyone in the café says, 'This is a badly told story. A girl disappearing, suddenly... it was someone from outside who headed for Lisbon and took her in a car.'"
Four days later, the case of the missing 8 year old girl is transferred to the PJ in Portimão. Another four days later, it is transferred to the PJ Directory in Faro. The inspectors had no idea they now had in their hands one of the most complex cases ever confronted.
Guilhermino da Encarnação, Director, PJ Faro: "In this investigation, we covered about 50,000 kilometres. 2100 official processes were created. We assigned approximately 40 inspectors and requested approximately 40 exams from the Scientific Police Laboratory and the Legal Medical Institute."
Leonor Cipriano continued to give interviews.
Leonor Cipriano: "I'm very sad. I think my daughter is really missing her mother. I just ask that anyone who knows about my daughter, that you don't hurt her. And that you can bring her to me."
Interviewer: "Where do you think your daughter could be right now?"
Leonor Cipriano: "There are only guesses. If she is alive, or not, if she's hurt. I don't know, there's no explanation for my daughter… I don't know, I don't know."
Without any clues, the PJ inspectors did find discrepancies. The statements of Joana's mother, the uncle and the other family members do not coincide.
Gonçalo Amaral, Coordinating Inspector PJ (Jan 2007): "In the first statements given to the GNR, the first agency to arrive, it was a badly told story. There were various contradictions amongst certain people, witnesses, who were part of the family group where Joana lived. Based on these contradictions, there arose at a certain time the need for a new interrogation of these individuals, with all these witnesses, at the same time, at the police headquarters, such that they couldn't confer between themselves, and with the principal objective to understand whether the girl had, or had not, returned home. From there, it was proved that the girl had returned home. That is, it was a lie, there was a simulation of a disappearance. From there, it was necessary to determine what had happened."
Leonor is taken in by the PJ on the 21 September, eleven days after her daughter disappeared. The girl's uncle, João Cipriano, remained free for one more day but was also arrested under suspicion of homicide.
In the next few days, João took the PJ inspectors to dozens of different locations to point out Joana's body. But the body was not found in any of those places.
Gonçalo Amaral: "At that time, it became, as if it were a fact, to the police that she was playing with us … She was sending a message, a message to perhaps say that the body was cut up or the body no longer existed. But, at the same time, all the diligences constituted evidence. This permitted us, as would come to happen in the trial, to speak about them, because they were diligences in which we participated and not witness statements of the arguidos. We aren't talking about declarations by arguidos, we are talking about giving witness to the diligences that we did and why we did these diligences and went to these places. On the other hand, it would not have happened, for him to indicate where to find the body or the rest of the body or pieces of the body and we then didn't go. We always had to go. And that's what happened."
The PJ's theory was that the body was fed to the pigs, a theory that was not proven in court. Shocked by this macabre story, hundreds of locals invaded the village searching for answers. The same answers for which the PJ were searching. Why was Joana killed? And where is her body?
Guilhermino da Encarnação: "In principal, this is a disappearance. And this crime is always, excuse me, this crime doesn't have a juridic framework but could have behind it a series of crimes, a kidnapping, an abduction, human trafficking, criminal associations, so that any of these crimes could be behind a disappearance. And the complexity begins right there."
Leonor and her brother confessed the crime to the PJ. João Cipriano even participated in a video reconstitution where he explained with the kitchen stool, how the girl was killed in a beating and where she hit her head against the wall. The images filmed by the PJ were shown in court against the protest of the defense attorneys.
Sara Rosado, João Cipriano's lawyer: "I imagine that all the pressure surrounding this process, generated that, those declarations, as well as others in opposite and various directions, with other details, with other facts. As for the rest, the version that you find constituted in the video doesn't even adhere to the accusation. That is, the actual accusation didn't even follow this theory if you examine certain details. And, in fact, only the pressure that … one of these was the enormous pressure on everyone, including the arguidos who were arrested and so…"
RTP requested authorization from the Portimão Court to emit in this report a short excerpt of the video but the judge in charge denied the request invoking the "image rights" of those who appear in the video.
João Cipriano also directed a photographic reconstitution where, with the help of a mannequin, he explained how he cut Joana's body into three parts.
According to the accusations from the Public Ministry, the three body pieces were placed in black sacks in the small refrigerator during the first few hours. In the various exams done by technicians from the Scientific Police Lab at Joana's house, human blood was found in one of the drawers inside the refrigerator. But DNA tests did not prove that the blood was Joana's.
Gonçalo Amaral: "It is just one of the versions that was given, and we continue to find viable and credible because blood was found in a chink on one of the refrigerator drawers. A drop of blood in the drawer. Someone opens [the refrigerator] and lets some blood run. The blood ran into the drawer and was cleaned, so it only remained in the chinks, in the areas that are difficult to clean. The explanation was necessary given the circumstances in which the homicide occurred, as this was not a prepared or planned homicide, it was a homicide "in loco." It happened, in the way everyone knows, and they had to hide the body. It's viable and an alternative that they may have used and tried, during the first phase while thinking about what to do with the body, to hide the body in the refrigerator."
During the trial, it was also proven that the body pieces would only have fit in the refrigerator if that drawer in which they found human blood had been removed from the refrigerator.
Sara Rosado: "The doctor who attended the diligences and testified in court affirmed that, very tightly, [the body] would fit. But only by removing the drawer. There was blood found on the back of the alleged drawer, having removed the drawer, but the doctor said the arguidos were surprised with this. It was an idea that had never occurred to them. So I don't think anything like this happened."
Many more vestiges of blood were found in Joana's house. Using ultraviolet light, they found blood on the walls by the door: traces of facial and hand impressions from a child of the family, but which could not be proved to be Joana's. Also by the light switch, near the front door, there was found a bit of blood from Ruben, Joana's younger brother who also lived in the house.
João Grade, Leonor Cipriano's second lawyer (former lawyer): "There was not blood in so many different areas... there were various exams done... just vestiges of human blood, which is normal. A housewife only has to cut herself peeling potatoes while watching a soap opera, only has to have a cut, to have blood, it just has to fall on the ground, it has to be cleaned as anyone of us would clean, and then with rigorous exams you could conclude that there were vestiges of blood. It doesn't say anything. In any of our houses, there could be blood like this."
On the floor of the house and on a mop handle, there were found a mixture of human and animal blood. These exams were also inconclusive.
Allegedly, the exams did not produce results because Leonor washed the house with gasoline because the house was infected with ticks. A doubtful motive for PJ who found the house filthy with dirty dishes in the sink. Except for some walls which were cleaned. As soon as the first suspicions arose, the house should have been isolated.
Gonçalo Amaral: "You can tell that the house had been cleaned, that area where the blood was found had been cleaned. It had been cleaned with petroleum purchased by Leonor on the day she left the Portimão police station. There was an attempt, that you might say worked well, to inhibit any laboratory results. As many vestiges as possible were obtained, given the circumstances, and the conclusion is that it was human blood. According to the court, and I agree, something serious happened in that house, on that day. And the conclusion was that it was a homicide."
Another piece of evidence found at Joana's house by the PJ were the red shoes that Joana was supposed to be wearing the day she disappeared. The PJ believe that the mother and uncle forgot to hide the shoes, just as they did the purchases from the store. The posters put up by the family said that she was wearing red shoes.
Sara Rosado: "No one knows what the child was wearing, especially the shoes."
In February 2005, photographs were published of Leonor with significant bruising (Marinho Pinto Expresso Newspaper Article). The trial will begin soon of four inspectors charged with torture, and Gonçalo Amaral of the crime of false witness and failure to denounce [inappropriate police behaviour].
Guilhermino da Encarnação: "This is extremely difficult because, in 30 years of criminal investigation, I've never seen the confession of such a serious crime without the arguidos saying they were tortured, attacked or raped so that this, for us police officers, and I tell you, unfortunately, it has become the norm, natural. Therefore I don't give it a lot of credence."
Leonor and João opted to remain silent throughout the entire trial. In November 2005 they were charged with qualified homicide and hiding a cadaver. Leonor was condemned to 20 years and 4 months in prison, and João to 19 years and 2 months. The three jury members and four judges felt that the brother and sister did not intend to kill the child but gave, as proven, that the body was dismembered though they were not convinced it was kept in the refrigerator. Nor was it proven that the child was killed because she caught the mother and her brother having s.e.x. The defense attorneys and the Public Ministry presented an appeal, reducing the penalty to 16 years and 8 month.
With a lot of doubts still to be clarified, Leonor's attorney presented another appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
João Grade: "It's more than frustrating that we do not know what happened. We have this other child who disappeared 10 years ago, when eight years old, and now has returned at eighteen years old. We don't know whether Joana is going to appear twenty years from now, or four years from now, alive or dead, I don't know."
RTP wanted to talk to Leonor and João, currently serving their sentences in the Odimera and Carregeira prisons. Leonor sent a signed letter, where she agreed to give an interview. Two days after making a request to the Prison Director, that service sent us a newly signed letter when Leonor rescinded her agreement because of "lack of understanding".
João Cipriano agreed to give his first interview, a written interview wherein he proclaimed his innocence. "I did nothing to my niece, Joana Guerreiro. I am innocent. I was threatened with knives to make that video that was shown in court. But it is all lies. The PJ came almost every day to the Olhão prison where I was held to ask me where Joana was. And I, afraid of beatings, kept saying she was here or there, but it was a lie. My sister told me that Joana was fine. She told me that she had sold Joana to a foreign couple."
It remains to be known, what was Joana's destiny.
RTP 2007
File : 197 MB, duration 0:18:28, AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 180 MB, 1368 Kbps, 25 fps, resolution 700*534 (4:3)
Audio : 16.90 MB, 128 Kbps, 48000 Hz, stereo, MP3
Source: RTP Media
(With thanks to Joana for translation).
