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The crime of Valentina, a 9-year-old girl found lifeless in the bushes this Sunday, shakes these days the Portuguese, who since their recollection at home by coronaviruses attend with amazement the reappearance of a type of violence that seemed forgotten with the pandemic .

The case, still full of unknowns, has generated a wave of outrage and rage rarely seen in a society mostly secluded at home since mid-March, concerned with the spread of the virus and the looming economic crisis.

In the midst of this tension, Valentina's gruesome crime has exacerbated spirits, especially in the Leiria district, central Portugal, where the girl died and where today the main investigators have come to testify before the judge amid strong security measures. : the father and the stepmother.

Between shouts of "murderers" and insults from several dozen people wearing masks , both have entered the courts, where they go a day after the preliminary results of the autopsy are known.

A police source said there is evidence that the girl suffered a "violent death, with head injuries and signs of suffocation", although she did not specify the cause of death, which will be known when the reports are complete.

Investigators are convinced that Valentina died at the home of the father and stepmother in the village of Atouguia da Baleia - where she spent a few days during confinement - Wednesday morning, in a context of "internal issues of family functioning," according to a police spokesman.

In the house were also three brothers of the little one , a 12-year-old boy, the result of a previous relationship of the stepmother, 38 years old, and a minor of 4 years old and a baby of a few months, common children of the couple. The testimony before the police of the oldest of them has been essential to focus on the parents.

The father reported his disappearance

Valentina's 32-year-old father reported his disappearance to the Republican National Guard (GNR) on Thursday morning. He claimed to have seen the girl for the last time the night before, when he went to tuck her in, and that the next morning she was gone.

His call for help shocked the population, gathering up to 100 volunteers - several of them family friends who today declare themselves stupefied by the press - and around 600 agents to comb an area of ​​4,000 hectares.

But nothing was found and on Sunday morning the man confessed to the agents that Valentina was dead and took them to the place where, covered only by some bushes, he left the body, a scrub area in nearby Serra D'El- Rei, about five kilometers from the house.

Once the result was revealed, rage was unleashed in the area, where several people left the recollection at home to hurl insults at the father and stepmother when they, escorted by the police, went to the house to do a reconstruction.

Both are suspected of homicide and body concealment , and while it is clarified how the little girl died and in what context, stories about the girl's complicated coexistence with her father emerge in the press.

Valentina ran away from her father's house two years ago , and when she was found by the agents, the girl alleged that she missed the mother and was looking for her. The Commission for the Protection of Children and Minors then investigated his case, but found no signs of ill-treatment and filed it shortly thereafter.

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  • Portugal
  • Childhood
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19

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