Under protection: The environmentalist’s widow in Brazil who had to disappear to survive

A jury in Maranhão sentenced former military police officer Francisco da Silva Sousa to over 35 years for orchestrating the 2015 murder of environmentalist Raimundo dos Santos Rodrigues and the attempted murder of his wife, identified as Maria, inside the federally protected Gurupi Biological Reserve. Rancher José Escórcio de Cerqueira, who confessed to paying Da Silva roughly $1,962 to hire the gunmen after Raimundo reported his illegal logging, died of natural causes in 2017 before facing trial.

Maria, shot in the arm and abdomen while fleeing, testified at the trial in a wig, sunglasses and surgical mask under armed police protection, and has lived in a government witness-protection program under a hidden identity in an undisclosed location since 2015. She has not been able to see her four adult children, attend her husband's burial, or return to the land and crops she left behind.

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