Little girl is found dead inside trash can after child protection services were called TWENTY times
A little girl was found dead inside the trash near her home in Brazil - after the local child protection services received 20 phone calls from a concerned neighbor about her wellbeing.
Kerollyn Ferreira, nine, had a history of being allegedly being abused by her mother, Carla Souza, who was arrested Saturday, a day after the tragic discovery in Guaíba, Rio Grande do Sul.
Souza was placed in pretrial detention for 30 days after a judge signed off on the Public Prosecutor's office request. They said there is sufficient proof that will demonstrate that Souza had made prior comments about murdering Ferreira.
Fernanda Cardoso told Brazilian news outlet G1 that she sent the Guaíba Child Protection Council a picture of the child on multiple occasions, but that nothing was done to save Ferreira from her mother's wrath.
Kerollyn Ferreira (pictured) was found dead inside a garbage container near her home in Guaíba, Brazil last Friday
The lifeless body of nine-year-old Kerollyn Ferreira was found in a garbage bin near her home in Guaíba, a city in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul
'I called more than 20 times, I asked to please resolve it,' Cardoso said. 'I sent a photo of the child, I sent everything.'
'The child in the rain, begging. She was always at my door begging. She asked for water, for a hug, for a kiss.'
Cardoso last spoke to an agency worker a week before Ferreira was killed and was informed that someone was looking into the allegations.
Ferreira's body was spotted inside the large plastic container Friday, but it didn't show signs of violence, according to court documents reviewed by the outlet.
A police report indicated that Souza subjected Ferreira to physical and mental abuse.
'Regarding the request for temporary arrest, I believe that the order is appropriate and sufficient for the continuation of investigations and determination of the authorship of the crime of homicide, currently under investigation,' judge João Leal Jr. wrote as part of his ruling.
A cop assigned to Rio Grande do Sul State Military Police visited the girl's residence, where Souza acknowledged she was Ferreira's mother and claimed she didn't sleep at the home on Thursday.
Souza didn't not show any signs of being worried when she was informed her daughter had been found dead and then became upset when the cops signaled her as a potential suspect.
Matheus Ferreira with his daughter Kerollyn Ferreira, who was allegedly killed by her mother and abandoned in a dumpster last Friday
The Guaíba Child Protection Council was contacted more than 20 times by a neighbor concerned about Kerollyn Ferreira's well-being. The nine-year-old was found dead inside a dumpster last Friday
Rio Grande do Sul Civil Police chief Fernando Sodré said that Ferreira 'lived free, abandoned, even sleeping in an abandoned car, often, which was close to the house and school.'
Ferreira's father, Matheus Ferreira, told G1 that she lived with him for the first couple of months of her life and then until she was seven years old before she returned to live with Souza.
He said he was not aware of his daughter's mistreatment and asked Souza to allow Ferreira to live with him if she believed she couldn't care after her.
'The girl slept on the street, the girl ate food from the trash, the neighbors told me,' Matheus Ferreira said. 'It was a situation that I didn't know about, I wasn't aware of what was happening.'
'I always made it clear to her (Souza), 'Man, if you don't want to take care of the girl, if you don't have patience, then give the girl to me, let her stay with me, I'll take care of her and it's no problem,'' he said. 'But she never wanted it, she never accepted it.'
A joint report released Tuesday by the Brazilian Public Security Forum and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) found that 15,101 minors where killed between 2021 and 2023 in the South American nation.
At least 91.6 percent of the victims were between the ages of 15 and 19 and 82.9 percent of the total were Black children.
