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Oil Man stuck needles in as revenge
December 22, 2009 Edition 2
RIO DE JANEIRO: A jailed Brazilian admitted in a tele- vision interview that he shoved nearly three dozen sewing needles into his two-year-old stepson because he wanted to kill the boy to spite his wife.
Speaking from his cell, 30-year-old bricklayer Roberto Carlos Magalhaes told how he doped the child with wine diluted with water, then stuck needles into his body while his lover held the boy down.
"I did this two or three times a week during one month," Magalhaes said during an interview with Globo TV on Sunday.
The boy was too drunk from the wine to cry while the needles were being pushed in, but he felt pain after the alcohol wore off, Magalhaes said. "It was to get back at the boy's mother. I thought the needles would work their way through his body and kill the boy. It was a way to kill without anyone discovering."
But the pain led the toddler to complain to his mother, and on December 10 she took him to a hospital where X-rays revealed about 30 needles lodged throughout his body.
The boy underwent a five-hour operation on Friday to remove four rusty needles that most threatened his life, near his heart and in his lungs.
Doctors said on Sunday the child was doing well and was likely to have surgery twice more to extract needles up to 5cm long from his abdomen and spine. - Sapa-AP
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