A thief-turned-serial killer nicknamed Lucifer has been blamed for murdering 48 other inmates during his 25 years behind bars in Brazil.
First jailed for petty theft as a teenager in 1995, 42-year-old Marcos Paulo da Silva is known to cut off the heads of his fellow inmates before disembowelling their dead bodies.
In one case he is said to have murdered five inmates in one go in Serra Azul Jail in Sao Paulo in 2011 in one of his bloodiest attacks to date.
He now faces dying behind bars himself after his killing spree left him with multiple convictions and jail sentences totalling 217 years, although according to local reports he has yet to be tried for many of his crimes.
Da Silva is said to have told a judge recently: ‘I have no regrets about killing all these people.
‘They were rapists and thieves who took advantage of other inmates and robbed them.’
While he has officially been charged with carrying out six murders and ordering the killings of two others, he told the judge that he had killed as many as 48 people in state prisons.
Psychologists who have evaluated da Silva say his killing career began in prison, after he had never committed any murders on the outside.
His astonishing prison history was laid bare in a recent report by Brazilian online firm UOL which has been picked up by newspapers in South America as well as Portugal.
Prison guards told UOL it was only a ‘question of time’ before da Silva, covered in tattoos which include skulls, devils and a swastika, kills again once he is transferred to a new prison.
Da Silva also has the phrase ‘Lucifer, my protector’ tattooed on his body, Brazilian media says, giving him his satanic nickname.
‘Lucifer’ now leads a different criminal gang, one of nine major criminal factions operating in the Brazilian prison system.