His girlfriend,, Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos, paid to have the needles measuring up to 2 inches blessed by a woman who practiced the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble, and convinced Magalhaes that inserting them into the boy would somehow allow them to be together, Santana said. Police, however, believe Dos Santos was out for revenge on the boy’s mother, though they did not say why.
“According to his confession, he acted under influence of the woman, but it was he who stuck the needles in the boy’s body,” the inspector said.
Roberto Carlos Magalhaes described mixing water with wine to dope the child before he and his girlfriend held the boy down and stuck sewing needles into him.
"I did this two or three times a week during one month," Magalhaes said.
The boy was too drunk on the wine mixture to cry while he inserted the needles, he said, but felt the pain after the alcohol wore off.
"It was truly an unbearable suffering," said Magalhaes. "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."
The boy underwent a five-hour operation in the northeastern city of Salvador on Friday to remove four rusty needles that most threatened his life, near his heart and in his lungs.
Doctors said Sunday the child is doing well and will likely undergo two more surgeries, the next one on Wednesday at the earliest, to extract needles up to 2 inches long from his abdomen and spine.
Along with Magalhaes, police believe his girlfriend, Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos, was also seeking revenge on Magalhaes' wife.
Afro-Brazilian religions practiced in Brazil have no ceremonies, rituals or practices involving harm to people, said Nelson Inocencio, director of African-Brazilian studies at the University of Brasilia.
He worried that the incident could hurt the image of the religions, of which Candomble is the most popular, and concentrated most in Bahia state.
"What happened to this boy without a doubt could feed into the prejudice against Afro-Brazilian traditions," he said.
