UPDATE: Brazil man stuck stepson with needles as revenge

A Brazilian stepfather has come forward and publicly confessed to pushing dozens of needles into his 2-year-old stepson, saying Sunday in a jail cell interview that he intended to kill the boy out of spite for his wife and didn't think he would be discovered.
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.

Brazil Boy has 50 Sewing Needles Inside His Body

You may find this story hard to swallow, but a 2-year-old Brazilian boy has around 50 metal sewing needles inside his body and his doctor said they were apparently stuck there one by one.

Surgeons hope to remove most of the needles, but some are as long as 2 inches, and some are stuck in his lungs, so they will wait until the child's breathing improves.
But even when his breathing improves, some cannot be removed because they are too close to vital organs or actually inside them.

The boy's mother  brought him to a hospital saying he was complaining of pain. (really?)
Three days later, after X-rays revealed some of the needles. (three days?)
The mother told police she doesn't know how the needles got inside her son, but police have opened an investigation.

The boy's father, Gessivaldo Alves, seems to have an interesting theory.
He believes his son could have been a victim of a black magic ritual.
Alves said he visited the home where the boy was living with his mother and stepfather and found unspecified items that could be used for black magic,

Doctors think the needles were stuck into the child's body one by one because it would have been impossible for him to swallow them.

"We think it could have only been by penetration because we found needles in the lung, the left leg and in different parts of the thorax. It couldn't have been by ingestion," the doctor said.
But, doctors found no signs of outside wounds on the boy, however, X-ray images (seen above) clearly showed some of the needles inside his body.
The police inspector in charge of the case, Helder Fernandes Santana, told Brazil's O Globo newspaper that is was no doubt someone stuck the needles into the boy, but said he had no suspect and did not disclose a motive.
"It's clear someone inserted the needles, that's for sure," he said in comments published Wednesday. "We still don't know who did this."
The boy is in intensive care, but doctors say his condition has improved since he was admitted.

UPDATE:
Brazilian police are hunting for the stepfather who is suspected of pushing the needles into his two-year-old stepson, possibly as part of a "black magic" ritual.
Police said that stepfather had disappeared and they are treating this as an attempted homicide.
It looks like the dad may have been right after all.