Brazil murder suspect 'tried to bribe police'

A Brazilian man accused of murdering and dismembering a British teenage girl tried to bribe officers to let him go, police have said.

Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho Santos, 20, was charged with killing 17-year-old Cara Burke after her torso was found in a suitcase dumped on a riverbank in central Brazil on Monday.

Inspector Jorge Moreira da Silva said that shortly after his arrest on Thursday, Santos offered police £22,000 which he said he could get from his mother, the police then broadcast the bribe on national television.

Police also said Santos bragged about the murder in a text message to his brother, Bruce Lee, who lives with their mother in London.

The message, accompanied by a smiling face, read in English: "The bitch is in the bag."

The mobile phone was also used to photograph Miss Burke's severed head after he allegedly placed it on top of her torso along with a bloody butcher's knife.

Santos claimed he was so high on cocaine he could not remember what happened.

But officers said he killed Miss Burke after she threatened to tell his parents he was a drug dealer.

Santos has taken specialist officers to a river to help them locate the rest of her body.

And Police have revealed they are looking for another suspect who might have helped Santos get rid of Miss Burke's head and other body parts.

Santos also spoke to a Brazilian local newspaper and said he dismembered the corpse so he could remove it from the apartment, adding: "The best method I could think of was putting her inside the suitcase."

And asked why he allegedly took photographs, he is reported to have said: "I took them in order to send to a Brazilian in England, who she stole money from. He said he was going to kill her.

"I was going to send them by email to show him that although he didn't have the courage to do it, someone here did."

Miss Burke's mother, Anne, described her daughter's killer as a "monster".

She said: "I'll never recover from this. My baby is in bits, they can't even find her. I need her back, I just want to get my baby back where she belongs.

"That monster has taken my girl. He took her life and I want his. She wasn't an angel but she didn't deserve that."

The teenager met Santos when he was living in London and travelled to Brazil with him several months ago.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.