Skeletal Remains Sent to IML as Two Cemetery Cases Prompt Police Probes

Overview

• In São José de Ribamar police recovered a sack with skeletal remains from the tomb of Sebastião and sent the material to the Instituto Médico Legal (IML) for analysis to confirm whether the bones are human and belong to him.
• Family members say Sebastião’s burial was violated in stages, with the grave found open and the coffin empty before the recent discovery, and the municipal health and sanitary teams have been dispatched while security rounds were intensified.
• In São Gonçalo a son reported that an exhumation on May 15 revealed the remains of a man in his mother Vera Lúcia’s coffin, prompting a police report and an expanded inquiry by the 72ª DP.
• Investigators in São Gonçalo are interviewing cemetery administrators, gravediggers and other workers and reviewing burial records after the cemetery admitted another body was buried in Vera Lúcia’s grave in 2024.
• Both cases highlight chronic management problems—many municipal cemeteries rely on family fees, face high nonpayment and limited surveillance—and a broader dispute over São Gonçalo’s contested R$385 million plan to privatize cemetery services that was suspended by the state audit court.