Police helicopter scans land around missing boy’s home as investigation “centres on family"

http://portugalresident.com/police-helicopter-scans-land-around-missing-boy’s-home-as-investigation-“centres-on-family”


Posted by portugalpress on March 01, 2016

Police helicopter scans land around missing boy’s home as investigation “centres on family”

New lines of investigation have led police searching for missing Portimão teen Rodrigo Lapa to question his former stepfather who travelled to Brazil on the day the 15-year-old went missing.
National tabloid Correio da Manhã suggests in today’s front page that detectives are “honing in on the family”.
There are a number of questions in the air, as mother Célia originally said there was “no atmosphere” at home, but she has since “explained” that Rodrigo and her former partner “had an argument”.
It was “nothing that would justify what happened”, she told the paper, but on Monday afternoon - hours before she reported Rodrigo missing - her former partner and the father of her six-month-old baby returned to Brazil “because that was his homeland”.
It was a journey booked a month ago, as the couple’s relationship “had finished”, she said.
Police have since spoken with the stepfather, named by CM as Joaquim, and he is reported to be “available to collaborate”.
Further information on Rodrigo’s family relationships has also emerged.
According to CM, the youngster lived with his father until 18 months ago.
The father has “refused to talk” to CM, saying only that he will speak once Rodrigo reappears.
On that score, police confirm they are still no nearer a scenario as to what has happened to the boy.
His disappearance “could be a kidnapping, a murder or he could have gone missing on purpose”, writes CM.
Pupils at Estômbar’s Professor João Cónim school have confirmed that Rodrigo was not at school on the Friday before he disappeared.
“He sent a message to one of our friends to say he was ill,” a fellow-pupil told the paper. “Then on the Monday, he didn’t turn up.”
As a Kamov helicopter was drafted in to scan the land around the family’s Malheiro home and overfly the areas he is thought to have passed on his way towards Estômbar, CM reports that two people “guarantee” that they have seen Rodrigo since last Monday.
One claims to have seen him getting into a white car in Odiáxere and another says he saw the teen “asking for money in Sines”.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com


Article sent to me by PeterMac:


Depressingly familiar. Change of story by mother, subsequent admission of argument, father refuses to talk, flees the country, sightings from all over the place. . . 


P

Sadly, his body has now been found.

http://portugalresident.com/body-discovered-in-malheiro-ends-hunt-for-missing-teen-rodrigo-lapa

Missing Portimão teen found dead a stone’s throw from home

by Carrie-Marie Bratley, in News · 03-03-2016 13:47:00 · 0 Comments

An investigation into the disappearance of a teenage boy from the Algarve city of Portimão now looks likely to become a murder inquiry after the body of missing 15-year-old Rodrigo Lapa was found on Wednesday (2 February) in scrubland on the doorstep of his home in Sítio das Vendas, in the Malheiro neighbourhood of Portimão, which reportedly showed signs of having been subjected to "extreme violence."

The teenager from Portimão had been missing for over a week when he was found dead on Wednesday morning.


Fifteen-year-old Rodrigo Lapa’s body was found at around 9.15am by a GNR officer who had been searching the land, a GNR spokesperson confirmed.

The spot is just a few hundred metres from the boy’s front door.


Reports in the national media suggest the teen’s body was found under a tree, covered with foliage and with his hands and feet bound.


Early indications are that the boy was strangled to death, reports claim, and the sole suspect so far is the teen’s stepfather, Brazilian Joaquim Pinto, who travelled to Brazil the same day Rodrigo went missing.


Newspaper Jornal de Notícias reported on Thursday, 3 March, that the teen had been “strangled with electric cable” and the “signs of extreme violence” on his body “changed the course of the investigation.”


An autopsy due to be carried out that same day was expected to confirm the exact cause of death.


Police activity on Wednesday morning drew masses to the spot in Portimão, which sits alongside a main road linking Portimão to the A22 motorway.


Rodrigo’s mother, Célia Barreto, was seen being driven off in a police car to the PJ station in Portimão, where she was heard for several hours on Wednesday as a witness.


On Wednesday afternoon investigators had cordoned off the family’s home in a bid to retrace Rodrigo’s last movements and establish where he might have been killed.


In recent days sniffer dogs and helicopters had been spotted scouring the area, having been drafted in to help in the search for the teen.


The teenager was reported missing on Monday 22 February, after failing to return home from school in nearby Estômbar (Lagoa).


His mother claimed she last saw her son when he left the house where he lived with her, his six-month-old baby sister and stepfather, that morning at 7am for school.


Speaking to newspaper Correio da Manhã a classmate of the teen claimed Rodrigo had not been at school the Friday before he was reported missing, having sent a text message to a friend saying he was sick.


It emerged that the boy’s stepfather left for his native Brazil the Monday Rodrigo was reported missing.


As Brazil does not extradite its own nationals, in the event of a murder being confirmed, Portuguese authorities would be expected to contact their Brazilian counterparts with a view to action being taken there.
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Hundreds attend funeral of tragic Rodrigo Lapa

in News · 07-03-2016 08:23:00 · 0 Comments

The funeral of the teenage boy from Portimão who was found dead least Wednesday morning was held on Saturday afternoon and attended by hundreds of people.

Saturday night as many people again attended a candlight vigil staged in memory of Rodrigo Lapa on Portimão riverside. Indications are Rodrigo was killed by his Brazilian stepfather who left the Algarve for Brazil on the day the boy was reported missing, on 22 February. His mother is reportedly being investigated for allegedly lying to police to protect her partner.

That poor boy.  Words can't express the depths of abhorrence to such a horrendous crime.

Whilst many suited and booted senior police officers are busily wheeling and dealing in their ivory towers, the officers on the ground have to deal with the aftermath of crime, worst of all that of murder - I doubt if they ever become immune.

They should be recognized for all the good work they do, not the negative side that's invariably reported by the scurrilous main stream media.