Patrick Nogueira

François Patrick Nogueira Gouveia (born 6 November 1996) is a Brazilian murderer serving three life sentences plus 25 years in Spain for the murders of his aunt, uncle, and two infant cousins in Pioz, Castilla–La Mancha on 17 August 2016.

Nogueira grew up in a wealthy family. In 2013, he wounded his teacher in a stabbing, and served time in youth detention and psychiatric care. He then moved to Europe with the aim of becoming a professional footballer, and lived with his uncle's family from March 2016. Tensions grew over his laziness and inappropriate behaviour, and the family moved to a new address without him in July.

He murdered the family in August 2016, sending live updates to his friend Marvin Henriques Correia in Brazil. Nogueira returned to Brazil but became subject of an arrest warrant when his DNA was found at the crime scene. He returned to Spain in October to avoid a trial in Brazil, and was found guilty in November 2018. Henriques Correia was charged in Brazil as an alleged accomplice, and acquitted in July 2021.

Background Patrick Nogueira's four victims. From left to right: María Carolina (3), Marcos Campos (40), Janaína Santos (39) and Davi (1) Nogueira was born in Altamira, Pará, to a wealthy radiologist father. In 2013, he stabbed his teacher non-fatally in front of his class "because he called me a faggot" and six months of psychiatric treatment. When Campos returned home at 10:15 pm, Nogueira told him to "look around you...you're next" before stabbing him to death as well. Unable to find soft ground for his planned burial of the corpses, he dismembered them and put them in bin bags. He slept in the house so that he would not be spotted by the security guard.

Investigation The corpses were not found for a month until 17 September, when neighbours were alerted by the smell. Nogueira denied involvement, saying that the family moved to Pioz without telling him the address. Nogueira voluntarily handed himself in to Spanish authorities on 19 October. His sister, a lawyer, had earlier been to Spain to meet the presiding judge, and convinced Nogueira that it would be better to be jailed in Spain than Brazil; he was immediately put in pre-trial detention. Nogueira feared the prospect of prison rape in Brazil, but believed that he would spend his life watching television in a Spanish prison.

Legal process Nogueira

Nogueira was tried in Guadalajara from October to November 2018, over video link from Estremera Prison. His defence argued that he had a deficient right temporal lobe in his brain, affecting his decision making, and that this had been aggravated by alcoholism.

Nogueira was found unanimously guilty by the jury and sentenced to three life sentences for the murders of Campos and the children, plus a further 25 years for the murder of Santos. He became the fifth person to be given a life sentence in Spain since the penalty was reinstated in 2015. In June 2019 this sentence was partially upheld on appeal by the Castile–La Mancha Supreme Court, who revised it as a single life sentence for the murder of Campos plus 75 years for the other three, due to a technicality in applying aggravating factors. The original sentence was reinstated by the Supreme Court of Spain in May 2020, and also ordered Nogueira to pay €411,915 to relatives of the victims. In July 2021 he was acquitted when it was ruled that none of his actions were criminal.

Life in prison Nogueira was detained in the solitary isolation wing of Estremera prison, under a 24-hour guard. As of the anniversary of his conviction, he had not repented for his crimes.

Nogueira was attacked at the end of November 2021 by approximately a dozen inmates, remaining in hospital for four days. Officials speculated that the reason was the "jail law", in which those who commit serious crimes against children and women are executed by the prison population. After recovering, he was transferred to prison Puerto III in El Puerto de Santa María, Province of Cádiz under preventive isolation.

In popular culture Journalist Beatriz Osa wrote the 2020 non-fiction book Olor a Muerte en Pioz ("Smell of Death in Pioz") about the murders.

In October 2021, Atresplayer Premium announced a five-part documentary series on the case. The series centres on the question of whether or not Marvin Henriques Correia was an accomplice by reading Nogueira's WhatsApp messages in Brazil. A year later, it was released under the title No se lo digas a nadie (Don't Tell Anyone).