Priscila Lacerda Custodio, a 24-year-old digital marketing entrepreneur and videomaker from Perdizes in Minas Gerais, Brazil, was fatally shot on the evening of 27 October 2026 near Rifaina in São Paulo state, according to police and witnesses.
Police are investigating the shooting as femicide and have identified João Roberto Bolelli, a 62-year-old cattle rancher, as the suspect. A court in Pedregulho issued a preventive arrest warrant for Bolelli on 28 October. He remained at large as of 30 October.
Custodio and Bolelli had maintained a casual relationship of about four months. On the night of the shooting she travelled roughly 100 kilometres from Perdizes with her brother, Geovane Santana, and a friend to return a Toyota Hilux pickup truck that Bolelli had given her. The meeting took place around 21:00 at the entrance to a rural property near kilometre 463 of the Rodovia Cândido Portinari (SP-334).
Witnesses told investigators that an argument began over mobile phones. Bolelli demanded the return of a device he had provided. Custodio said she wanted her own phone back, that she intended to end the relationship and leave. According to her brother and other accounts, Bolelli then drew a handgun and fired, striking her in the chest and arm or torso. He also pointed the weapon at Santana, who fled. Bolelli drove away in the returned truck.
Santana administered first aid and took his sister to hospital in Rifaina, where she died from her injuries. She was buried in Perdizes on 28 October.
Four days earlier, on 23 October, Custodio had reported to a friend, Pollyanna Ribeiro Botelho De Jesus, that Bolelli had assaulted her. The friend told police she saw the injuries and that Custodio said Bolelli had threatened to shoot her in the head and had hired people to follow and photograph her. Custodio had also described jealousy-based accusations that she was seeing another man.
Santana later told reporters that his sister began working at 16 as a bartender, later opened a digital marketing business, covered local events and helped support the family. “Nunca precisou de nada de ninguém,” he said. She had recently begun living with her boyfriend, Samuel Ramos, and the couple planned to buy a home in Uberlândia.
Bolelli has a prior conviction for violating a protective order issued to an earlier partner. Police recovered the pickup truck in the days after the shooting. His lawyers said they were reviewing the case and had not yet spoken with him.
The Civil Police of São Paulo registered the case as feminicídio. Investigators continue efforts to locate Bolelli.
