On 31 March 2026, the final proceeding in the Evandro Case came to an end. Four people whose convictions had once rested on extrajudicial confessions were finally acquitted. The legal process had reached an endpoint. Evandro's murder had not been solved.

Evandro Ramos Caetano was six years old when he disappeared from Guaratuba, Paraná, on 6 April 1992. A child's body was found five days later. Although a 1998 jury rejected the prosecution's proof of identification, a later Paraná appellate court held that dental evidence and DNA testing established that the remains were Evandro's.

Seven people were accused under a prosecution theory that described the death as a ritual killing and tied the allegation to Umbanda, an Afro-Brazilian religion. That theory was an accusation, not an established explanation of Evandro's death. Four of the a ...