A father and his five-year-old daughter have been shot dead in their car five days after he walked free from prison.
Jonathan Henrique Bispo Santos, 25, died at the wheel after another vehicle pulled alongside and opened fire.
His daughter, Maitê Luiza Bispo, was hit in the head, suffered a cardiac arrest in hospital, and could not be saved.
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Mum Raíssa Luiza Valentim Pimenta, 23, survived the burst of gunfire and later named the man she believes carried out the attack.
The family had been driving from Rio Acima towards Nova Lima on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, when the shooting took place on Monday night (5 Oct).
Raíssa told the police that a car with its headlights on full beam drew level on the MG-030 highway at around 11.20pm and fired about eight shots.
She said Jonathan turned the car around and tried to get back to Rio Acima for help, but the gunmen followed him and kept firing.
“Jonathan turned the car and headed back towards Rio Acima,” she said.
“The other car turned as well, came after us and kept shooting.”
He told her he had been hit, then lost consciousness, left the road and crashed into a fence.
Military police found him in the driver’s seat with no signs of life, and Maitê on her mother’s lap.
Officers carried the child to a nearby hospital where she was confirmed dead.
Raíssa was not seriously hurt. One report said she had a light injury to a leg.
She said the little girl had nothing to do with the feud she believes triggered the attack.
“I only ask for justice for my daughter, because she is so young, so small.
“She has nothing to do with this,” she said.
“There is no way to say how innocent she is in this story.
“So tiny, she knows nothing. So innocent, so loved by everyone.”
Police are treating revenge as the main line of inquiry after Jonathan was cleared of trying to kill the man now held over the shootings.
In January 2025, the suspect told officers he was driving with his wife in Honório Bicalho when two people on a motorcycle opened fire.
A finger was later found at the scene, and Jonathan was admitted to hospital with a finger amputated.
He was arrested, later convicted, then acquitted at a jury in Nova Lima.
Raíssa said the threat was made in the courtroom.
“Right there at the jury trial he said it would not end like that, and it really did not,” she said.
State records show Jonathan had three spells in prison since September 2019, as reported by Need To Know.
The last began on 27 January 2025 and ended on 2 October when a court ordered his release.
The suspected shooter, named locally as Lucas Eduardo Moraes Alonso Silva, 30, was arrested hours later after trying to flee across rooftops in Honório Bicalho.
The police said he gave conflicting accounts of where he had been and resisted arrest.
Lucas has one previous prison spell and was freed on a warrant in July 2021.
A court has now converted his arrest into preventive detention.
The investigation continues.
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