A Hideous Crime by Julia

In september 21st, 2006,an unusual crime shocked Brasília’s citizens. An old lady called Maria Pereira dos Santos, 79 years old was killed with two gunshots. It was a cloudy and rainy day and she decided to walk her dog called Lucky in front of her house at night, but she went alone this time. The bullets hit her right in the head, and she didn’t have time to say anything. By the time her son got there she was already dead. He was at home with his girlfriend and he went running outside when he heard the shots, but it was too late to do anything but calling the cops and an ambulance.
Ten minutes later, the police arrived at the crime scene, to examine the place and try to find something that could help them find the murderer. They interrogated Marcelo, the son, and his girlfriend Angela, but as they were inside the house, they couldn’t help the police find de murderer. The police arrested four men on a charge of murdering Maria, but only one was the real murderer. After a month, the police had already interrogated all the four suspects several times, and the only witness that was Fernando, Maria’s neighbor, couldn’t help a lot because the only thing he saw was a man that was totally dressed in black with a hat. After two months of investigation, they finally came up with the name of Romildo de Paiva. Romildo decided to tell the truth and assum his crime. The only doubt that was still in police’s head, was why a man would kill an innocent old lady, if she didn’t even have money or anything to offer him.
Romildo finally told the police the reason why he had killed Maria. He was being paid to do it, by a man who thought that she was a drug dealer’s mother. This drug dealer had to pay this man two thousand reais in drugs, and he didn’t. As a revenge, he decided to kill his mother but there was a misunderstanding and the innocent Maria was believed to be the drug dealer’s mother. Romildo also said that he was doing this "job" because he needed the money to pay a hospital to his son that was really sick. But his reasons didn’t really help him, because the fact was that he had killed Maria, no matter why.
In his trial, his lawyer tried to help him not to take so many years in prison, but when the jury finally reached a verdict, he got 30 years in prison. And there was nothing else his lawyer could have done. But he made a deal with the judge that if he helped the police find the man who had hired him to kill Maria, his sentence would be reduced in five years. His lawyer also told Romildo that if he had a good behavior in jail, he would have a good chance of staying less years in jail.