The documentary Don’t Tell Nobody, on HBO Max, could have been told by any Brazilian documentary filmmaker, but it is on HBO Max as a Spanish production. It stretches one of the most violent and absurd crimes of recent years, involving Brazilians, into five episodes. In the small town of Pioz, neighbors call the police to complain about the rotten smell coming from a house rented by Brazilians. When they entered, they came face to face with a horror movie scene: four dismembered bodies, that of the couple and their children, with less than two years to live. Who would have done this?
I’m going to cut the long narrative path of the series: it was the nephew, Patrick Nogueira, who ran away and killed his uncle, their wife, and cousins out of pure evil. I’m taking the shortcut because the crime is absurd and shocking, but the documentary first takes a while to get there. Because it is told by Spaniards, not Brazilians, the xenophobic narrative in the press goes without being explored. It drags, misdirects, everything to hold attention and lengthen the story. As a journalist, I find it appealing.
The crime, which in Brazil became known as the Massacre of Pioz, the city in Spain where the couple from Paraíba, Marcos Nogueira and Janaína Américo, and their children, a four-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy, went to live in search for a better life, shocked the world in 2016. The bodies of the family from Paraíba were found by the Spanish Civil Guard about a month after the crime. The scenario seemed like a reckoning, but it was quickly realized that it was impossible.
Patrick did not act alone, the entire time he was in contact with his friend, Marvin Henriques Correia, just 18 years old, who the Brazilian Police identified as an accomplice. The two spoke all the time on WhatsApp. Patrick was sentenced to life in prison in Spain, Marvin is now free, even though he gave his friend all the tips on how to carry out the massacre.
It’s a shame because the documentary had access to good testimonies and good images, but it doesn’t follow linearly. There are those who praise it and the crime is scary, but the series is weak. A pitty!
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