BRASILIA, Brazil -- The stepfather of a 2-year-old boy found with 42 needles in his body confessed to jabbing them into the toddler during weeks of rituals with a lover who he claimed received instructions through trances, Brazilian police said Thursday.
Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, a 30-year-old bricklayer, told detectives that the woman went into a trance and would "command him to stick the needles in the boy's body," police inspector Helder Fernandes Santana said in a telephone interview.
The two held repeated sessions over several weeks, and perhaps longer, in which they inserted the needles in the child, Santana said.
"According to his confession, he acted under influence of the woman, but it was he who stuck the needles in the boy's body," the inspector said. The stepfather and two women have been arrested, though no charges had been filed Thursday.
An enraged crowd of more than 100 people hurled rocks at the police station in the small northeastern city of Ibotirama, where the suspects were held Wednesday night.
Extra police were called in to restore order and protect the suspects, who were then taken to an undisclosed lockup for their own protection.
The child, meanwhile, was airlifted to the heart unit of a major hospital in northeastern Brazil on Thursday because two of the needles are close to his heart, but it was not clear when doctors might be able to remove them.
Surgeons at a hospital in the town of Barreiras in Bahia state, where the boy had been hospitalized since Sunday, had decided not to try to remove any needles immediately for fear they could cause more damage.
Doctors found 42 needles in the boy, who was in stable condition after a 240-mile flight to the hospital in the coastal city of Salvador that has a special heart unit.
Hospital spokeswoman Susy Moreno said that an evaluation of how to treat or operate on the boy probably would not be finished until today. He was in an intensive care unit but was conscious.
The boy's mother, a maid, took him to a hospital in Ibotirama on Dec. 10, saying he was complaining of pain.
