A Brazilian man who was arrested for stabbing a woman to death has confessed to killing 41 other people over the last decade in Rio de Janeiro just "for the fun of it," police authorities said Thursday.
Sailson Jose das Gracas was arrested on Wednesday after he fatally stabbed a woman in a city suburb, Agence France-Presse reported. The 26-year-old's victims, a majority of them women, had suffered the same fate in the last 10 years.
"He wanted to kill women -- white women, not black ones. He followed the victims, studying them closely before committing the crimes," said police commissioner Pedro Henrique Medina from the northern suburb of Nova Iguacu.
Over a nine-year killing spree, Gracas went out hunting and killed 37 women, three men and a two-year-old child, whom he reportedly murdered over fear that it would cry and attract neighbors' attention. It apparently gave him an adrenaline rush.
"At 17, I killed the first woman and that gave me a buzz. I kept on doing it and I enjoyed it," he said.
"I observed them, I studied them. I waited for a month, sometimes a week, depending on the place. I tried to ascertain where they lived, what their families were like. I kept watch on their houses and then after a while went there at dawn, waited for my chance and entered," Brazil's broadcaster Globo's G1 news portal quoted Gracas as saying during a police interview.
While the three male victims had been targeted as contract killings, he claimed his preference of female victims were white women, whom he killed through strangulation, according to BBC News.
"When I wasn't killing someone I got uptight. I would pace up and down at home. Killing calmed me down," he continued. "I'd kill someone and then would think about the victim for two or three months. After that, I'd go off hunting for another victim."
Describing the suspect as a psychopath who enjoyed the media spotlight, police officials have been able to locate four of his alleged victims after cross-referencing his statements with past investigations. An ongoing investigation to find the rest of them continues.
Meanwhile, the suspect reportedly told authorities that if he were to ever be released, he would go on a killing spree again.
"I don't feel remorse -- if I go to jail for 10, 15, 20 years, then as soon as I get out I'll do the same thing all over again," he claimed.
