Unknown Gender History: Maria Nazaré Félix de Lima, Serial Killer

On July 26, 2014, Maria Nazaré Félix de Lima, 62, was arrested in Ielmo Marinho, Police say that she had during her long homicidal romantic career killed a total of five husbands and boyfriends over the years. In her home town of 12 thousand inhabitants she was a legend, known as “The 'Black Widow' of Rio Grande do Norte.”

Coming from a family of nine children, Nazaré lived in a mud house in the countryside outside the small city. As a teenager, she worked as a maid and had been sexually abused by her employers.

In 1991, the 39-year-old woman beat her first husband to death, while drunk. When Victor Micael fell asleep, she killed him with an axe and quickly surrendered herself to the police. She spent 10 months in the local jail for the killing and once released violated the terms of her parole and sent to João Chaves Penitentiary. From there she escaped.

She killed again [ca 1992-5] in the Pernambuco city of Salgueiro, where she murdered Luis Batista with a shotgun. Her lover had killed his own father and was a drug trafficker. Maria Nazare claimed to have heard that he was going to kill her and throw her body into the river.

In 1995, Maria beat her boyfriend Luis Rodrigues to death. She did it, she said, because he had raped her sister. She served five years for this crime.

In 2002 she stabbed a woman in the chest, puncturing a lung, after being expelled from a bar. She was in a coma for a long time at Hospital Santa Catarina in Natal, but survived. In 2007, when freed again the victim’s brothers Adenilson Costa and Ednaldo Barbosa de Lima (no relation) attempted, unsuccessfully, to murder Maria Nazaré.

In 2014, a group of radio and TV students from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) made a documentary about her life.

~ Final murder ~

On Jul. 26, 2015, Maria killed Francisco García da Silva (“Tico”), her fifth partner, in the municipality of Ielmo Marinho, in Grande Natal, Brazil, having already attempted to murder him before.

According to her statement to police, Maria was drinking with her boyfriend, Francisco García da Silva, 59, and that she and the victim were drinking, when after Tico attempted to hit her with a knife, she waited and, using a piece of wood, struck him several times when Tico was sitting on the bed smoking a cigarette.

[Robert St. Estephe; based on: “'Viúva negra' é condenada pelo assassinato do quinto companheiro no RN,” Rio Grande Do Norte, May 18, 2017; Nathallya Macedo, “Em depoimento, 'Viúva Negra' detalha morte de namorado a pauladas no RN Rio Grande Do Norte, Jul. 28, 2015]

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CHRONOLOGY

Maria Nazaré Félix de Lima; “Viúva Negra do Rio Grande do Norte”; 4 of a supposed 5 murders are included here:

Ca 1952 – Maria Nazaré born.

1991 – Victor Micael, first husband, murdered, beaten to death while drunk. (murder #1)

1990s – Luis Batista, murdered with shotgun; Pernambuco city of Salgueiro (murder #2)

1995 – Luis Rodrigues, paramour, murdered; beaten to death, since she alleged that the victim had raped her sister. (murder #3)

2000 – released from prison.

2002 – woman stabbed in lung, survived; she stabbed their sister of brothers Adenilson Costa and Ednaldo Barbosa de Lima (no relation) after being expelled from a bar.

Jul. 26, 2014 – Arrested.

2014 – a group of radio and TV students from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) made a documentary about her life: “Lenda De Ielmo Marinho: Viúva Negra.”

Jul. 26, 2015 – Francisco García da Silva (“Tico”) murdered, 5th partner, in the municipality of Ielmo Marinho, in Grande Natal, Brazil. Previously attempted to murder him. (murder #4)

May 18, 2017 – convicted for the murder of Francisco García da Silva.

Jun. 11, 2020 – died (59).

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