A jailed Brazilian admitted in a television interview that he shoved nearly three dozen sewing needles into his 2-year-old stepson because he wanted to kill the boy to spite his wife. Speaking from his cell, 30-year-old bricklayer Roberto Carlos Magalhaes told how he doped the child with wine mixed in water, then stuck needles into his body while his lover held the boy down. The boy was too drunk from the wine mixture to cry while the needles were being pushed in, but he felt pain after the alcohol wore off, Magalhaes said. “It was truly an unbearable suffering,” he said. “It was to get back at the boy's mother. I thought the needles would work their way through his body and kill the boy. It was a way to kill without anyone discovering.” The boy underwent a five-hour operation in Salvador Friday to remove four rusty needles near his heart and in his lungs. Doctors said Sunday the child was doing well and would likely undergo two more surgeries, the next one Wednesday at the earliest.
