Transcript
Speaker: On January 27th, Brazilian actor Jefferson Machado went missing from his home.
Speaker: His mother stated that she last spoke to him two days later on the 29th when he told her he was staying with a friend in Sao Paulo to interview for a job.
Speaker: His family began to worry when they stopped receiving calls from him, only receiving communication through mistake-ridden texts, which they noted was very out of character for him.
Speaker: He gave excuses as to why he couldn't video call, like saying he had dropped his phone in the toilet, damaging it.
Speaker: They believed this was somebody impersonating Machado.
Speaker: His family reported him missing on February 9th after finding his eight dogs had been left abandoned at his home.
Speaker: His phone's location was deactivated and his iCloud password was changed.
Speaker: On Monday, May 22nd, 2023, officers from the Rio de Janeiro police unearthed a wooden trunk from six feet below a concrete outbuilding floor.
Speaker: Released police video shows nine men using pickaxes, shovels, even a jackhammer to dig their way down.
Speaker: Forensics confirmed that the trunk contained the remains of Jefferson Machado.
Speaker: His body had been pretzeled into the trunk and doused in an unidentified liquid.
Speaker: His hands were tied, and a metal wire was wrapped around his neck.
Speaker: The attorney for Machado's family speculates that the 44-year-old had been killed by strangulation based on the wire left adorning his neck.
Speaker: However, autopsy results came back inconclusive as to his cause of death due to the body's advanced stage of decomposition.
Speaker: Reports indicate that a friend of Machado's, Bruno D. Sousa, had been renting the house where the remains were discovered.
Speaker: In a heartbreaking message obtained by police, Machado pleads with his friend, a former employee of TV Globo, the network at which Machado had been traveling to audition, to put in a good word for him.
Speaker: Machado was seeking to fulfill his grandfather's dream to see him on TV.
Speaker: In a statement, family revealed that Machado had made payments to his friend totaling $5,200 to try to obtain this dream role.
Speaker: D'Souza is currently under investigation.
Speaker: Multiple counties in Nevada are currently afflicted with an infestation of huge and hungry insects.
Speaker: Mormon crickets, which are native to Western North America rangelands and are part of the shillback-cated subfamily of bush crickets, swarmed in on the state earlier this month.
Speaker: The city of Elko was one of the hardest hit, with crickets blanketing foliage, roads, and even the sides of buildings.
Speaker: The Director of Community Relations at Northeast Nevada Regional Hospital,
Speaker: Steve Burrows, told the local news station that just to get patients in the hospital, we had to have people out there with leaf blowers, with brooms.
Speaker: At one point, we even had a tractor with a snowplow on it just to push the piles of crickets and move them on their way.
Speaker: A viral video shared by the Nevada resident, Colette Reynolds, shows the pests coating the porch inside of her home.
Speaker: Even the packages sitting on her porch are covered with the crickets.
Speaker: Mormon crickets eat all kinds of vegetation, destroying crops and food sources for livestock and wildlife.
Speaker: They will resort to cannibalizing each other if they don't find their fill.
Speaker: In 2001 and 2003, swarms of Mormon crickets caused an estimated 25 million in damage to crops in Utah.
Speaker: They also contribute to nutrient depletion and erosion in soil, reduced water quality, and even staining and damage to buildings.
Speaker: The migrating crickets have even caused traffic accidents as they travel about a mile per day, according to Jeff Knight, an entomologist for the Nevada Department of Agriculture.
Speaker: As he explains it, they get run over, two or three come out and eat their buddy, and they get run over, and the roads get covered with crickets and they can get slick.
Speaker: The bigger issue is these afternoon thunderstorms, and put a little water on that, and it's slick.
Speaker: We've had a number of accidents caused by crickets.
Speaker: The Nevada Department of Transportation has left dumping stand on the slick layers, even resorting to using snow plows to clear the goo.
Speaker: The crickets are expected to finish their trek throughout the area within three to six days, so probably before I post this podcast.
Speaker: Multiple law enforcement agencies are investigating a possible serial killer in the Portland, Oregon area after the remains of half a dozen women were found within a three-month period.
Speaker: The women were discovered within a hundred-mile radius, with two being found under three miles away from each other.
Speaker: On February 18th, Kristen Smith was the first to be found after she went missing in December 2022.
Speaker: Joanna Speaks was the next to be found, with her corpse being discovered on April 8th.
Speaker: Her death was the first to be declared a homicide after an autopsy determined her cause of death as blunt force trauma to her neck and head.
Speaker: The four remaining women would all be found within two weeks, with Charity Perry and an identified Native American woman being discovered on April 24th, Bridget Webster on April 30th, and Ashley Reel on May 7th.
Speaker: The identified women raised in age from just 22 to 32.
Speaker: Sources claim that Webster, Perry, and Speaks frequented many of the same places in the months before their deaths, though it has yet to be confirmed whether or not the six deaths are connected.
Speaker: Portland authorities declared in a statement that they have no reason to believe these six cases are connected, and these discussions have led to some anxiety and fear in our community, and we want to provide reassurance that the speculation is not supported by the facts available at this point.
Speaker: However, many believe that they are trying to curtail public concern.
Speaker: Robin Speaks, sister of victim Joanna Speaks, spoke with News Nation about the case, stating that, I think they, meaning the police, are trying to make sure that they keep the public from being too freaked out about a serial killer.
Speaker: Either way, women are dying and the numbers are rising.
Speaker: Joseph Giacalone, a criminal justice professor and retired NYPD sergeant, believes the concern should be higher, even if police aren't suspecting foul play.
Speaker: As he put it in an interview with Fox News, if you look at the history of serial killers, they always prey on the most vulnerable and specifically people who are drug users, homeless, or prostitutes because they're transients.
Speaker: People aren't really looking for them after a certain period of time.
Speaker: And the groups those individuals hang out with, whether it's the drug scene or the prostitution scene, are not really friendly with the police.
Speaker: If you think that these are the only six bodies in that area, I think you'd be mistaken.
