The Girl Who Killed Her Parents trilogy is classic true crime with a twist The films tell the story of Manfred’s and Marísia’s von Richthofen murders through the perspectives of Suzane (the victims’ daughter) Daniel Cravinhos (Suzane’s boyfriend at the time) So, I watched The Girl Who Killed Her Parents trilogy. The movies were fine. The performances were unpredictable, with some excellent scenes. The script was good, but the series writers Ilana Casoy and Raphael Montes did a better job on shows such as Good Morning, Verônica Suzane and Daniel are shown to have an intense relationship but much of The Girl Who Killed Her Parents trilogy is about their deeply troubled dynamic We’re never invited to aspire to what they have but rather to observe how someone might fall down the rabbit hole what led to such an intense response from Brazilians To answer that we must look back in time and try to understand what true crime media is and why we interact with it the way we do From penny dreadfuls in the 19th century to books it’s no surprise that in the internet age this type of content has grown exponentially Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022) and fictional dramatizations have infiltrated streaming platforms most responses to content like this are positive Look at Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer – Monster extensively awarded for its performances and scripts This popularity is not exclusive to the USA where 34% of adults claim to have regularly listened to true crime podcasts in the past year but it is also a phenomenon around the globe In Brazil, we have a long history with the genre. Shows such as Aqui Agora and Linha Direta broadcasted between the early 1990s into the mid-2000s have shaped much of what audiences understand of true crime Linha Direta especially—which was rebooted in 2023—followed the classic “case of the week” format giving us the sense of having some control over random acts of violence However, the “case of the week” slowly faded in favor of a more sensationalistic style such as Cidade Alerta a journalistic program that presents shocking images of bruised and mostly dead bodies The crimes approached in these shows are usually drug or gang-related, which aided in creating the image of a deeply violent country full of heartless criminals. With that implanted in people’s consciousness, much of the “detective-style” true crime Brazilians started to consume came from the USA, especially when cable TV had its big boom during the mid-2000s and into the 2010s Shows such as Medical Detectives and channels such as Investigation Discovery only being eventually overruled by podcasts in the mid to late 2010s I believe that this kind of displacement created an interesting phenomenon. Much of US true crime relies on the tropes of the serial killer, who is typically a definitively dangerous white man who is somehow interesting enough for us to try and understand. This created in Brazilian audiences a sense of a “different kind of crime” The impression was that here we had violence born from economic but this was how the media taught people to perceive their environment That’s why when a crime such as the one committed against the von Richthofen happens I believe that it is due to this perception of what crime looks like in Brazil that there’s so much outrage about movies like The Girl Who Killed Her Parents It’s largely understood that Suzane was the one who planned the details of the murder but that the executors were Daniel and Cristian Cravinhos the way this case is presented in the media hyper-focuses on Suzane and all but erases Daniel and Cristian Ironic headlines state how she was released for Mother’s Day celebrations or how she has a new boyfriend with the implication she might be manipulating them into criminal activity Just type her name on the search bar and endless sensationalistic reports pop up Compare that to the sympathetic “new beginning” headlines you get when you type Daniel Cravinhos, now preferring to be called Daniel Bento There is a clear distinction between how the woman and the men in this case are portrayed Suzane is fated to forever be the same person she was at her worst moment This is in no way a claim that one person is more innocent or more guilty than the other it provides a look at how the media affects our perceptions of why and what types of people commit crimes The reason why The Girl Who Killed Her Parents generates so much controversy is that it dares to approach the perpetrators of a crime committed in Brazil It moves violence from a systematic reality into something too close to home People don’t know how to react when faced with the fact that they might know or have felt the same way as someone who committed such a cruel act of violence Categorized: The brutal murder of Manfred and Marísia von Richthofen shocked Brazil on Halloween night in 2002. The perpetrators sneaked into the house in the middle of the night, found the couple sleeping in their bedroom and killed them, hitting them with iron sticks (via Murderpedia) The heinous crime immediately made the headlines and the media reported it as a larceny case the police immediately notice it was not an ordinary robbery the police noticed there was something strange in her behavior Von Richthofen was extremely cold while talking to the police and celebrated her birthday a few hours after her parents' funeral The first evidence came when Christian Cravinhos (Daniel's oldest brother) used cash to pay for a motorcycle The Cravinhos brothers had a different upbringing but both were supposedly unemployed when they committed the crime Von Richthofen secretly dated Cravinhos for two years, and her parents didn't accept the relationship. According to Murderpedia, they didn't like that Cravinhos didn't work, wasn't interested in studying, and smoked marijuana every day von Richthofen could not only live her romance but also inherit half her parents' fortune Von Richthofen and Cravinhos took months to plan the attack she turned off the alarm system when her parents were asleep and helped the brothers sneak in Von Richthofen remained in the living room while they went upstairs and killed her parents with iron rods they made at home they made the scene look like a burglary by spreading papers in the office and taking some money the oldest brother went to a fast-food restaurant while the couple spent the night in a motel von Richthofen picked up her 15-year-old brother Their love wasn't strong enough to endure the investigation, and they started to blame each other. On June 5, 2006, they went to trial. Von Richthofen's lawyer tried to convince the jury his client was manipulated. "This crime was committed only because Daniel wanted to. He was the only one with a motive — money," the attorney stated (via BBC) Cravinhos' lawyer said that von Richthofen manipulated the boyfriend saying that her parents were alcoholics and her father was aggressive Von Richthofen was considered the mastermind behind the murder and she was sentenced to 39 years in jail (the maximum sentence in Brazil) she lost the right to receive her inheritance Daniel Cravinhos was also sentenced to 39 years Christian Cravinhos got 38 years for his part in the crime Years later, the Cravinhos brothers were allowed to serve their sentences in a semi-open regime. In 2014, von Richthofen's ex-boyfriend reportedly got married, and he never gave interviews about the crime. His eldest brother was arrested again in 2018 after allegedly being involved in a fight. He was sentenced to four years in prison (via Free Game Guide) Suzanne von Richthofen became one of the most famous killers in Brazil, and her name still makes the headlines regularly. She gave some paid interviews in prison and inspired books and movies (via True Crime Brazil) Von Richthofen is considered easy-going and polite by people in jail In 2014, von Richthofen got married to another prisoner, and they shared the cell with eight other couples (via The Guardian) The couple divorced when her wife left prison It was not the only time her affairs made the headlines Von Richthofen later dated a religious lawyer they broke up in 2020 when her boyfriend found out she had a secret bank account with the money she earns giving interviews Her brother lived a reclusive life after the crime when he shared a letter to the press after rumors his sister wanted her part in the inheritance.