Veteran political reporter Ida, 53, was in a car with a female companion in late evening when an unidentified man approached on a bicycle. The assailant ordered the woman out of the vehicle and shot Ida several times, press reports said. The journalist had served as the city government's communications secretary, was a founder of the news site Midianews, and wrote an opinion column for the news website Olhar Direto.
Police initially said they were investigating the murder as a crime of passion, press reports said. After members of Congress asked that police elaborate on that claim, a judge ruled on August 11 that the investigation be carried out in secret, press reports said. In an interview on the day of the ruling, Antônio Carlos Garcia, head of the local homicide unit, said police had not ruled out any lines of investigation.
Laura Petraglia, a reporter for Olhar Direto, told CPJ that at the time of his death, Ida had been investigating a story concerning local political corruption. The president of the state legislative assembly, José Riva, said that Ida had recently told him he was receiving threats but did not elaborate on their nature. The local journalists union asked that federal police take on the case because local authorities weren't paying sufficient attention to a professional motive, Diario de Cuiabá reported.