Radio host Araújo was killed in the town of Timbaúba,
about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the state capital of Recife in
the northeastern state of Pernambuco. Two unidentified gunmen ambushed
and shot Araújo around 7:30 p.m. outside his home in Timbaúba,
according to local news reports. None of the journalist’s belongings
were stolen.
The 37-year old Araújo hosted the call-in talk show “José
Carlos Entrevista” (José Carlos Interviewing) at Rádio
Timbaúba FM. Citing police sources, the Recife-based
daily Diário de Pernambuco said that Araújo had
made several enemies in Timbaúba after denouncing the existence
of death squads run by criminal gangs and the involvement of well-known
local figures in murders in the region.
According to the Recife daily Folha de Pernambuco, on April
28, police captured Elton Jonas Gonçalves de Oliveira, one
of the suspected assassins, who confessed to killing Araújo
because the journalist had accused him on the air of being a criminal. Folha de Pernambuco quoted Timbaúba’s police chief as
saying that Gonçalves claimed that he did not commit all the
crimes the journalist accused him of and resented Araújo for
giving him a bad reputation.