Edmundo Pinto

In the early hours of 17 May 1992, Pinto was shot and killed by three gunmen in apartment 707 of the Hotel Della Volpe Garden on Frei Caneca Street in São Paulo. He was 38 years old. The suspects stole Cr$500,000 from the apartment he had occupied since 14 May^[3] and also stole US$1,500 from John Franklin Jones, a guest in apartment 714 and an employee of the North American bank Northeast.^[3] Jones told the police that the robbers were three mulattoes,^[3] and his testimony allowed the criminals to be arrested.^[4]

The murder occurred less than 48 hours before Pinto was set to testify in a CPI (Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito, Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) that would investigate suspicions that governor Pinto was responsible for misappropriating funds for the construction of the Maternity Canal with resources from the Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço (FGTS) in a case where former minister Antônio Rogério Magri was mentioned, but whose involvement was never confirmed. There were also suspicions about Acre party disputes and even "archive burning".^[3] The police concluded that it was a latrocínio (robbery followed by death), as there was evidence of a physical fight between Pinto and his murderers, as Pinto was glanced by a bullet to the head before being shot in the heart.^[1]

There were new investigations into the case in 1993 and 2003,^[5] and it was the target of a CPI of its own in 1992 when Gilson José dos Santos, one of the accused in the killing of Pinto, said that he had received money to commit the crime.^[5]

Pinto was married to Fátima Barbosa de Almeida, with whom he had three children: Pedro Veras de Almeida Neto, Rodrigo Barbosa de Almeida Pinto and Nuana Naira Barbosa de Almeida.