São Paulo: A forensic examination of human remains found in the Amazon rainforest confirmed that they belonged to British journalist Dom Phillips, Brazil’s federal police (AEST) said on Saturday.
Work is underway to determine the causes of death, police said in a statement.
Members of the Brazilian police carry the casket with the recovered human remains. Credit: Getty Images
The remains of a second person, believed to be those of indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, were still under analysis, a CNN Brazil report said earlier this day.
Pereira and Phillips disappeared on June 5 in the remote Javari Valley bordering Peru and Colombia. Earlier this week, police recovered human remains from a jungle grave where they were driven by a fisherman who confessed to killing the two men.
“The remains of Dom Phillips were part of the material collected at the site indicated by Amarildo da Costa Oliveira,” police said.
British journalist Dom Phillips, right, and a Yanomami indigenous man walk through the village of Maloca Papiu, Roraima State, Brazil, in 2019. Credit: AP
Phillips, a freelance journalist who had written for the Guardian and the Washington Post, was investigating a book about the trip with Pereira, a former chief of isolated and recently contacted tribes at the federal Indigenous affairs agency Funai.
Earlier in the day, police said their investigation suggested that more people were involved than the suspect had confessed, but that until now it was believed the killers had acted without the involvement of a criminal organization.
“Investigations indicate that the killers acted alone, with no head or criminal organization behind the crime,” police said.