158. The Billionaire Murder - The Death of Marcos Matsunaga

You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Into the Dark podcast. I'm your host Peyton Moreland. I'm so glad you are here and listening. Now if you didn't know I have an OG true crime show with my husband called Murder With My Husband and that is available on any podcast platform plus over on Netflix. You can just search Murder With My Husband and literally watch it on Netflix. This is my solo show, Into the Dark, where I cover true crime, but I also cover all things spooky, haunted, tinfoil tale, doesn't make sense, what's going on, why is the world so dark, everything. So thank you so much for supporting the shows and for being here. I love you more than you know. Before we get into the episode, we start with my 10 seconds. And if you didn't know, over on my personal Instagram, Peyton Moreland. I talk a lot about what I talk about in my 10 seconds, but usually posting pictures and longer stories. So last week I was talking about how I'm trying to reconfigure my closet because I ended up putting a vanity in there and took out quite a good chunk of hanging space to put that vanity in. And I love the vanity, but because I lost a chunk of the closet, I am now overflowing. So I was like, it's fine. I'll clean out my clothes and then everything will be good. I got six donation bags together of clothing and am still overflowing. And so I was talking about it. People were sending me suggestions, doing the whole like season thing. I don't think that'll work for me because I wear sweatshirts in the summer and then layer tank tops with jackets in the winter. So I don't really do season clothing, but I decided that I could put maybe like event dresses or things I don't touch that much in different places instead of doing it by seasons. I also cleaned out some drawers from another area and moved some of my skirts and shorts over there so that maybe I could then hang up some sweatshirts. I don't know. It's been an entire journey, but I've been working on it all day today as well as putting my vanity together. So if you want to follow along on this project, basically redoing my closet, go follow me on Instagram and you can kind of see updates over there. That being said, let's get into today's episode. Trigger warning, this episode includes discussions of the sexual assault of a minor and domestic violence. So please listen with care. Now, most of us grew up hearing the same fairy tales. Accounts like Sleeping Beauty, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Hansel and Gretel, and so on. They inspired countless children's movies, books, songs, and other pieces of pop culture. And there's a reason that we tell these familiar stories. They usually have a message in them that is important for children to hear. For example, the story of Red Riding Hood is about what can happen when you talk to strangers. You never know who's a dangerous wolf in disguise. And the Three Pigs is about how hard work can pay off. But if you cut corners, there will be negative consequences. And then finally, the story of Cinderella is about how love conquers all. It shouldn't matter if you and your partner come from different backgrounds or if your financial situations seem incompatible. If you are meant for each other, you'll make it work. However, the story of Cinderella never says what happens if you and the person you're with aren't meant for each other. It doesn't touch on how badly things can go or how dark real life can get when your happily ever after goes wrong. So today I'm covering a true crime case that started like a Cinderella story and ended in violence. And it begins with a poor girl named Elisa Arruja. Now Elisa grew up very poor in southern Brazil. Her father left when she was just three years old and after her mother remarried, Aliza's stepfather was sexually abusive. He assaulted her and also made money by letting other men pay to have sex with her while she was a minor. Now, when Aliza was 15 years old, she ran away from home to get out of that environment. And eventually, she connected with an aunt who was willing to take her in and give her a stable home life. Now, by this time, Aliza knew the best way to improve her situation was to get an education and land a well-paying job. So she saved all of her money until she had enough to pay for college. She studied to become a nurse, got her degree, and was hired pretty quickly. But after a few months, Aliza realized she didn't even want to be a nurse. It was long hours, difficult work, and she didn't have the passion for it. So she decided to go back to school again. Now, Aliza didn't have enough money to get another degree, and she wasn't sure how she was going to make it work. However, deep down, she knew that she'd be happy if she could find a way to become a lawyer. So she applied for a law school and got accepted and she enrolled even though she still didn't know how she was going to pay for the new degree. Except while Elisa was studying, she had a conversation with another student that changed the course of her life. See, at one point, she and her friend were talking about finances, how they were able to afford rent, tuition, groceries, and so on. The friend admitted that she had been doing sex work to afford a degree. She was sleeping with men in exchange for money, and she made a lot of money doing it, way more than she would in an entry-level job. Now, from the way her friend talked about it, Elisa decided to give sex work a try too. So she signed up for an escort website and created a profile under a fake name and began meeting with new clients. which is how our story's Cinderella met her wealthy prince, a rich businessman named Marcos Matsunaga. Now Marcos's family had been living in Brazil for generations. His grandfather had started his own company there. It was called Yoki and it sold different kinds of food. By the time Marcos was born, Yoki was basically a household name in Brazil. The company was worth millions in U.S. dollars. and Marcos was supposed to inherit it all one day. For his whole life, he had been learning about how to manage money and run a business. Plus, of course, he grew up fabulously wealthy. He ended up living in an upscale apartment, wore designer clothes, he ate at the best restaurants. And on top of that, Marcos was handsome, only in his 30s, and he loved living a full life and embracing his hobbies. All in all, he sounded like a dream come true. except one exception. See, in the early 2000s, Marcos was married and he was planning to cheat on his wife. Now, to be clear, it's not like he had developed feelings for somebody he knew. He just decided he wanted to sleep with someone else and he didn't particularly care who. So that's how he ended up visiting the escort website. He wanted to find a woman who'd be willing to sleep with him and who'd keep everything secret so his wife would never find out. So he wasn't exactly Prince Charming at the ball. But even though his motives weren't great, his life was still also about to change forever because while he was browsing the web page, he found Elisa's profile. And they messaged for a while. And after they got to know each other, Marcos hired Elisa. They met in person and began talking and it became clear that they actually had a lot in common. Even though their backgrounds were very different, Marcos and Elisa had many of the same interests and hobbies. And I'll also note they weren't close in age. Marcos was in his 30s. I'm not sure exactly how old because it's hard to say exactly when they met, but I do know Elisa was about a decade younger than him. Now still, after their first meetup, Marcos realized he wanted to see Elisa again. So he hired her another time and then booked more dates after that. Before long, he becomes one of her regular clients and eventually he offered her a deal. He would pay extra if Elisa agreed not to see any other men. He wanted her to be monogamous, almost like they were actually dating Now Elisa agreed to the arrangement and from there the relationship became deeper and more meaningful Before long it felt like they weren a client and employee anymore but an actual boyfriend and girlfriend. Eventually, Marcos told Elisa that he wanted to be honest about his love for her. He didn't want to keep sneaking around and hiding things from his wife. He wanted them to be together in a more traditional way. He wanted to marry Elisa, and she said yes. So Marcos actually files for divorce and then moved in with Elisa while he waited for everything to be finalized. And as soon as he was officially single again, he and Elisa get married. But there was just one problem with this happily ever after. Marcos knew that if his friends ever learned how he and Elisa had really met, they would never accept her. They would judge her for the kind of work she had done. Plus, he was worried about his own reputation, too. He didn't want anyone to know how he had cheated on his wife with a sex worker. So instead, he and Elisa made a new deal. They'd come up with a polite cover story to explain how they'd met, and nobody would ever learn the truth. Now, Elisa agreed to those terms. And then from that point onward, she and Marcos had a glamorous, fabulous life. They rented a high-end apartment in a fancy building in Brazil's capital city, Sao Paulo, and they took hunting trips together. And Marcos taught Elisa how to track and kill boars, deer, and other wild animals. He also taught her all about fine wines. And Elisa used the information to start a new wine business of her own so she could begin building her own fortune. And as if this wasn't all impressive enough, she and Marcos were on their way to becoming even richer because like I mentioned before, Marcos was supposed to inherit the family business, the Yoki. And in the early 2000s, his relatives were in the process of selling the corporation to General Mills, the American food company. It was a huge deal and it took months of negotiation to work out all of the details. But if the sale went through, his relatives stood to make the equivalent of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars. And as a high-ranking executive in the family heir, Marcus was going to take home a huge chunk of those profits. So his and Aliza's lives were about to be even better. Except then a bombshell dropped. And I'm not sure exactly how it all happened, but Aliza learned that Marcos was now cheating on her. She realized her fairy tale happy ending had all been a lie. She actually planned to divorce Marcos and try to start over. And then she had another big shock. She realized around this time that she was pregnant with Marcos' baby. Now, this wasn't a complete surprise. She and Marcos had actually been trying for years. Elisa had even received fertility treatments to try and help the process along. but ironically she didn't have any success until after she had decided to leave him. So basically she had one foot out the door when she got the positive pregnancy test. So now Elisa had to rethink her options. She wanted to be a mother and she didn't want to do it alone. So she and Marcos had a heart to heart about what to do next and ultimately they resolved to stay together and to try to make things work for their baby's sake. Marcos promised he would end his affair and focus on being a better husband and father, and Elisa accepted his apologies and made an effort to forgive him. And then in mid-2011, their daughter was born. Her name was Helena, except the baby didn't fix Marcos and Aliza's marriage surprise. It was never fair for either of them to expect that the baby would. The problem was that Aliza still felt hurt and betrayed. She didn't trust Marcos or feel comfortable around him, and she couldn't bring herself to pretend to be happy. And meanwhile, Marcos began to be resentful. According to him, he was trying to be faithful and supportive, and it seemed like nothing he did was good enough for Elisa. So next, he tried to make their problems go away with his money. He hired nannies, maids, and other professionals to help make Elisa's life easier. Except, of course, this still doesn't fix their problems. Now, in Marcos' mind, he was buying his wife the best lifestyle that he could afford. And it seemed unfair that Elisa had it so good and was still so unhappy with him. And meanwhile, she was frustrated that he didn't understand her feelings and wasn't trying to empathize with her. And the more time went on, the worse their relationship became. Even Marcos' friends and family members could tell something was wrong. They didn't know about the affair or anything about why everything was so tense. all they knew was that Elisa seemed really unhappy. And Marcos was beginning to act strange too. For example, he usually texted his mother every single day. At this point, he was 42 years old, but he and his parents were still very close and obviously they all worked together. But on May 20th, 2012, he didn't text his mother. and when his mother reached out to ask hey what's going on he didn't reply now she figured okay maybe he's just busy so she waited another day except Marcos still didn't say anything on the 21st and he was equally silent the day after that on the 22nd now by now this was just odd enough to make his mother worried and so after she talked about her concerns with her husband they both called Elisa and asked, hey, where is Marcos? Have you seen him? Why isn't he responding? And Elisa said she had something she needed to tell her in-laws. It was serious and better to discuss in person rather than over the phone. So Marcus's parents urgently went to Elisa's apartment. And once they arrived, she said she knew where Marcos had gone. She claims Marcos left her to be with his affair partner, ran away. Now, again, nobody even knew about Marcos's history of cheating. So this is completely shocking, except Elisa had proof. She told Marcos's family that she had been suspicious of him for a while. So she had recently hired a private eye to follow him around. And this detective had actually filmed Marcos about a week earlier at a fancy restaurant with another woman. Clearly, she wasn't just a friend or a coworker. The two of them were holding hands. They were flirting, they were kissing, and the PI had given the footage to Elisa. And now she played the clip for her worried in-laws. She said she wasn't doing this to hurt them or ruin Marcos's reputation. She just wanted everyone to understand, listen, I'm telling the truth, he has run away with the other woman. And Marcos's parents couldn't deny it. The evidence was clear he was definitely having an affair. Elisa also told them that on the evening of May 19th, so the night before he'd stopped replying to everyone's texts, she had confronted him about his infidelity. And then she and Marcos had gotten into a huge fight and it had ended with him announcing that he didn't want to be married anymore. He was going to run away with the other woman. She says he grabbed a bunch of cash and a suitcase full of clothes and he'd run out the door while declaring he didn't want to talk to anyone. And she thinks that's why he wasn't replying to texts like usual. Except Marcos's family wasn't sure if they completely believed Elisa's story. Of course, they'd seen the video evidence. They knew for sure Marcos was cheating, but it just didn't seem like him to disappear without a word. Especially because Yoki's sell to General Mills was supposed to be finalized on the 24th, two days away from inheriting a lot of money. Marcos would never abandon his job at such an important time. Instead, his relatives wonder, okay, maybe he went to Ranaway, but he'd been kidnapped. The Yoki cell was big news and it had been all over TV and in the papers. Maybe some criminals had seen the coverage, realized Marcos was incredibly rich and decided to abduct him and hold him for ransom I know that might sound like a huge assumption to make but these sorts of dangers are a part of life if you rich and famous enough The point is is that even though his relatives knew he'd supposedly left Aliza willingly, they were still worried. It seemed possible that someone might have snatched him while he was out with his mistress. The problem was nobody had contacted the family yet. No one had sent a ransom note or given any kind of instructions about how to get him back, this was all nerve-wracking enough for Marcos' family to actually report him missing to the police. And right away, the officers began investigating. And they found nothing. There was no sign that Marcos had been kidnapped or fallen victim to any kind of foul play, but they also didn't uncover any evidence that he'd willingly run away with his mistress either. So when police looked into it, it seemed like he had simply vanished. Now, days went by and still nobody heard from Marcus, his mistress, or his potential kidnappers. And on May 24th, his family finalized the sale to General Mills without him. They made a ton of money and still nobody contacted them with a ransom note. The entire situation was looking very strange and mysterious and it was about to get worse because over a week passed still with no contact from anyone associated with the disappearance and then on May 28th a police officer called Marcos's brother and asked him to come to the station. He said he had bad news and to explain this new development I have to back up and tell you a bit more about another investigation. So it initially had seemed unrelated to Marcos's disappearance, but then proved to be the key to the entire case. See, way back on the 22nd, this is the same day when Marcos was reported missing, someone had found something strange outside of Sao Paulo. It was a garbage bag laying on the side of the road in a wooded area. And when the person opened the bag, they had found a human leg inside of it. Police weren't able to initially identify who the leg belonged to, but they figured it may have had something to do with organized crime. Now, apparently, it was common for career criminals to murder their enemies and dismember their bodies exactly like this. So the thinking was that this was maybe a drug dealer or another criminal who had made the wrong people angry. Except one investigator felt like that explanation just didn't make much sense. First, the leg had been cut off in a very precise surgical way. The police thought the person who had done this had to have had medical training. They weren't just your average criminal. Plus, the deceased was wearing an expensive pair of jeans. I mean, high-end designer jeans. His toenails had a well-done manicure. Even the trash bag the leg was found in was unusually high quality. It wasn't a bargain brand. It was a blue bag with a red drawstring, and they also carried this style at high-end grocery chains. So the police figured this victim was probably rich, and his death hadn't been part of a typical organized crime hit. Those suspicions were confirmed in the next few days because more body parts began to be discovered. Arms, a torso, and the second leg, once again, all wearing designer clothing. They were disposed of in those expensive blue and red trash bags. And all of them had been dumped randomly at the side of a road. Now, the problem was the police still didn't know who the victim was. It was clearly a man and probably a wealthy man, but his DNA didn't match anything in their system. And since the investigators hadn't found his head yet, they couldn't check dental records. At least not until May 28th, the day when they called Marcos's younger brother. You obviously can probably guess where this is going. They had now located the victim's head and the police realized it was Marcos, the missing rich man who had apparently run away with his lover. Now, they were still waiting to get confirmation from the coroner, but just by looking at the dead man's face and comparing it to pictures of Marcos, they thought it had to be him. And his brother took one look at the dead man, and his initial instinct was that maybe the police were wrong. They must have made a mistake. This wasn't Marcos. Except then the detectives reminded him, hey, this person has been deteriorating for at least nine days by the time we found his head. not going to look exactly the same way he did when he was alive. And once the brother agreed and heard this, he was like, hey, I'll take another look with that in mind. He examined the gruesome remains and reality hit him. Now there was no doubt in his mind. He told police, yeah, you're right. I'm 100% sure that this is my brother's dismembered body. It is Marcos. And with that discovery, the investigators realized Marcos hadn't been kidnapped for ransom because his abductors would only get paid if he made it home alive. They had no reason to kill him yet, especially without ever sending a note to his family asking for money. And he also clearly hadn't run away and was living a different life with another woman. So instead, detectives tried to build a timeline of Marcos' his final days alive. They learned that three days before his disappearance, his wife Elisa had actually left Sao Paulo. For context, by this point, her daughter Helena was about a year old, and Helena had never met her grandmother, Elisa's mother. So the idea was for Elisa to take a long weekend, visit her family, and introduce them to her little baby. And while Elisa was gone, As we now know, Marcos met with his mistress and the private eye Elisa had hired filmed the two of them together. Now, Elisa actually received the video evidence and confirmed her suspicions while she was out of town with their baby. And then on the night of the 19th, she and Helena flew home. Marcos picked them up at the airport and he also had the nanny in the car with him as well. That way, she could take care of Helena while Elisa relaxed and unwound after the long trip. Except, of course, she couldn't relax because she was quietly furious, didn't want to fight in front of the nanny, but she knew what was going on. So instead, everyone drove back home and security cameras showed all four of them going into the apartment together. Now, not long afterward, the nanny left because her shift for that day was over. and a little while after that, a pizza delivery person arrived. Marcos is seen going to the front door to pay for the food and then he carried the box back into the apartment. And this is the last time he is ever seen on camera. There was no security footage of him actually going out of the door again. And when the police questioned Elisa about this, she seemed surprised and confused. They're like, hey, he came in and never left. She says, well, no, Marcos had left her for his mistress on the 19th, sometime between 9 and 11 p.m. She tells him, I can't remember the exact time. I'm too emotional to pay much attention to the clock. Either way, Elisa kept insisting Marcos had left in spite of him never being seen on video. But that wasn't the only red flag found related to Elisa. Remember how Marcos' body parts were found in those distinct garbage bags? They were an expensive brand that was blue with red ties. Well, during searches, police actually found that exact same style of garbage bag in Elisa's kitchen. Plus, when the investigators looked at her phone records, they saw that she had been in the specific area where all of Marcos's body parts were later found. Now, this was all suspicious enough for the police to become more aggressive during a follow-up interrogation. And with this tactic, finally, Elisa confessed. She says, I killed Marcos. But according to Elisa, she had done it in self-defense. She said that it came down to Marcos's affair. According to her, after she had received the footage, she knew she had to confront Marcos about it, just like she had told his parents later on. So while they were eating pizza on the evening of the 19th Elisa asked Marcos if he was still seeing his mistress And supposedly he became very angry at this question He began screaming at Elisa, furious that I guess she had caught him cheating. And then according to the statement she gave police, he then slapped her. Elisa said Marcos had never been physically abusive against her before that night, but now he seemed to be out of control. He yelled at Elisa that he was going to have her committed to a mental hospital so she couldn't expose his affair. He also said he was going to hire the best lawyers, get custody of Helena so Elisa would never see her daughter again. She claims she was terrified and tried to run away from him, but Marcos chased her. Now, Elisa also told the police that she and Marcos owned a lot of guns. They were hidden all over their apartment. And like I mentioned before, Marcos' family always worried that someone might try to kidnap him and hold him for ransom. So Elisa and Marcos had bought these firearms for self-defense. According to Elisa's statement, she was so afraid that Marcos was going to hurt her that night that she grabbed one of the guns. She aimed, fired. And as soon as the bullet left the barrel, Marcos dropped to the ground, dead. Elisa hadn't meant to kill him, only scare or hurt him so he would leave her alone. So she claims to police now at this point she was panicking. In particular, Elisa feared she'd get sent to prison and then never see Helena again. So in the moment, she decided her only solution was to make Marcos's body disappear. She decided to drag his remains into a spare bedroom, lock the door so the staff wouldn't discover it by accident. The next morning when the nanny came back, Elisa told her she was working on a private project. She didn't want to be disturbed. And then while the nanny watched her one-year-old daughter in the next room over, Elisa began chopping up Marcos's body. She loaded the pieces into garbage bags and she stuffed the bags into a suitcase. It took days. But finally, on the 22nd, she hauled the suitcase out of the apartment and drove out of Sao Paulo. She ended up dumping his body along the side of the road, exactly where the police later discovered it, piece by piece. But Aliza now insisted she wasn't a murderer. This was a case of self-defense coupled by bad decision-making in a moment of panic. except her account didn't really match the autopsy specifically when it came to Marcos's cause of death. See he had been shot just like Elisa said but it wasn't the bullet that killed him. Instead his throat had been slit while he was wounded and he had choked to death on his own blood. This meant Elisa couldn't have killed him in self-defense. She could have shot him in self-defense, but if she was really afraid of Marcos, she wouldn't have needed to get close enough to cut his neck. She could have just shot him and run away. Instead, she then approached him with a knife while he was injured and helpless and killed him in cold blood. This fact alone was enough for the police to doubt every other part of Elisa's story, they decided she killed Marcos for his money, pure and simple. The theory was that Elisa realized Marcos was cheating on her again, and she became afraid that he would leave her for his mistress, just like he had done with her, to his last wife. Elisa knew that if they went through a divorce, she might not get any of his wealth. She'd have to return to her difficult life in poverty. But if he died, well, she could inherit everything. So the officers assumed the homicide was an intentional premeditated murder. She probably came home from the airport and then asked Marcos to order a pizza. And while he was distracted by the delivery person, she found one of his hidden guns. And then when he came back into the apartment, she shot him. He probably didn't even see her or realize he was in danger before the bullet knocked him down. He laid on the ground, too injured to move, and Elisa finished the job by slitting his throat. In this version of the story, Elisa comes off brutal, ruthless, inefficient. So the police charged her with murder and the destruction and concealment of a corpse. And when her case went to trial, it was a huge news story, which shouldn't be a surprise. How often does a millionaire's wife murder him after discovering an affair, let alone cut up his body into pieces with her daughter in the room next door and then dump it at the side of the road? It felt like something out of a soap opera. Now, all across Brazil, people tuned into the news and were glued to websites following every new development. Reporters covered each piece of evidence that was public. This included the security camera footage of Elisa leaving her apartment with heavy suitcases in her hands. That's right. The news actually aired clips of Elisa disposing of Marcos's body. Although in fairness, you couldn't see anything graphic in the security camera clips, but still this video is chilling. And as for the trial itself, Elisa still claimed on the stand that she'd killed Marcos in self-defense. Meanwhile, the prosecutors accused her of murdering him for his money. Except as over a week went by, filled with witness testimony, a new theory emerged about the murder. It came down to the cut marks on Marcos's body. Now, like I mentioned before, they were too precise and surgical to have been done by an amateur. So the question was about who had actually dismembered him. Granted, Elisa did have medical training. She had worked for a while as a nurse, but many experts testified that she didn't know enough or have sufficient experience to make such perfect cuts. Instead, legal experts suggested on Stan that Elisa had to have had help. Maybe she'd called a friend who was a doctor or a surgeon to help her cut up Marcos' body. The accusers never presented any proof to support that theory, but ultimately they didn't need to. After hearing all of the witness testimony, the jury found Elisa guilty of murder and of the destruction and concealment of a corpse. She was sentenced to 19 years, 11 months, and one day in prison. Right away, Elisa filed some appeals. She also participated in a program that would let her do extra work in exchange for a lighter sentence. Eventually, her term was reduced to a total of 16 years and three months. and as of this recording she is still behind bars. Marcos' family is raising her daughter Helena and strictly limiting any visits with Elisa. In fact she hasn't even seen her daughter since her conviction which adds an extra layer of irony to the idea that she may have killed Marcos because he threatened to take away her custody. Instead she still doesn't have a relationship with her daughter and who knows if she ever will. So now that we're to the end of the story, I'm sure you can see why it was such a big deal in Brazil. It was like a dark take on Cinderella, one with lies, affairs, and murder. And recently, the case got a lot of attention in the United States too. That's because in the summer of 2021, Netflix released a four-part documentary series. It's no wonder they felt like this was worth covering. After all, everyone loves a fairy tale. And we're all fascinated when they seem to come true in real life, especially if they take a dark turn. Thank you so much for watching today's episode or listening. And I will see you next time as we go further into the dark together. Goodbye. I'm Heidi Wong, an artist, poet and creator. And if you've seen my TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram, you'll know I'm obsessed with horror movies. And every Monday on my new podcast from Crime House, Twisted Tales, I'll take you deep into the real-life events that inspired the world's most terrifying blockbusters and the ones too twisted to make it to screen. Twisted Tales is a Crime House original podcast powered by Pave Studios. Watch every Monday on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.