Twins disappeared at an amusement park in 1990 — 33 years later, a caretaker finds something buried.

It was a hot Sunday afternoon, November 11, 1990, when identical twins Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina Santos disappeared into the crowd at Parque da Cidade in Brasília, Federal District. What began as a perfect day of family fun would turn into the most devastating nightmare their parents could ever experience. And you won’t believe what was discovered 33 years later: buried in an abandoned area of ​​the same park where it all began. If you enjoy true stories that awaken our deepest emotions and reveal shocking truths about human wickedness, like this video now, subscribe to the channel, and turn on notifications. Today I’m going to tell a story that will show how, sometimes, evil hides in the most innocent places.

Stay until the end, because what the caretaker found in 2023 will give you chills. Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina Santos were only 7 years old when they disappeared. They were identical twins, impossible to distinguish except for a small detail known only to the family. Ana Beatriz had a small scar on her left knee, the result of a bicycle fall six months earlier. Both had light brown curly hair, bright green eyes, and were 1.15 m tall. They always wore matching outfits. On the day of their disappearance, they were wearing pink t-shirts with unicorn designs and blue denim shorts. The girls were the daughters of José Roberto Santos, a 42-year-old engineer, and Maria Helena Santos, a 38-year-old teacher.

The family lived in the Plano Piloto neighborhood of Brasília, and the twins attended Escola Classe 308 Sul, where they were known for their intelligence and the unique connection they shared. They were rarely seen apart; they were like two halves of a single person. The twins’ personalities were marked by a contagious vivacity and a natural curiosity about their surroundings. Ana Beatriz was slightly more extroverted and spoke for both of them in social situations, while Ana Carolina was more observant and enjoyed drawing and coloring. But, most of the time, they acted as a perfect unit, completing each other’s sentences and having identical reactions to practically everything.

José Roberto and Maria Helena were devoted parents who made a point of spending Sundays engaged in family activities. The City Park was one of the twins’ favorite destinations, especially during the festivals that regularly took place there. They loved the rides, the traditional food, and especially the clowns and artists who performed for the children during special events.

On Sunday, November 11, 1990, the Children’s Festival was being held in the City Park, an annual event that brought together thousands of families from Brasília. The weather was perfect, with a temperature of 28ºC, partly cloudy skies, and a gentle breeze that made the heat pleasant. The Santos family planned to spend the entire day at the park, enjoying all the festival’s attractions.

The family arrived at the park at 10:00 AM, parking near the main entrance. The twins were radiant at the prospect of a full day of fun. They had woken up at 7:00 AM, asking if it was time to go to the park yet. José Roberto carried a backpack with snacks and water, while Maria Helena carried a camera to record the special moments of the day.

During the morning, the family visited several attractions at the festival. The twins rode the carousel three times in a row, always on the pink horses, which were their favorites. They participated in a face painting workshop, where they chose butterfly designs for their cheeks, played in the inflatable castle, and received lollipops from a clown who performed magic tricks near the park’s artificial lake.

At 12:30, the family took a break for lunch at one of the traditional food stalls. The twins ate cheese pastries and drank guaraná, chatting animatedly about which attraction they would visit next. Maria Helena took several photos of the girls during lunch. Photos that would become some of the last images of them alive.

After lunch, José Roberto suggested they rest a bit under a tree before continuing their walk. It was a family tradition to have a small picnic after meals, especially when they spent the whole day away from home. The energetic twins asked to play a little more before nap time, and their parents agreed they could play in the nearby playground while they got things ready.

The playground was about 50 meters from where José Roberto and Maria Helena were sitting. It was a busy area, with dozens of other children playing under the supervision of their parents. The twins ran to the swings, their favorite playground equipment, and started a competition to see who could swing the highest.

At 2:15 PM, Maria Helena looked towards the playground to check if the girls were alright. She saw Ana Beatriz on the swing, but couldn’t immediately locate Ana Carolina. Thinking she was playing with another toy, Maria Helena continued organizing her backpack. Five minutes later, when she looked again, she couldn’t see either of the twins.

Initially, Maria Helena wasn’t too worried. It was common for the girls to explore different areas of the playground and hide behind the toys while playing. She walked to the playground and began searching for her daughters, calling their names loudly. Other mothers present helped in the initial search, but none of them had seen where the twins had gone.

When José Roberto noticed the commotion and joined the search, it was already 2:30 PM. They meticulously searched the entire playground area, asking other children if they had seen the twins in pink t-shirts. Some children remembered seeing the girls on the swings. But no one saw them leaving the area or going in any specific direction.

The search quickly expanded beyond the playground. José Roberto and Maria Helena divided the tasks. He searched the area with the mechanical rides, while she examined the area near the lake and the food stalls. Other parents present at the festival spontaneously joined the search, forming small groups that systematically scoured different sections of the park. At 3 p.m., an hour after the twins were last seen, José Roberto decided to contact park security. The guards initiated an organized search, using walkie-talkies to coordinate the operation and checking areas that were normally restricted to the public. The festive atmosphere gradually gave way to a growing sense of concern.

During the initial search, some disturbing details were discovered. A cotton candy vendor recalled seeing two identical girls in pink t-shirts talking to a man near the park’s public restrooms at around 2:20 p.m. According to him, the children seemed to know the man and the conversation was friendly, but he didn’t pay enough attention to describe the adult’s physical details.

The police were called at 4 p.m. The officer in charge of the case was Marco Antônio Silva, an experienced investigator who had been working on missing children cases for 10 years. When Marco arrived at the City Park, he found a search operation already underway, involving more than 200 people, including family members, other park visitors, security guards, and firefighters who had been called in to help.

Initial investigations revealed alarming aspects of the circumstances surrounding the disappearance. Besides the cotton candy vendor, three other vendors confirmed seeing the twins being approached by an adult male near the public restrooms. The descriptions were vague: a man of average height, dark hair, wearing a light-colored dress shirt. But all the testimonies agreed that the children did not appear frightened or coerced. During the first week of the investigation, police questioned hundreds of people who were in the park during the Children’s Festival. They discovered that at least six people had seen the twins after 2:20 PM, always accompanied by the same mysterious man, walking towards a less crowded area of ​​the park where the maintenance and equipment storage areas were located.

The investigation also revealed that someone had cut the fence delimiting the park’s maintenance area. The cut was recent and the exact size to allow passage; small footprints were found in the ground that corresponded to the size of the shoes the twins were wearing on the day of their disappearance. The most disturbing discovery of the initial investigation was made by sniffer dogs brought from São Paulo specifically for the case. The animals detected the twins’ scent in several points of the maintenance area, including near an abandoned shed that had not been used for years, but the trail simply disappeared into a dirt road leading to the back of the park, suggesting that the girls had been put into a vehicle. During the first month after the disappearance, the Santos family lived through an indescribable hell. José Roberto took leave from work to dedicate himself entirely to the search, while Maria Helena developed severe depression that required psychiatric hospitalization for a week. The house, once full of children’s laughter, became a place of sepulchral silence, broken only by the constant calls from investigators and journalists.

The case gained immediate national attention. The Brazilian press devoted extensive coverage to the twins’ disappearance, and the case was featured on several television programs dedicated to missing persons. Photos of Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina were reproduced in newspapers across the country, generating hundreds of calls from people claiming to have seen the girls in different cities.

In December 1990, a month after their disappearance, a clue emerged that renewed the family’s hopes. A woman from Goiânia called the police claiming to have seen two identical girls at a shopping mall in the city, accompanied by a couple who did not appear to be their real parents. When investigators arrived at the indicated location, the people had already left, but mall employees confirmed having seen children with features similar to those of the twins.

This clue prompted a search operation in Goiás, involving police from three states. For two weeks, shopping malls, bus stations, and hotels were searched for any sign of the twins. The operation yielded no concrete results, but it established the possibility that the girls had been taken from the Federal District.

Throughout the 1990s, dozens of false leads surfaced, keeping the Santos family on a constant emotional rollercoaster. With each call reporting a sighting of the twins, José Roberto and Maria Helena traveled to different cities, always returning empty-handed and with even more broken hearts. The emotional and financial strain of these fruitless searches was devastating for the family.

In 1995, five years after the disappearance, the official investigation was gradually reduced due to a lack of new evidence. José Roberto and Maria Helena never accepted the informal closure of the case and continued their private search, hiring detectives and offering increasingly larger rewards for information about their daughters.

The 2000s were marked by the emergence of the internet and the new possibilities for dissemination it offered. Maria Helena, who had learned to use computers specifically to search for her daughters, created websites and social media profiles dedicated to finding the twins. These digital tools brought renewed public interest to the case, but also attracted malicious individuals who made prank calls, were cruel, or tried to extort money from the family.

In 2005, 15 years after their disappearance, José Roberto died of a heart attack at the age of 57. Doctors said that the chronic stress caused by the tireless search for his daughters had significantly contributed to his health problems. Maria Helena was widowed and alone, but never stopped searching for Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina.

During the 2010s, advances in forensic technology and investigative methods led to the review of several old cases of missing children, including that of the Santos twins. New tests were conducted on materials collected at the original scene, but they did not reveal any additional information that could advance the investigation.

In 2015, 25 years after their disappearance, Maria Helena organized a vigil in the City Park to mark the date and keep the memory of her daughters alive. Hundreds of people attended, demonstrating that the case still deeply affected the public consciousness in Brasília. During the vigil, Maria Helena made an emotional appeal for anyone with information to come forward, promising to forgive anyone involved in the disappearance who helped find her daughters.

The discovery that would change everything finally happened on the morning of Friday, November 24, 2023. Exactly 33 years and 13 days after the twins disappeared. The discovery was made by Antônio Carlos Pereira, a 58-year-old caretaker who had worked in the maintenance of the City Park for 15 years. Antônio was cleaning the area of ​​the old maintenance depot, the same region where sniffer dogs had detected the twins’ scent in 1990. The area had been renovated several times over the years, but always served as a storage area for the park’s gardening equipment and materials. During the cleaning, Antônio noticed that a section of the concrete floor had cracks and irregularities that appeared to have been caused by ground subsidence. As he was responsible for the general maintenance of the area, he decided to investigate if there was any structural problem that needed to be repaired before it became dangerous. When Antônio removed some loose concrete slabs to examine the base, he discovered that the ground underneath had been excavated and filled in at some point in the past. The soil was looser and a different color from the original terrain, indicating that someone had disturbed that specific area years ago. Driven by professional curiosity and a sense of responsibility to ensure the structure’s safety, Antônio continued digging carefully. At a depth of approximately 1.20 meters, his shovel struck something that was clearly neither earth nor rock. When he cleaned the surrounding area, he discovered fragments of fabric that appeared to be children’s clothing. Antônio’s heart raced when he realized he was looking at pieces of a pink t-shirt with faded designs that could be unicorns. He immediately remembered the famous story of the missing twins that marked Brasília decades ago. He stopped digging immediately and contacted the authorities.

The arrival of the police at the maintenance depot in Parque da Cidade triggered the largest criminal investigation operation in the history of the Federal District. A joint team of Civil Police, criminal experts, forensic anthropologists, and specialists in crimes against children was mobilized to thoroughly examine the location where Antônio had made his discovery.

The careful and scientific excavation of the area revealed exactly what Antônio suspected: the remains of two children buried side by side in a shallow grave. Fragments of the clothes Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina were wearing on the day of their disappearance were found next to the bodies—pieces of their pink t-shirts with unicorns and their blue denim shorts.

Forensic analysis of the remains confirmed that they belonged to two girls, approximately 7 years old, who had been dead for several decades. DNA testing, when compared with samples from Maria Helena, definitively confirmed that they were Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina Santos. The small scar on the left knee, partially preserved due to soil conditions, confirmed which body was Ana Beatriz’s.

The discovery revealed devastating details about what had happened to the twins. Forensic analysis showed that both died of asphyxiation, and the position of the bodies suggested that they had been buried alive or shortly after death. There was no evidence of sexual violence, but signs of restraint indicated that they had been held captive before being killed.

Among the objects found with the bodies was something that provided a crucial clue about the perpetrator of the crime: a small plastic toy that did not belong to the twins, but which was distributed as a prize at a specific snack bar in Brasília in the early 1990s. This clue led investigators to review the records of employees who worked at the park at the time of the disappearance.

The renewed investigation focused on identifying people who had access to the park’s maintenance area in 1990 and who also frequented the snack bar where the ride was distributed. The list was surprisingly short, but it included Carlos Alberto Ferreira, a park maintenance worker who worked there between 1988 and 1992.

When investigators tried to locate Carlos Alberto Ferreira, they discovered he had died in 2003 from cancer, but interviews with his former colleagues revealed disturbing information. Several employees recalled that Carlos had an excessive interest in the children who visited the park and was frequently seen talking to boys and girls in secluded areas. The investigation also revealed that Carlos Alberto had been quietly removed from his position at the park in 1992, following complaints from parents about his inappropriate behavior with children. Although he was never formally charged with crimes, there were internal records indicating that he had been observed trying to lure children into restricted areas of the park on at least three separate occasions.

During a review of the original case files, investigators discovered that Carlos Alberto had been briefly interviewed in 1990, but was not considered a suspect at the time because he had an apparently solid alibi. Other employees confirmed that he was working in a different area of ​​the park at the time the twins disappeared. But the new investigation revealed that this alibi had been fabricated. Carlos Alberto had asked colleagues to lie about his location on November 11, 1990, claiming he had personal problems he needed to resolve. His colleagues, unaware of his true intentions, agreed to cover up his temporary absence from work.

A more thorough analysis of the records also showed that Carlos Alberto possessed the key to the maintenance area where the twins were found. As the employee responsible for cleaning that section of the park, he had unrestricted access to the location and knew when it was deserted. He had used this privileged position to commit the crime and hide the bodies. Although Carlos Alberto could no longer be tried due to his death, the investigation managed to completely reconstruct what had happened to Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina.

On November 11, 1990, he approached the twins near the public restrooms, likely offering them candy or toys to lure them into the restricted area. Once in the maintenance area, Carlos Alberto kept the girls locked in the abandoned shed for several hours. Forensic evidence suggested he had planned the crime in advance, preparing a grave on the site that would be covered with concrete during scheduled renovations the week following their disappearance.

For Maria Helena Santos, now 71, finally knowing the truth brought a mixture of relief and renewed pain. She said in an interview that she always knew the girls were dead, but couldn’t accept it without certainty. The funeral of Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina took place at the Campo da Esperança cemetery in Brasília, 33 years after their deaths.

The discovery of the twins’ bodies led to the creation of new security protocols in public parks throughout Brazil. Today, there is constant supervision of employees working near areas frequented by children, and rigorous criminal background checks are mandatory for anyone employed in public recreation areas. The City Park created a memorial in honor of Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina in the area near the playground where they last played. The memorial includes two special swings that remain permanently empty, symbolizing the eternal absence of the twins who were stolen from their families and society by a predator.

Antônio Carlos Pereira, the caretaker who found the bodies, has become a respected figure in the Brasília community. He said he would continue working at the park, but now with the certainty that he helped bring justice and peace to a family that suffered for more than three decades. “They can finally rest in peace,” he stated.

The case of the Santos twins changed Brazilian legislation regarding the investigation of missing children. Today, there is the “Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina Protocol,” which establishes specific procedures for intensive searches in the first 48 hours after a disappearance, recognizing that this period is crucial for saving lives.

The area where the bodies were found has been transformed into a memorial garden, where parents can take their children to play safely, while remembering the importance of protecting our children. Educational signs scattered throughout the garden teach about child safety and warn about the signs of predatory behavior.

Today, more than 33 years after that Sunday that should have been one of pure joy, the story of Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina Santos serves as a painful reminder of the dangers that can threaten our children, even in the places we consider safest. But their memory also inspires constant vigilance and active protection of all children. The twins’ legacy lives on not only in the eternal grief of their mother, but mainly in the children who are protected daily by the safety protocols that their deaths helped to establish. Every child who plays safely in Brazilian public parks is, in a way, protected by the memory of Ana Beatriz and Ana Carolina.

The terrible truth about the twins’ disappearance teaches us that we must always be alert to warning signs and never let our guard down when it comes to our children’s safety. But it also shows us that, even in the most devastating tragedies, the truth ultimately prevails, bringing at least some measure of peace to broken hearts. If you enjoyed this true story that reminds us of the importance of protecting our children and never giving up the search for the truth, like the video, subscribe to the channel, and turn on notifications. Tell us in the comments: do you think cases like this help make our society more vigilant in protecting children? Sometimes, it is through the most painful tragedies that we learn the most important lessons about how to protect those we love most.