A community is in shock today after a landlord beset by money problems allegedly gunned down a 20-year-old tenant, all because of a benefits cheque for €180.
The cheque was in the name of young fisherman António Ribeiro – but for reasons still unclear, it was received in the house of his landlord Vítor “Toureiro” (Bullfighter), 65, in nearby Porto Brandão.
The young man is understood to have asked for the cheque, at which point the so-called “Toureiro” told him to “go away or I will kill you”.
Describing the youngster’s last moments, Correio da Manhã claims “Toureiro” then went inside to get his shotgun, returning “without saying a word” to shoot his tenant squarely in the chest.
“The boy didn’t stand a chance,” traumatised neighbour Ilda Lourenço told CM: “When I got to him, his eyes were already turning upwards. I could see he wasn’t going to survive.”
The horrific incident was apparently prompted by the landlord’s desperate financial situation.
“He was completely at a loss,” Lourenço told the paper. “The Finanças (tax department) had taken almost everything from him because of debts. Houses, cars…”
But Lourenço also described the landlord as “wicked”.
Tragically, the dead young man had previously called the GNR for help over retrieving his benefits cheque.
“They (the police) only arrived when he was already sprawled out on the ground,” another neighbour told CM, which wrote that after the shooting the landlord went back into his house and waited for police to arrive.
Vítor Toureiro is described as justifying his attack, saying Ribeiro threatened him with an iron bar and tried to get into his house.
But as CM concludes, witness reports discount this, saying the young fisherman was simply “seated outside the door”.
Ribeiro is further described as a young man who was thrown out of his own home by his parents six years ago.
He had been making a living selling fish that he caught, while his girlfriend cleaned and cooked for the man who is now facing charges for Ribeiro’s murder.
