Report: New arrest in 2005 murder of Sister Dorothy Stang

Missionary sister Dorothy Stang prepares to enter the Para legislative offices in Belem, northern Brazil, in 2004. Stang was shot to death in the town of Anapu in 2005. (AP Photo/Carlos Silva)

Missionary sister Dorothy Stang prepares to enter the Para legislative offices in Belem, northern Brazil, in 2004. Stang was shot to death in the town of Anapu in 2005. (AP Photo/Carlos Silva)
Crime & Law
By
April 27, 2020
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Brazilian military police say another suspect has been arrested in connection with the 2005 murder of Dayton native Sister Dorothy Stang, according to the French Catholic newspaper LaCroix International.

The newspaper said the man, whose name was not disclosed, was arrested with false identification near Sao Paulo, nearly 2,000 miles from Anapu in northern Brazil, where Stang was killed.

RELATED: The full story of Dorothy Stang’s life and death

Stang, who attended Julienne High School in Dayton before becoming a nun, worked for nearly 40 years in Brazil. She helped poor farmers in the Amazon rainforest with ecological issues and defended them in tense, sometimes violent land disputes with wealthy ranchers.

Over a span of several years after Stang’s death, two ranchers were convicted of ordering Stang’s murder and two gunmen were convicted of carrying it out. There have been numerous appeals and retrials in the years since.

VIDEO: A visual look at the life of Dorothy Stang

According to LaCroix, the new arrest comes as Brazil’s Pastoral Land Commission reported a 14% increase in murders linked to land conflicts in the Brazilian countryside.

Stang was born in Dayton in 1931, the fourth of nine children in a Harrison Twp. family. She attended Julienne then entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, taking final vows in 1956. She taught elementary school in Illinois and Arizona before going to Brazil in 1966.

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Jeremy Kelley is the assistant news editor for the Dayton Daily News. Jeremy is a Cincinnati native and has lived in the Dayton area for 30-plus years.