Skip to main content

Sabrina Bittencourt

Brazilian activist who brought down faith healer and serial rapist João de Deus, exposed his alleged baby trafficking operation, fled Brazil under death threats, and was found dead in Barcelona in February 2019 — with her son publicly declaring "They killed my mother."

FieldDetails
Full NameSabrina Botella de Campos (known as Sabrina Bittencourt)
BornDecember 24, 1980, São Paulo, Brazil
DiedFebruary 2, 2019 (disputed — see Circumstances)
Age at Death38
Location of DeathReported as Barcelona, Spain; her son later stated Lebanon
Cause of DeathReported suicide
Official RulingSuicide — but no death certificate, body, or burial has been publicly confirmed
CategoryJournalist / Investigator

Assessment: HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS​

Sabrina Bittencourt died under conditions that cannot be independently verified. No death certificate, body, burial record, or official documentation of her death has ever been publicly produced. Her son's Facebook statement — "They killed my mother" — explicitly named others as responsible. The day before her death, she sent a WhatsApp message to a journalist saying she was being persecuted by a man named Paulo Pavesi and that a guide from João de Deus's compound had "marked several professional killers" to locate her. She died within weeks of releasing her most explosive allegations — that João de Deus was running baby farms where captive girls were forced to give birth, and the babies were sold internationally for up to $50,000 each. The man she helped bring down had publicly received Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Marina Abramovic as visitors to his compound. The combination of active death threats, complete absence of verifiable death records, conflicting accounts of where she died, and her son's direct accusation elevates this case well beyond a routine suicide.

Circumstances of Death​

On February 2, 2019, at approximately 9:00 PM, reports emerged that Sabrina Bittencourt had died in Barcelona, Spain, where she had been living under protection following death threats from Brazil. The support organization Vítimas Unidas (Victims United), which had collaborated with her investigation, announced that she had committed suicide and left a farewell letter.

The Death Cannot Be Independently Verified​

Journalists and researchers attempting to verify the death immediately ran into a wall of contradictions and absences:

  • No death certificate has ever been publicly produced or confirmed by any government authority.
  • No body has been publicly documented, photographed, or confirmed by any independent party.
  • No funeral or burial has been publicly documented.
  • No Brazilian Foreign Ministry documentation: Brazilian diplomatic officials reportedly confirmed that no documents or body transfer requests for anyone named Sabrina Bittencourt were ever submitted to the Foreign Ministry — a standard requirement when a Brazilian national dies abroad.
  • Contradictory death locations: Initial reports stated she died in Barcelona. Her son Gabriel Baum later stated she died in Lebanon. No explanation for this discrepancy was ever provided by any party.
  • Theory of faked death: Multiple Brazilian journalists and some people close to Bittencourt floated the theory that she had not died at all but had staged her own death and entered deeper hiding under a new identity. Her first husband reportedly stated he suspected she was alive with their son in an unknown location.

The Columbia Journalism Review published an analysis in February 2019 specifically noting the difficulty in verifying any basic facts about her death, flagging it as a genuine coverage controversy.

Her Final Days: Active Death Threats​

The day before her reported death, Bittencourt sent a WhatsApp message to journalist Gilberto Dimenstein describing specific, active threats against her life:

  • She named Paulo Pavesi — a Brazilian man living in London who had conducted a campaign of YouTube videos and Facebook posts attacking her credibility and allegations — as "obsessed with me" and stated she was "being persecuted by this man."
  • More critically, she stated that a guide working at Casa Dom Inácio de Loyola (João de Deus's compound) had "marked several of João de Deus's professional murderers" and tasked them with locating her.
  • She expressed terror that the address where her children were living had been discovered.

This message was delivered to a journalist the day before her reported death. It establishes a documented, specific, named threat against her life.

Some posts circulating on X in 2025–2026 also cite claims that she wrote the phrase "I am unstoppable" just days before her reported death. No primary source for this message has been independently verified, and it does not appear in major press coverage of the case.

Her Final Public Words​

Her final Facebook post referenced Marielle Franco, a Brazilian activist who had been assassinated in March 2018:

"Marielle, I join you. I did what I could, as far as I could. My eternal love will be for all of you. Sorry for not being able to bear it, my children. YOU WILL HAVE THOUSANDS OF MOTHERS IN THE WHOLE WORLD."

Whether this was a genuine goodbye or a message intended to create the appearance of a voluntary death remains disputed.

Her Son's Statement​

Gabriel Baum, Bittencourt's eldest son, wrote on Facebook in the immediate aftermath:

"She took the last step so that we could live. They killed my mother."

The phrase "they killed my mother" is unambiguous. He did not describe a suicide — he described a killing. His qualifier "so that we could live" suggests he believed her death, whether voluntary or forced, was connected to the threats against her family.

Background​

Early Life Marked by Violence​

Sabrina Botella de Campos was born December 24, 1980, in São Paulo, Brazil, into a family with Uruguayan and Spanish immigrant roots. Her family belonged to the Mormon (Latter-day Saints) community. By her own account, she was a victim of sexual abuse starting at age 4, perpetrated by two members of her family within the church community. When she reported the abuse to Mormon church leadership, the institution was silent and she was subjected to retaliation within the community — treated as impure. At 16, she was raped by a stranger in Recife and suffered a miscarriage. The LDS church's failure to protect her ended her relationship with the institution.

This history of abuse by a trusted religious community, and the institutional silence that protected the abuser, directly shaped her life's work. She became determined to tear down the shield that religious authority provides to predators.

Twenty Years of Social Activism​

Over more than two decades, Bittencourt became a mother of three children from two marriages and co-created more than 30 decentralized social ventures across four continents, focused on gender violence, women's rights, missing children in Brazil, youth health, and children with disabilities in African countries.

Founding COAME​

She founded COAME (Combate ao Abuso no Meio Espiritual — Combat Against Abuse in Spiritual Environments), an organization specifically designed to aggregate and document reports of sexual violation by priests, pastors, gurus, and spiritual leaders. Within one month of launching COAME's intake process, she received 103 reports from women across Brazil and other countries regarding 13 different spiritual leaders. The scale of the response validated her insight: religious authority was a systematic protection mechanism for predators, and no single outlet existed to collect evidence across multiple cases.

Bringing Down João de Deus​

In August 2018, while already working on sexual abuse allegations against another spiritual leader — Sri Prem Baba — Bittencourt began receiving messages from women who alleged abuse by João Teixeira de Faria, known worldwide as "João de Deus" or "John of God."

João de Deus operated the Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola in the small town of Abadiânia, Brazil, attracting a global following by claiming to perform spiritual healing, psychic surgery, and miraculous cures. Thousands of people with serious illnesses traveled to Abadiânia from around the world seeking healing. His operation was one of the most successful spiritual authority enterprises in the world.

Bittencourt methodically built a network of alliances with victims and collaborated with the organization Vítimas Unidas to gather, document, and present the cases. Her organizational work was instrumental in catalyzing more than 600 women to come forward. In December 2018, João de Deus was arrested. Her face appeared on the cover of a major Brazilian national magazine as the woman who had brought him down.

The Baby Farm Allegations — Her Most Explosive Claim​

In January 2019 — weeks before her death — Bittencourt appeared in a six-minute video that went viral worldwide. In it, she alleged that João de Deus had operated a decades-long human trafficking operation entirely separate from but connected to his sexual abuse of adult patients:

  • Young impoverished girls were allegedly recruited to remote farms under false pretenses, then held captive as sexual slaves and forced breeders.
  • These girls were forced to give birth repeatedly over approximately 10 years.
  • The babies were allegedly sold on a worldwide black market to childless couples in the United States, Australia, and European countries for between $19,600 and $52,250 per child.
  • According to Bittencourt, her organization had spoken to couples on three different continents who claimed they had purchased babies from João de Deus's network.
  • After approximately 10 years of forced births, the mothers were allegedly killed.

Brazilian public prosecutors opened a formal investigation based on Bittencourt's accounts. She died — or disappeared — within weeks of the video's release.

The Claimed Connection to Child Trafficking​

The João de Deus case sits at a documented intersection of spiritual authority, sexual exploitation, and alleged infant trafficking. The key documented and alleged elements:

  • Sexual abuse of 600+ women — Convicted. More than 600 women formally accused João de Deus of rape and sexual violation during his spiritual "treatments." This is not disputed.
  • Baby farm allegations — Alleged by Bittencourt, investigated by Brazilian prosecutors. Physical evidence has not been publicly confirmed. Bittencourt stated she had direct testimony from buyers on three continents.
  • International sale network — Alleged by Bittencourt. US, Australian, and European couples allegedly paid up to $52,250 per child.
  • Death of mothers — Alleged by Bittencourt. No physical evidence publicly confirmed.

As of 2023, João de Deus's cumulative criminal sentences totaled approximately 489 years and 4 months in prison, with a single 99-year sentence handed down in July 2023. He is imprisoned at the Aparecida de Goiania Complex in Brazil.

Reference in the Epstein Files​

Discussions on X circulating in 2025–2026 noted that Sabrina Bittencourt's baby farm accusations were referenced in documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case — specifically, an email reportedly citing a Daily Mail or Sun article about her and the João de Deus allegations. X posts also circulated unverified speculation connecting similar forced-birth and infant-trafficking operations to Epstein's Zorro Ranch property in New Mexico. No court documents, official investigations, or declassified records have confirmed any direct operational link between João de Deus's alleged network and Epstein's organization. These claims remain unverified. They are documented here because they represent the dominant narrative on X as of 2025–2026 and because the structural overlap — captive women, infant trafficking, international buyers, powerful patrons — is what drives the comparison.

Celebrity and Elite Connections to João de Deus​

João de Deus's operation attracted extraordinary attention from globally recognized figures. His celebrity endorsers provided credibility that shielded him from scrutiny for decades:

  • Oprah Winfrey visited Brazil and filmed an episode of her show Oprah's Next Chapter dedicated to João de Deus on March 17, 2013, presenting him to American audiences as a genuine miracle worker. After the allegations became public in 2018, Winfrey deleted the interview from her site and issued a statement.
  • Bill Clinton is reported to have visited João de Deus at Abadiânia. The healer's own website stated he had "treated" the former U.S. President, though the specific circumstances have not been independently confirmed.
  • Marina Abramovic, the performance artist, visited João de Deus in 2012 seeking spiritual and physical healing. Her visit was documented in the 2016 documentary Marina Abramovic in Brazil: The Space In Between, directed by Marco Del Fiol.
  • Naomi Campbell is among the prominent figures reported to have visited his compound.

The involvement of these figures raises a central question: when Bittencourt escalated from sex abuse allegations to baby trafficking allegations, did she move into territory capable of implicating or deeply embarrassing some of the most powerful people in the world?

Why This Death Raises Questions​

  • Active, documented, named death threats the day before: She sent a WhatsApp message to journalist Gilberto Dimenstein on February 1, 2019 — the day before her reported death — specifically naming Paulo Pavesi as her persecutor and alleging that cult operatives had "marked professional killers" to find her. This is documented evidence of active, named threats on her life.
  • No verifiable death record of any kind: No death certificate, no body, no autopsy, no Brazilian Foreign Ministry documentation of a citizen dying abroad, no burial — across two different claimed death locations (Spain and Lebanon).
  • Son explicitly said "they killed my mother": Not "she died." Not "she took her own life." "They killed my mother." His own words, published publicly.
  • Timing: Days after releasing her most explosive allegations — the baby farm video implicating an international trafficking network with buyers on three continents.
  • She was already in hiding under active protection: She had left Brazil specifically because of death threats. Protection was already in place. The threats found her anyway — or something else happened.
  • Contradictory death locations with no explanation: Spain vs. Lebanon. Her own son gave a different country than the initial reports, and no one ever explained the discrepancy.
  • Theory of a faked death: People close to her — including her first husband — openly speculated she staged her death. This is unusual. It means even those closest to her did not accept the death as a simple suicide.
  • Institutional pattern: She fits the documented pattern of investigators who expose elite-connected child trafficking networks dying or disappearing under disputed circumstances: Monica Petersen, Jenny Moore, Nancy Schaefer, Isaac Kappy, Tracy Twyman, Ted Gunderson.
  • Celebrity protection shield: João de Deus's connections to Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Marina Abramovic meant that a full, public investigation into his baby trafficking operation could implicate extremely powerful people. Bittencourt was the primary source driving that investigation.
  • American media blackout: Despite the global significance of the João de Deus case, Bittencourt's death received near-zero coverage in major American outlets.
  • Referenced in Epstein documents: X posts circulating in 2025–2026 noted that her baby farm accusations appeared in an email within the Epstein document releases, citing media coverage of her case. Whether that reference reflects an investigative overlap or routine news monitoring cannot be confirmed from currently available records.

The Counterargument​

The official account — that Bittencourt took her own life after years of trauma, death threats, and the psychological weight of her activism — is not implausible on its face. She had a documented history of personal trauma stretching back to childhood abuse. Her farewell Facebook post referenced exhaustion and an inability to bear the weight of what she was carrying. She had been living in hiding, separated from her support network in Brazil, under circumstances of extreme stress. Paulo Pavesi, while named by Bittencourt as a persecutor, reportedly denied any role in her death and stated publicly he would petition the Federal Police to investigate her "supposed suicide." The theory that she faked her death, while held by some close associates, has never been confirmed and adds to the confusion without resolving it.

The absence of verifiable death documentation could, in theory, reflect administrative gaps in cross-border death reporting, a wish for privacy by surviving family, or a genuine faked death by a woman choosing to disappear rather than a murder cover-up.

Key Quotes​

"She took the last step so that we could live. They killed my mother." — Gabriel Baum, Sabrina Bittencourt's eldest son, Facebook post, February 2019

"Marielle, I join you. I did what I could, as far as I could. My eternal love will be for all of you. Sorry for not being able to bear it, my children. YOU WILL HAVE THOUSANDS OF MOTHERS IN THE WHOLE WORLD." — Sabrina Bittencourt, final Facebook post, February 2, 2019

"The precise circumstances around Bittencourt's suicide remained mysterious — had she taken her own life in Spain, according to initial reports, or in Lebanon, as her son later declared? Was there a death certificate?" — Columbia Journalism Review, February 2019

"I'm being persecuted by this man named Paulo Pavesi." — Sabrina Bittencourt, WhatsApp message to journalist Gilberto Dimenstein, day before her reported death

"In John's 'baby farm' teenage sex slaves were made to produce children for 10 years, before being killed. My organization has spoken to couples on three different continents who have claimed that they bought babies from John for as much as $50,000." — Sabrina Bittencourt, viral six-minute video, January 2019

See Also​

  • Nancy Schaefer — Georgia state senator who investigated CPS child trafficking and was found shot dead alongside her husband in 2010
  • Monica Petersen — Trafficking researcher who died in Haiti while investigating connections to the Clinton Foundation and a trafficking network
  • Jenny Moore — Independent journalist investigating child trafficking; found dead in a DC hotel room in August 2018
  • Ted Gunderson — Former FBI Special Agent in Charge who spent 20 years investigating elite trafficking networks; died 2011
  • Isaac Kappy — Actor who publicly named Hollywood pedophiles; fell from a bridge in Arizona, May 2019
  • Tracy Twyman — Researcher who continued Kappy's investigative work; found hanged in her garage, July 2019
  • Natacha Jaitt — Argentine model who named entertainment executives as pedophiles, died before her trial
  • Anthony Bourdain — Celebrity chef who named powerful abusers publicly; died by alleged hanging three months after Bittencourt

Other Shocking Stories​

  • Natacha Jaitt: Argentine model publicly named entertainers as pedophiles. Said "I will not commit suicide." Found dead at a party.
  • Nancy Schaefer: State senator investigating child trafficking. Found shot dead alongside her husband. Ruled murder-suicide.
  • Monica Petersen: Trafficking researcher in Haiti died at 32. Colleagues publicly disputed the suicide ruling.
  • Isaac Kappy: Actor named Hollywood pedophiles on social media. Fell from a bridge weeks later.

Sources​

This information was built by Grok and Claude AI research.

Last updated on