A trans-identified male in Portugal has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the brutal killing of his father and attempted murder of his mother in what was described in court as a “psychotic” episode.
Tânia Ferrinho, 43, violently stabbed his bedridden mother before turning on his father in a horrific incident that occurred last fall in Samora Correia. The court heard how Ferrinho’s elderly parents, Carlos and Maria, both 77 years old, had suffered numerous instances of violence at the hands of their son, and had already taken out a court order banning him from approaching them leading up to the stabbings.
On October 10, 2022, Ferrinho engaged in an argument over finances with his parents. Ferrinho reportedly had never worked or held down a stable job and was living at home dependent on his aging parent’s resources. On the day of the crime, he had demanded an allowance which his parents refused to provide.
Shortly after, the National Republican Guard (GNR) visited the family’s home to inform Ferrinho that another case was being filed against him for abuse of his parents at the Benavente Court. Ferrinho was already on probation for a 2021 double conviction of aggravated physical assault against his elderly parents, reported Rede Regional.
Just after law enforcement left the premises, Ferrinho entered his mother’s room, where she was confined to her bed due to poor health, and began attacking her with a knife. Leaving her to die, he then began slashing his 77 year-old father repeatedly, chasing him outside to the apartment building’s hallway, where the elderly man fell to the ground. Carlos Ferrinho died of his injuries in December while being treated at the Vila Franca de Xira Hospital.
A recording of Ferrinho’s assault on his father, taken by neighbor who intervened, was presented to the court during proceedings. In the recording, Carlos could be heard saying that Ferrinho had killed his mother, which the court understood to indicate that he had attacked Cristina Maria first, a fact that had previously been unclear.
However, Ferrinho’s mother managed to survive her injuries, but died in the hospital three months later due to illness.
Commenting on the footage of Ferrinho stabbing his father, presiding judge Sónia Vicente expressed shock at both the brutality and the lack of remorse seen on the part of Ferrinho.
“I didn’t see any concern on your part about what was going on there,” said Vicente, who added that she was “impressed” by the level of cruelty on display.
“Your father was already bleeding very profusely and I didn’t see any concern on his part about what was happening, none,” said judge Vicente.
“The defendant knew well that [he] could cause death, a purpose [he] managed to achieve,” states the ruling, in which the court was told that Ferrinho, who was referred to with feminine pronouns, “knew what [he] was doing and did almost exactly what [he] wanted.”
During the trial, Ferrinho’s attorney, Maria João Alves, attempted to portray the assaults as a “psychotic episode,” a claim which the court ultimately rejected.
Ferrinho’s gender identity was also brought up during court proceedings. Alves, defending, argued that the killing occurred following a series of traumatic events, including his “gender change.”
Ana Gomes of the Public Prosecutor’s Office made an effort to rationalize the murder as being the result of “the inner conflict” presented by Ferrinho’s transgender identity. Gomes stated that there is “sensitivity to understanding the inner conflict of someone who, from a young age, does not identify with the gender they were born with.”
However, Gomes further added that “[he] did not show any remorse” for the crime, and asked for a sentence which considered the gravity of the offense.
Sources of the conflict between Ferrinho and his parents were said to have centered around his sex change procedures, which they disapproved of. Ferrinho began to identify as transgender in 2020, when he legally changed his name to Tânia.
Another significant source of tension related to finances. The Public Prosecutor’s Office told the court that the relationship was strained due to the “inertia of the defendant” in finding a job while using his parent’s income for “online shopping.”
Ferrinho’s case first became known to the wider public after media reported that female prison guards had refused to conduct strip searches on him during his detention in a women’s prison. Despite retaining a male sexual organ, Ferrinho demanded to be searched by women guards at the Tires Prison Establishment.
The women employed at the prison refused, because “the procedure involved biologically seeing a person of a different sex and seeing a penis,” said the president of the Association of Heads of the Guard Corps Prison, Hermínio Barradas.
After an hour, two female guards ultimately conducted the search “under protest.”
Portugal passed a law allowing sex self-identification in 2018, but Ferrinho’s case is said to be the first known instance of a clash between female prison staff and a violent trans-identified male inmate. Reports of the incident note that the guards “fear the arrival of new transgender inmates.”
Reports of Ferrinho’s conviction refer to him either as a “trans woman,” or in some cases, simply as a “woman,” and utilize the feminine tense and pronouns. It has yet to be reported whether Ferrinho will be incarcerated in a women’s correctional facility, but he was seen being escorted by female guards out of the courthouse following his sentencing.
The court ordered Ferrinho to 22 years in prison for the murder of his father and to 11 years and six months for the attempted murder of his mother. But because the sum of the two prison sentences exceeded the maximum prison sentence allowed in Portugal, Ferrinho was handed a single sentence of 25 years in prison.
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