Marielle Franco, a member of the Rio de Janeiro city council and noted human rights activist, was shot and killed on March 14, 2018, while in her car returning from a round-table meeting she attended. Franco, 38, and her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, were shot by two men in another car who fired nine shots into Franco’s vehicle. Four of the shots hit Franco, three in the head and one in the neck.
It was determined that all of the shots had been aimed at Franco in an assassination attempt. It was also discovered all of the bullets were purchased by the federal police in Brasilia in 2006. In 2019, two men were arrested as suspects in the killing. Both men had ties to a son of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. Brazilian media outlets reported police were investigating a link between one of Bolsonaro’s other sons and the killing, which officially remains unsolved.