 On a Halloween night of 2002, the Von Richtofen couple were peacefully asleep in their bedroom. But in the middle of the night, a trio of criminals broke into the family's home and ambushed them with metal rods, ending their lives instantly. This heinous crime made headlines around the world, and investigators originally believed it was a case of larceny. But just a few days later, detectives announced they'd arrested a suspect that no one would have ever expected. The Von Richtofen family were anything but ordinary. They were residing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, making a great name for themselves in the late 90s and early 2000s. To be straight with you, these guys had mountains of money, with their multiple bank accounts each seemingly bursting at the seams. The head of the household, Manfred, was a lead director for Derse, a state-owned company that manages the highway systems in Sao Paulo, where the family had lived for most of their lives. He had a very high-paying job and was in charge of some of the most expensive highway projects in the area. Mauricia, the mother of the family, was a psychiatrist who seems to have been doing great in her career as well. The family's two children, Suzanne and Andreas, were also doing great in life. Suzanne had graduated from a German high school when she was younger, but she was now studying law in Sao Paulo when she returned back to her home country. Not too much is known about Andreas outside of the fact that he was just a bit younger than Suzanne. We know that he had an interest in model planes at a fairly young age, leading him to take lessons and flying them. He partnered with a local instructor named Daniel. Suzanne would often tag along with their brother to these lessons, but it would soon be revealed that she wasn't doing this because she, too, had an interest in planes. Instead, her interest was in the young man teaching the course, Daniel. The two met in 1999, and Daniel and Suzanne quickly began a romantic relationship. The two were seemingly attached at the hip, and they even began taking jiu-jitsu classes together. Overall, things were going great for the family, or so it may seem on the surface. Remember how I told you that the family was absolutely loaded? Well, they were, but not officially. As far as financial records show, the family was only worth around a million dollars, though some reports claim that this number may have been as much as 17 million. While that's certainly a lot of money, it's not enough to keep up with the family's lifestyle. After a careful investigation, police would learn years later that Manfred had been hiding overseas bank accounts, particularly in Sweden. We know that he set up at least two accounts for his daughter's inheritance, which she was scheduled to receive when she graduated college. But how many of these accounts were strictly for their own personal use remains unknown. But considering his daughter's two accounts were worth more than 10 million pounds each, well, it's safe to say he probably had quite a nest egg stashed overseas. To add insult to injury, this money wasn't even received legally. Investigators would uncover that he'd been embezzling large amounts of money from highway construction projects. He would report to the state that a project would cost, say, 10 million dollars. But in reality, he may have only spent around 5 million on the job. Using various methods, he would bounce the money around until it eventually landed in his own overseas account, virtually untraceable. Repeat this process a few dozen times over the years and you'll end up with a decent pile of money after a while, even though your tax returns may only claim that you made a few hundred thousand, officially speaking. Needless to say, the family members were no strangers to crime. Their lives were almost entirely funded by theft and lies, but love it or hate it, it's who they were. Because fate would have it, once rumors around town started to spread about how much this family was really worth, everyone wanted a piece of the pie. Some people were even willing to go to great lengths to get it, even if it meant prying it from the hands of those who stole it in the first place. Suzanne was a deeply troubled kid. While she may have seemed rather normal from the outside, her parents knew that something was unique about her that didn't sit well with them. For example, she always seemed rather self-entitled. Not only was she entitled, she was truly selfish according to some that knew her. It seems like she didn't care much about the people she hurt, she purely wanted to get what she felt she was owed and move on with her life. Suzanne was just 16 years old when she first began dating her boyfriend, Daniel. Daniel came from a very poor family, but to Suzanne that didn't matter. No one really knows what Suzanne saw in Daniel, but she grew to admire him in ways that only a young teenager could. The pair soon began spending every minute of every day together, meeting up after Suzanne's studies and after Daniel's long days at work. As the relationship continued to grow, Suzanne decided that she wanted to move in with Daniel. This led her to ask her father to buy the two their own apartment so that they could begin their lives together. Suzanne's father, a very wise man, didn't approve of her relationship and more or less laughed at the idea of her asking him to spend his own money so his teenage daughter could move in with someone that he believed to be a lowlife. To be honest, it's kind of hard to blame the guy. Now, I don't know what kind of background you may have, but where I come from, if you want to move out, you work, make money and buy a place of your own, not ask your parents to buy you an apartment. This just shows the mindset of Suzanne and the crazy links she was willing to go to in order to get what she wanted. But while Suzanne's father may have been stern and somewhat old fashioned, he also wanted to make sure that his children were taken care of. This led him to set up a trust fund for Suzanne and presumably for her brother as well. Suzanne was specifically entitled to around 20 million pounds, like we mentioned a moment ago, but she would only receive this once she graduated college. He revealed this to Suzanne at some point around the time that she asked for an apartment, as far as I can tell. But Suzanne, being selfish, unemployed, and I'll say it, lazy, didn't want to finish school. She wanted what she felt was rightfully hers, and she wanted it now. Luckily for Suzanne, she was about to get her wish, but not on the way that anyone would have expected. It was Halloween night of 2002. Suzanne had snuck out of the family home around 9 PM that evening, quietly disabling the home's alarm system as she did so. According to her interviews with investigators, she snuck out so that she could be with her boyfriend at a nearby motel for the evening without her parents ever finding out. When she arrived back at the family home around 4 AM, she noticed that the home was eerily quiet. Not only this, but something didn't feel right. She soon began to notice that several items were out of place. Papers had been strewn across the floor and all around her father's library. But as she made her way towards her parents' bedroom, she was chilled to the bone when she uncovered a crime scene of disastrous proportions. While she was gone, someone had broken into the family's home without leaving a single trace behind. They had ransacked her parents' bedroom and, worse yet, had taken both of their lives. The home was a total mess. The scene of the crime was nauseating to say the least, but worst of all, no one had witnessed anything. The home's alarm system never went off as Suzanne had obviously disabled it to sneak out with her boyfriend. The perpetrators had broken in, stolen whatever they could find that had any sort of value and then crept away into the night without leaving even the tiniest shred of evidence behind. When investigators arrived later that morning, they began collecting whatever clues they could and tried their best to piece together what had taken place here. But the problem was nothing made any sense. They weren't able to find any point of entry for the burglars, meaning they likely had a key or the home had been left unlocked. Considering the net worth of the family, it's almost certain the door was not in fact left unlocked. Key and I detectives also noticed that papers were found all throughout the home, but these papers weren't in random piles, nor were they tossed around half-hazardly. It seemed as though they had been evenly spread all throughout the home with the layout seeming intentional as if someone was trying to stage the scene of the crime. To put it more plainly, the home looked like a crime scene that you would see in a movie or a TV show, not what you would expect from a real-world crime. But the most disturbing detail of all came when detectives began to interview Suzanne and her brother about what may have taken place that night. Throughout the interview, Suzanne seemed cold and distant. This could easily have been explained as her being in shock by the sudden loss of her family, but that just didn't seem to be the case. Just the day after the crime, Suzanne was spotted by officers hanging out with her boyfriend in the family's swimming pool, laughing and having a great time. It was as if nothing had ever even happened. Just a couple of days after this, her parents were buried. That same afternoon, she went out with a bunch of her friends and threw a party for her 19th birthday. This wasn't a girl who was masking her grief with alcohol and friends. This was a girl who by all means couldn't have cared less that her parents were gone. It was extremely out of character and downright weird. For investigators, this proved that Suzanne had been up to something, but what was it? Following Suzanne's remarkably strange behavior, police began to trail her and her boyfriend. It should be noted at this point, Suzanne had been given free reign of her family's finances as far as I can tell. Since her brother was still underage, it seemed as though this 19-year-old girl had millions of dollars and was able to freely spend it however she wanted. She no longer needed her trust fund, nor did she need to finish school. Now, while this would be a great thing to learn at such a young age, it doesn't negate the fact that her parents were now gone. For any normal person, the money wouldn't matter. The grief would overshadow any joy that may have come with being a son and millionaire, but for Suzanne, there was nothing but happiness. As police tailed both Suzanne and her boyfriend, they noticed her boyfriend's brother had recently purchased an incredibly expensive motorcycle. While this wasn't particularly concerning, what made it suspicious was the fact that such a young boy was able to pay for the bike using cash, no financing required. Mind you, he had come from an incredibly poor family. This was the final straw for investigators. They knew that this young man had ties to Suzanne's family. They also knew that large amounts of cash were stolen from the family's home just a few days prior. For police, this was all the information they needed to justify arresting the young man and bringing him in for questioning. Now, we don't know for sure what went down during this young man's interrogation. All we know for sure is that no sooner than he was taken in, Suzanne and Daniel were arrested as well. Police didn't know much for certain, but they knew that something wasn't right. But thankfully, it seems as though they had all the information they needed because within a matter of hours, all three of the kids began to reveal the truth about what had happened that night. And it was unlike anything friends or family would have ever expected. After speaking with both Daniel and his younger brother, Suzanne realized that her hands were tied. Police knew that something was up and they knew that she was involved somehow. This is what led her to finally reveal what truly happened on Halloween night. As it would turn out, Suzanne knew exactly who had killed her family because she was a witness. Suzanne was deeply upset by her father's dismissal of her request to buy an apartment with her boyfriend, so much so that she was willing to go to any lengths to get what she wanted. Her selfish desires couldn't be contained no matter the cost. So as time passed by, Suzanne had concocted a plan to take full control of her family's estate, but she'd need the help of her boyfriend in order to do it. She told her boyfriend that she had hatched a plan that would make both of them rich. She promised to cut her boyfriend in on the deal, provided he helped make her dreams a reality. Her boyfriend agreed, but he wanted to bring his younger brother into the agreement as well as he would need an accomplice to make sure that the plan went through without a hitch. So remember how Suzanne claimed that she had snuck out of the family home that night to spend the evening with her boyfriend in a motel? Well, that was only partially true. During the interrogation, police were able to uncover that Suzanne had been working on a plan to end her parents' lives for several months. She'd come up with the idea for her boyfriend and younger brother to sneak into the home after dark, take the lives of her parents, and then flee the scene. So on the evening of Halloween, Suzanne waited around until her parents were asleep. She then quietly disarmed the home security system, then let her boyfriend and his brother inside. The brothers ran upstairs and ambushed the couple as they slept, attacking them with metal rods and wrapping plastic bags around them. All the while, Suzanne waited just outside of reach, quietly anticipating her boyfriend's signal to let her know that the deed had been done. After this, the three of them ransacked the family home and left everything in disarray, simulating a burglary. Immediately afterward, Suzanne and Daniel fled the scene and spent the rest of the night in a motel. Daniel's brother then ran off to play video games at an internet cafe. By around 4 a.m., Suzanne returned home and pretended to discover the crime scene, with police being called soon after. Needless to say, all three of these perpetrators were tried and found guilty, with Suzanne being given 40 years behind bars. But here's the crazy thing, she didn't even have to serve half of her sentence. By 2018, Suzanne was eligible for parole. She applied for release, but the justice system decided that she'd shown no signs of improvement. They cited her egocentrism and narcissistic personality disorder as the reasons for their decision. They believe that both of these traits are what led her to commit the crime in the first place, so they didn't feel that she was suitable for release. But over the next five years, it seemed that all of that changed, allegedly of course. Suzanne would spend just 16 years of a 40 year sentence behind bars. She applied for parole once again in 2023, and on January 11th, she was released. She's now operating a sewing studio in Sao Paulo, essentially starting her life over again at the age of 39. If it's not criminal enough that she was released after just 16 years, get this, she's also entitled to the 20 million pounds that her father left behind for her in those overseas bank accounts. While the rest of her family's assets appear to have been seized, her inheritance is still up for grabs. Provided she finishes her schooling, which allegedly she had been doing behind bars. As far as I can tell, the only other thing she did behind bars was get married, twice. She married a woman named Sandra back in 2014, but they got divorced in 2015. By 2017, she had married again, but then divorced again in 2020. As it stands, Suzanne appears to be a free woman. Her studio is doing great and her life is all around pretty good. While this may have been a happy ending for Suzanne, if you ask me, it's a complete miscarriage of justice. Suzanne should have been locked up for the rest of her life, but instead she served a mere 16 years while her parents were forced to give up the rest of their lives for her greed. This is a tragedy in every sense of the word for multiple reasons, but unfortunately, that's just the way it is. Sometimes the bad guy wins. Thank you guys for tuning into another episode of True Crime Stories. If you wanna see more true crime documentaries like this, be sure to hit the like button and subscribe. If you'd like to help support the channel, the best way you can do that is simply by leaving a comment below, any comment at all. It helps out the channel way more than you may realize. If you wanna help out financially, you can do that by clicking the blue join button below or by picking up a True Crime Stories mug from Tynauts.com. But with that, my name is Tynauts and I'll catch you guys in the next video.