Classification: Unverified account

The Curitiba morgue 'werewolf': Paraibinha and a 1977 lead

The mummy is real, but the man behind the legend almost vanished from later tellings. A Campo Largo newspaper report from 1977 changes the timeline and describes a fight, a survivor, and a witness the police still sought.

Curitiba, Paraná, Brasil · See stories from this place and nearby

The body displayed at the forensic museum

For decades, visitors to the museum of Curitiba's medico-legal institute encountered a figure identified by the nickname Paraibinha. Later reports portrayed him as a serial killer slain by a werewolf. Yet an issue of O Liberal, a Campo Largo newspaper dated 9 October 1977, tells another story, or at least preserves an account much closer to the events. The distance between the 1977 paper and the legend that followed is the focus of this dossier.

The 1977 report

The local article, headed 'A sickle fight in the dark', places the incident at a land-clearing operation on Fazenda Trombini, at Morro Grande near Três Córregos. It calls the dead man Paraibinha and says his name was believed to be José Paulo Vanderlei, from Patos in the state of Paraíba. The newspaper itself qualifies the identification; without a civil record or case file, it cannot be treated as certain. It names the other participant as Osvaldo Miguel Rodrigues, aged 21, from São João do Ivaí and in charge of the work at the farm.

The confrontation in the shack

According to that report, the two men quarrelled in a shack on the night of Saturday, 10 September 1977, after drinking. The paper says Paraibinha had a knife and wounded Osvaldo. Osvaldo reportedly separated the men, disarmed Paraibinha, and left the fight. At about 6:30 the next morning, according to the same published account, Paraibinha returned carrying a sickle to confront Osvaldo. During the struggle Osvaldo allegedly took the implement and struck him. The paper records eleven blows and says Osvaldo, himself injured, walked roughly seven kilometres to find transport to the Campo Largo police station.

What was still under investigation

Those details matter because the newspaper also records what remained unresolved: Osvaldo was sent into custody in Curitiba, police were searching for the weapon, and they sought a man identified only as João, a possible witness who could not then be found. This is a report on an investigation still under way, not an autopsy or a judicial finding. It does not establish self-defence, intentional homicide, or Paraibinha's responsibility for other crimes. The material found for this dossier also yielded no case file establishing how many victims, if any, could be attributed to him.

How memory changed the facts

Later published memory changed important points. In 1987, Correio de Notícias described the preserved body inside a glass case at the IML on Avenida Visconde de Guarapuava, but dated the death to 1975. In 2009, Folha de Londrina interviewed curator Joel Camargo, who gave 11 September 1977, a date consistent with the sequence in O Liberal. The 2009 report attributed the finding of sickle wounds to the IML without reproducing the forensic report. We do not know why the 1987 article placed the death two years earlier. The 1977 account is closer to the event, though it still needs comparison with original forensic and police records.

When the werewolf entered the story

The supernatural layer appears later in the sources examined. A 2014 text explicitly presented as a legend describes a young man called Paulo taking revenge, supposedly transformed into a werewolf after his family was killed. In 2018, Tribuna do Paraná reported that some people attributed Paraibinha's death to a furry creature. These are versions circulating in oral tradition and online; O Liberal's article describes a fight between identified men, with no creature or avenged family. We found no contemporary source documenting a werewolf's involvement. Nor can we determine when that part of the legend began to circulate.

The physical question of preservation

There is a material mystery behind the display case: how did the body remain recognisable? In 1987, museum specialist Geraldo Domahovski told Correio de Notícias that he used formaldehyde and other chemicals introduced through the jugular; drying, he said, took months. The article includes a photograph of the mummy and notes that visiting was restricted. The image documents an exhibit and its preservation, not the stories attributed to the man. Over the years the exhibit continued to appear in reporting and official descriptions of the collection.

Campo Largo and Curitiba

Campo Largo is where the 1977 episode was placed; Curitiba is where the body became known. The Forensic Police trace the present museum to the Crime Museum of 1910, while the 1987 report dates the founding of the IML museum to 1975. These are markers of institutional stages the available sources do not fully reconcile. The old mortuary operated from 1975 to 2018. After a period at another site, the collection returned to its historic address on Avenida Visconde de Guarapuava in 2025; the official page says guided visits require booking.

What the case can establish

Paraibinha needs no supernatural origin to reveal something unexpected. The 1977 newspaper preserved a concrete account of the fight, an injured man's journey, and a witness still being sought. Later retellings preserved the body but simplified or changed the history. What remains missing (confirmed identity, autopsy, police investigation, and any judicial outcome) is essential to the case. Before accepting the labels of monster or serial killer, we should remember that a real person stands at the centre of this forensic collection and that serious allegations require serious documentation.

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