At 61, Flordelis dos Santos de Souza is in the headlines for a crime, but his fame goes back much further.
Before attending the police news, the pastor released gospel music records, toured the US and Europe, received honors. It has already been the subject of a film, focused around her missionary vocation, of an unflattering book (Flordelis: A Pastora do Diabo, which accuses her of capitalizing on the adoption of dozens of children). More recently, she became the protagonist of a production that focuses on the murder of her husband, Anderson do Carmo (Flordelis: Questions or Adora), from Globoplay.
The singer, evangelical pastor and former federal deputy was sentenced to 50 years and 28 days in prison for the murder of her husband, Pastor Anderson do Carmo, which took place on June 16, 2019 in the garage of the house where the family lived, in Niterói. , metropolitan region of Rio. The trial, which began at 9 am last Monday (7), ended at 7:20 am this Sunday (13).
Born in the favela of Jacarezinho, north of Rio, Flordelis began early to sing in evangelical services, an environment in which she developed fame and influence. She lost her father and brother in a car accident when she was 14 years old. She completed high school and worked as a bakery clerk and kindergarten teacher. She also accompanied her mother, Carmozina Motta, in an evangelical routine, in which she participated singing and playing guitar. She soon began to hold services.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, still in Jacarezinho, it has welcomed dozens of poor children and adolescents, although without formal adoption processes in court. Once, when he was already living with Anderson, there were 37 minors, as he reports, escaped from a massacre in Central do Brasil, in the center of the city. But as a teenager, she was called “the drug trafficking missionary”, for rescuing minors from marginalization.
At the age of 30, recently separated from her first husband and with three biological children (Simone, Flávio and Adriano), Flordelis met Anderson, who was 14 at the time and also a resident of the community. At first, he got involved with Simone, who was 11 years old.
Unlike the young people Flordelis took in, Anderson had no drug or crime problems. Born and raised in the community, he lived with his parents and was finishing high school at Colégio Pedro II, a traditional federal school in the São Cristóvão neighborhood. He was also a young apprentice at Banco do Brasil.
At the time, Flordelis and his mother had already opened a church in Jacarezinho. Anderson became leader of the youth group. Not long after, and despite his young age, he became a kind of administrator of Flordelis’ house, seen as a leader by the others.
Among the young people she took in, one of them – Wagner Andrade Pimenta, aka Misael – started recording the services given by Flordelis and making copies on CD and DVD to sell in the churches where they passed. Anderson and the singer’s partnership was consolidated while she preached and he turned the sermons into money, which he sold on the streets.
Together, Flordelis and Anderson founded the Evangelical Community Ministério Flordelis, in 1999, in Rocha, north of Rio. Anderson was president of the institution. In the early 2000s, the ministry was transferred to São Gonçalo, in the metropolitan region of Rio. The church had five branches.
In 2007, with influence flourishing in the evangelical churches he created, Flordelis founded Ifam (Flordelis Institute for Minors Support). Her host job was getting more and more known as her singing career took off. She has released four independent albums -,
With her career as a pastor and gospel singer on the rise, the carioca was the subject of the film Flordelis – Just a word to change, which marked the height of her fame. The production had the participation of famous actors, such as Marcello Antony (playing Anderson), Ana Furtado, Leticia Sabatella, Alinne Moraes, Bruna Marquezine, Reynaldo Gianecchini, Cauã Reymond and Deborah Secco. They donated their fees to Flordelis’ cause. The money raised was invested in the construction of a rehabilitation center for young people and in the purchase of a house for the pastor.
A year after the film, thanks to Anderson’s articulations, Flordelis signed with the evangelical label MK Music, owned by Senator Arolde de Oliveira, and released “Fogo e Unção”. In addition to producing the album, Oliveira became her political godfather.
In 2012, it was the turn of the CD “Questiona ou Adora”, his greatest success, with more than 80,000 copies sold and a platinum record. Between 2014 and 2018, she released two more studio albums, two EPs (extended play) and a DVD. From then on, she sold out shows in Brazil and abroad – there were ten performances in the US and Canada-, combining music and preaching.
Flordelis claimed to be the mother of 55 children, most of them affective, and the reduction of bureaucracy in adoption was the banner that elected her a federal deputy, by the PSD, in 2018, in the Bolsonarista wave. She was the fifth most voted in the state, with 196,959 votes, an important achievement for those who had tried to become a councilor in São Gonçalo, in 2004, receiving just over 2,000 votes.
In 2016, for the PMDB, she had tried to run for mayor of São Gonçalo and came to appear as a pre-candidate. But the main name of the coalition was the then mayor Neílton Mulim (PR), who ran for re-election and finished in third place.
None of Flordelis’ projects as a deputy had a great impact or were approved. One of the texts defines rules for the storage of customer data by credit and debit card operators. Another institutes a national system for locating missing persons and stolen goods.
A third party recognizes the rights of the unborn child, including those generated through rape. Another requires that radio and TV broadcasting messages combating the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents be shown before and after the transmission of sexual content.
In Brasília, Flordelis was always with her husband, who managed to get a badge to circulate in the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies. Anderson did the joints. He arranged for her to be received by First Lady Michele Bolsonaro at Palácio da Alvorada and by the then President of the Federal Supreme Court, Dias Toffoli. She was also the pastor’s articulation of a seminar on adoption in the Chamber of Deputies, held just over two weeks before her death.
Flordelis’ mandate as deputy was revoked in August of last year, when the Ethics Council of the Chamber of Deputies approved, by 16 to 1, an opinion to that effect. Afterwards, she would end up trapped, in the spiral that engulfed her success from Anderson’s murder.
Source: CNN Brasil
