O crime e o espetáculo: a transformação de Suzane Von Richthofen em um fenômeno midiático

Abstract

Back in 2002, the young law student Suzane Von Richthofen orchestrated the murders of her own parents, with the help of her boyfriend Daniel Cravinhos and his brother, Cristian, planning to divide the Von Richthofen couple’s inheritance; however, the three were discovered by the police and duly arrested. This case received enormous news coverage and until nowadays, more than twenty years after the crime, it was never forgotten by the media, and it is still possible to see occasional news stories about Suzane's life and media products with themes inspired by the case. Faced with this, a doubt arises: why has this particular case garnered so much media attention, while the other thousands of murders that occur every year in Brazil have not? Attempting to understand it, this course conclusion paper is divided into three parts: the first one observes how the case was portrayed by the communication media in 2002 and reached the public for the first time; the second one analyses which are the reasons for such repercussion; and the third and last part observes how the Richthofen case remained present in the media many years after the crime. Therefore, this monograph aims to decode what factors made the case stand out among the thousands homicides which happen every year in Brazil and analyse the process that turned Suzane’s case and image into a media success, in order to comprehend the media operation to select news and what deserves a national repercussion or not.