13-year-old boy kills parents, grandmother and great aunt before spending full day at school and then committing suicide after being 'inspired' by ghost story attached to Amityville Horror massacre

Brazilian Marcelo Pesseghini believed to have murdered family in Amityville Horror copycat slaughter

Marcelo Pesseghini is thought to have killed his military officer parents in their bedroom using a police issue .40 calibre pistol (Police Handout)

A 13-year-old Brazilian boy killed his parents, grandmother and great aunt before spending a full day at school and then taking his own life.

Marcelo Pesseghini is thought to have killed his military officer parents in their bedroom using a police issue .40 calibre pistol. The boy’s father, 40-year-old Luiz, was found dead in his bed, while his 30-year-old mother Andreia was discovered on her knees on the bedroom floor.

Marcelo Pesseghini’s grandmother, 65-year-old Benedita de Oliveira Bovo, and his great aunt, 55-year-old Bernadete Oliveira da Silva, were also found dead in their beds, but in a separate part of the same building. All four victims had suffered gunshot wounds to the head.

Police believe that after killing his family, Marcelo Pesseghini caught a lift to school with a friend and spent a full day in lessons.

CCTV footage captured him calmly walking home from school later in the day, but he was subsequently found dead from a gunshot wound to the temple. His father’s revolver was found nearby and a .32 gun found in his school backpack.

It is thought Marcelo Pesseghini killed his family after being inspired by a mass murder that took place in Amityville, New York in 1974.

In that case a man named Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his parents, two brothers and two sisters as they slept in their beds. The case was the inspiration for a book and film called The Amityville Horror, in which investigators examine evidence that the victims continue to haunt the property in which they were killed.

Marcelo Pesseghini uploaded a famous photo which some claim shows the ghost of one of the victims – an image widely known as the Amityville Ghost Boy – to his Facebook page shortly before Christmas last year.

At a press conference Itagiba Franco of Sao Paolo’s civilian police force said: “Everything seems to indicate that Marcelo killed his parents and relatives”.

Reading from a statement the friend of Pesseghini’s had made, Mr Franco added: “He always told me he wanted to become a hired killer. He had a plan to kill his parents during the night, so that no one would notice and escape in the parents' car and live in an abandoned place”.