'Cannibals' sold human flesh in pastries

Police in Brazil have arrested three people for allegedly killing at least two women, eating parts of their bodies and using their flesh to make stuffed pastries known as empanadas which they sold to their neighbours.

Police said the three suspects – a man, his wife and his mistress – belonged to a sect that preached "the purification of the world and the reduction of its population".

The man, Jorge Beltrao Negromonte, reportedly wrote a 50-page book titled Revelations of a Schizophrenic in which he says he hears voices and is obsessed with the killing of women.

The three were arrested in the north-eastern town of Garanhuns and had confessed to the crimes, police said.