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Lucas Vargas Terra (1986-2001) was a Brazilian teenager who was sexually assaulted and murdered by officials of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God on March 21, 2001 in Salvador, Bahia State. Terra was 14 at the time. The case generated both national and international attention. Terra's photo first appeared in the Portuguese-language periodical Correio in 2001 and was later described as one of the "most impactful crimes of the last 40 years in Bahia state".

Terra was sexually assaulted and burned alive, supposedly by the pastor Silvio Roberto Galiza, a bishop, a church worker, and a security guard. Of these, only Galiza has been found guilty in court. Later, a court ruled against the Universal Church and awarded two million reais to Terra's family for hedonic damages. The case has not yet been closed.

Disappearance
On the night of March 21, 2001, Terra called his father, Carlos Terra, from a pay phone and informed him that he was with Galiza, and that due to the late hour, would sleep at the Universal Church building in the Rio Vermelho neighborhood. Later, Galiza gave conflicting reports of when he was last with Terra. According to the case's prosecutor, the pastor was in fact nearby when the call was made, and the subsequent searches were "derailed" by the false information obtained from Galiza.

Discovery of the body
On March 23, a body was found in a vacant lot near Vasco da Gama Avenue inside of a burned crate. The body was moved to the Instituto Médico Legal (Legal Medicine Institute), where it stayed for forty-three days while DNA tests were performed. The body was eventually identified as Terra's using a lock of hair and pieces of clothes that remained intact, which matched those described in the initial incident report filed by the police. An autopsy revealed that Terra's assailants initially attempted to strangle him, but that the body was subsequently burned to the point where neither cause of death nor whether sexual assault had occurred could be determined. This led the prosecutor to later allege that he believed that "an act of sexual violence had certainly occurred". Experts matched the clothing remnants to others found in the church building in Rio Vermelho, linking the crime to Galiza and the Universal Church.

Terra was buried in the Bosque da Paz cemetery. The crime had occurred just a few days before Terra and his father were to emigrate to Italy, where his mother, Marion Terra, had already been living.

Witnesses
According to witnesses, Terra was a very active member of the Universal Church, and Galiza became obsessed with him after only a short time, exhibiting controlling tendencies. The pastor seemed to be bothered when Terra was seen around the women and girls of the congregation, and persistently invited him to sleep in the church with other male congregants, unbeknownst to Terra.

Galiza's superiors transferred him to another area after discovering that he had slept in the same bed as Terra, while the other young men slept in a separate room. However, after being transferred, Galiza continued to visit Terra's congregation. He had already been expelled from one religious community, for which he was nicknamed "the Devil's secretary" by local residents.

Female witnesses that testified against Galiza were threatened by other members of the Church. An unnamed witness (identified only by the initials A.P.R.M), stated that she was persecuted, humiliated, and expelled from the community. A similar experience was related by another witness, identified by the initials M.O.C:"'I was threated, despite having gone to church for twenty years; they told me that I should keep my mouth shut. The way the community was run is millitary-esque. They say that [we] have to say everything in the Lord's name, even if it means lying. This was because I had heard [Galiza] contradicting himself about the place where he said he had last seen Lucas'"A team of journalists from the news program A Tarde was also threatened and persecuted on the orders of Bishop João Leite, who ordered his security detail to prevent other members from being interviewed. Carlos Terra was also threatened, leading him to ask for the help of the Brazilian Public Ministry. Toni Costa, a publicist and friend of Carlos Terra, entered into witness protection in 2003.

After testifying in 2002, pastor Fernando was detained by judicial order after contradicting himself several times.

Protests
In October 2001, the public inquiry was concluded and Galiza was accused of Terra's murder. However, he was not held in prison until Carlos Terra camped outside the front door of the Public Ministry.

Terra's parents sought help from human rights NGO's and the Ministry of Justice. Carlos Terra delivered a letter to the UN office in Switzerland, in which he questioned the delay in Galiza's trial and the source of the funding for his legal defense by one of the most expensive lawyers in Brazil. These protests led to a trial date being set in June of 2004.

Silvio Galiza
Galiza was sentenced on June 9, 2004 to 23 years and 5 months in prison, which was reduced to 18 and then 15 years on subsequent appeals. The guilty verdict rested primarily on witness testimony against him. The jury accepted the prosecution's argument that Galiza had sexually abused and murdered Terra, after which he burned the victim's body.

Prosecutor Cleusa Boyda stated that "for me, it wasn't a closed case. I always had the sense that there were more people involved, but it was impossible to know since the pastor himself would never admit that anyone else participated". Prosecutor Davi Gallo likewise stated that Galiza was the primary aggressor, but that it was impossible to know if he had acted alone.

Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God)
In October of 2007, the Superior Tribunal of Justice upheld the decision of a lower court in finding that the Universal Church owed Terra's family one million reais in hedonistic damages. The decision was contested by the church's defence team, which alleged that Galiza was not working at the time of the crime, and that the church was thus not liable. However, the court maintained its decision in favor of the prosecution, and the fine was estimated at a value of two million reais in 2008, after adjustment for interest and inflation. The amount was paid by the Universal Church.