Elize Matsunaga: Once Upon a Crime

*Elize Matsunaga: Once Upon a Crime* is a four-part Brazilian true-crime documentary released on Netflix in July 2021. Directed by Eliza Capai, it examines the killing of Marcos Kitano Matsunaga by his wife, Elize, in São Paulo in 2012. Marcos was an executive and an heir to the family behind Yoki, a major Brazilian food brand. The case drew intense national attention, both because of the Matsunaga family’s wealth and because of what happened after his death.

Elize shot Marcos in their apartment, dismembered his body and disposed of the remains. Investigators subsequently traced the crime to her. In 2016, a jury convicted her of murder and concealment of a corpse, and she received a prison sentence of nearly 20 years. Those events provide the documentary’s framework, but the series is not simply a reconstruction of the investigation. It asks how the people involved understood a marriage that ended in violence.

A distinctive feature of the series is Elize’s participation. Speaking on camera, she describes her background, her relationship with Marcos and her account of the events leading to his death. The documentary places her testimony alongside interviews with investigators, lawyers, journalists and people connected to the couple. Their accounts do not always fit neatly together. Rather than relying solely on Elize’s version, the series shows how the case was investigated, argued in court and discussed in the Brazilian press.

The program also examines details that became central to its public reception. Elize had worked as an escort before marrying Marcos, and their relationship crossed a conspicuous divide in wealth and social position. Suspicions of his infidelity formed part of the conflict preceding the killing. Media coverage repeatedly returned to these aspects of her life, making the case a story about status, sexuality and marriage as well as a criminal prosecution.

Its title, *Once Upon a Crime*, suits a documentary concerned with competing narratives. Elize speaks about her childhood and the life she built with Marcos; investigators and others describe the evidence and the aftermath. The series gives space to those perspectives without changing the established outcome of the trial. Its focus remains a specific, widely reported Brazilian case: a husband killed in the couple’s home, a wife convicted for the killing, and the continuing dispute over how their history should be told.