Witness ledger: 12 named witnesses dead within 4 years, none over 50

An independent investigator has maintained, since 2007, a cross-referenced compilation of named witnesses to the Varginha events drawn from contemporaneous press, civil registry records, and witness statements made before death. The compilation tracks twelve individuals who gave on-the-record statements between January and June 1996 and who died within four years of those statements.

None of the twelve had reached fifty years of age at the time of death. The cluster of causes recorded across the twelve consists of: four deaths attributed to acute infection of varying types; three single-vehicle accidents on rural roads; three deaths attributed to undiagnosed cardiac failure; and two deaths recorded as cause unknown after limited investigation.

The investigator is careful to note in the compilation that he is not asserting causation. He is asserting that the cluster, as a cluster, is statistically anomalous against the demographic baseline for the region and the period and that no plausible non-anomalous explanation has been offered.

The compilation is based on public records and on press archives. It does not include witnesses who declined to speak publicly. The investigator believes the true number of named witnesses from the period is larger than the press archive captures, and therefore that the cluster he has identified may be a subset of a larger pattern. He continues to add entries as new records are released.