Lucas Serra de Mendonça, who goes by the name Aurora Naomi La Fey, is a man who identifies as a “transgender” woman. Brazilian police arrested Mendonça after investigators accused him of raping his stepfather, biting off portions of both ears and damaging his eyes so severely that surgeons later removed them.
Officers took Mendonça into custody on Tuesday in Manaus, Amazonas, under a court-authorized preventive-detention warrant.
Police allege the attack occurred around 2 p.m. on September 16 inside the 61-year-old German victim’s apartment in the Praça 14 de Janeiro neighborhood.
Victim fell while trying to escape
Investigators said Mendonça waited inside the apartment while the victim was away. Mendonça allegedly attacked when the man returned, biting his face and ears and using his hands to inflict catastrophic injuries to both eyes.
Police said the victim lost consciousness during the struggle and was sexually assaulted. When he regained consciousness, he could no longer see and moved toward the balcony while trying to escape. He fell from the third floor onto the roof of a neighboring property, where firefighters and emergency medical personnel rescued him.
Doctors later surgically removed both eyes because of the damage. The victim was also left without either ear and remained hospitalized in serious condition Wednesday, police said.
Police said the missing ear tissue was not found and that investigators were considering whether Mendonça had swallowed it. Final forensic reports were still pending.
Suspect cited hallucinations and resentment
Mendonça told investigators that he had smoked an unusually potent form of marijuana before the attack and later experienced hallucinations. He recalled only fragments of biting the victim’s face and said he could not remember the full sequence, police said.
He also told investigators that he resented the victim because the man allegedly did not accept his “transgender” identity. Police said the suspect’s mother described a strained relationship between the two but reported no prior violence.
Mendonça denied sexually assaulting the victim. The evidence collected so far indicates a sexual assault occurred, but investigators were awaiting definitive forensic results before closing the inquiry, police said.
Latest in a series of high-profile cases
The allegations against Mendonça add to a series of separate high-profile attacks and plots involving “transgender”-identifying perpetrators, defendants or suspects that The Dallas Express has documented in recent years.
Those cases include the Covenant School massacre in Nashville, the Minneapolis shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church, the July 4 ICE ambush near Fort Worth and alleged crimes involving the Zizian network. Prosecutors secured nine trial convictions stemming from the ICE ambush, while authorities have linked the Zizian network to multiple killings.
DX has also reported on the Tumbler Ridge attack in Canada, in which the suspect killed eight people at a school and a home before dying by suicide, and Nicholas Roske’s attempted-assassination plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Roske pleaded guilty, and a federal judge sentenced him to 97 months in prison.
“At some point, we’re going to have to start having a conversation about the links between these acts of violence and this horrific ideology,” then-state Rep. Nate Schatzline (R-District 93) told The Dallas Express after the 2025 Minneapolis shooting.
Brazilian police formally named Mendonça as a suspect in an alleged rape and attempted homicide, citing three qualifying circumstances under Brazilian law: an allegedly futile motive, cruel means and a method that hindered the victim’s defense. Police said Wednesday that Mendonça remained at the court’s disposal pending a custody hearing.
