Disappearance of Joana Cipriano

Joana Isabel Cipriano (born 31 May 1996) disappeared on 12 September 2004 from Figueira, a village near Portimão in the Algarve region of Portugal. An investigation by the Polícia Judiciária, Portugal's criminal police, concluded that she had been murdered by her mother, Leonor Cipriano, and her mother's brother, João Cipriano, after witnessing them engaged in incestuous sex. Her body was never found.

The mother and uncle confessed to police in October 2004; the uncle said he had cut the girl's body into pieces before disposing of it somewhere in Spain. Joana's mother withdrew her confession the day after signing it, alleging that she had been beaten during a 48-hour-long interrogation. The police officers accounted for the bruising on the mother's face and body by maintaining that she had thrown herself down some stairs in the police station in an effort to commit suicide. Both the mother and uncle were convicted of murder and sentenced to 16 years in jail. It was the first murder trial in Portuguese legal history to take place without the discovery of a body.