Three people—a man, his wife, and the man's mistress—went on trial in Brazil yesterday after they were arrested in 2012 for allegedly killing women and then baking them into pastries they would eat and sell to neighbors.

The three would apparently use the remains of the people they murdered and bake their flesh into "thick" empanadas they would consume. A five-year-old girl that reportedly lived with them also ate the baked goods.

According to the Associated Press, Jorge Beltrao Negromonte da Silveira, his wife Isabel Cristina Pires, and their mistress who lived with them, Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva, would allegedly lure women to their home to interview for a job as a nanny. From the Daily Beast:

According to the police, the trio lured their victims to a small house on the edge of town on the promise of work and then beat them to death in a gruesome "purification" ritual that included hacking up the bodies, draining their blood, and eating body parts before burying the remains.

Police reportedly found the remains of two women in the backyard. When police arrested the three in April 2012, they claimed to belong to a group that believed in "the purification of the world and the reduction of its population."

During police's investigation of the home, they found a 50-page book penned by Negromonte, called Revelations of a Schizophrenic, in which he obsesses over killing women and talks of hearing voices. The book apparently also includes passages about black magic, cannibalism, and torture.

Negromonte apparently confessed to police to carrying out the killings, but not to actual murder, instead calling them "purifications." "I committed a horrible monstrous mistake," he said as the beginning of the trial Thursday. "It was a moment of extreme weakness and brutality that I regret."

[Image of Isabel Cristina Pires, Jorge Beltrão Negromonte da Silveira, and Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva via AP]