Elize Matsunaga’s heartbreaking letter to daughter as she begs for ‘forgiveness’
Elize: Shadows of a Woman tells the tragic true story of a woman who confessed to murdering her husband
Elize Matsunaga wishes to see her daughter again(Image: NETFLIX)
The real Elize Matsunaga has not seen her daughter since she murdered and dismembered her husband.
Elize: Shadows of a Woman continues to climb the Netflix charts and the crime drama tells the true story of Brazillian wife and mother, Elize Matsunaga.
Told through a fictional lens, the drama reveals the dark inner workings of the turbulent marriage between Elize and her husband, business mogul Marcos Matsunaga.
Back in 2012, Elize shot her husband, dismembered his body and discarded the parts in a wooded area outside Sao Paulo following a confrontation about her husband’s infidelity.
In 2016 Matsunaga, a trained nurse, was convicted of the murder and is now on parole as she continues to serve her 16-year sentence. At the time of the crime, the couple’s only daughter was only a year old and Elize has not seen or heard from her.
Elize had a difficult relationship with husband Marcos
A letter written by Matsunaga to her daughter, which was first revealed by journalist and biographer Ullisses Campbell in 2021, has resurfaced following the release of the Netflix film.
The end of the film shows the mother writing to her daughter from prison, and her real letter was penned just before her daughter’s fifth birthday.
Shared in the book Elize Matsunaga: The Woman Who Dismembered Her Husband, the letter talked of how Elize spent her days imagining how much her child had grown.
She went on to say [translated]: “I close my eyes and imagine now what your little face looks like, your smile, everything so magical, the kind that makes me brush off the dust and forget the wounds.
“Today, it’s been three years, nine months and four days since I last saw you, my dear daughter. But every day I send you in my thoughts all the love a mother can feel and all my pleas for forgiveness.”
Elize ultimately confessed to killing her husband (Image: NETFLIX)
She went on to say how she wished her daughter a bright and happy future, and thanked her for giving her the opportunity to experience motherhood.
Elize wished she could see her daughter again, adding: “I would face anything to see your smile again. To see you at peace, to hear at least once the word ‘mother,’ so short, but which makes my heart tremble just imagining it.”
With a final plea to reunite one day, she ended the letter: “One day, if you want, one day we will talk about everything that happened, the regrettable and, unfortunately, irreversible situation that separated us physically, but only physically, because my heart is with you, with the child who truly taught me what love is.
“Even if you don’t forgive me, my dear daughter, don’t forget that I will love you beyond life because this love doesn’t come from the eyes, this love comes from God, from your mother, Elize.” Her child remains in the care of Marcos’ parents, who have full custody of her.
Elize: Shadows of a Woman is on Netflix
