Baia, left is said to have been killed in an unrelated incident (Picture: Caters) 
 
 An Amazon pirate who is believed to have stabbed British teacher Emma Kelty to death as she canoed along the river has been found dead. 
 
 Evanilson Gomes da Costa, known as Baia, was one of seven gangsters who police said were involved in the murder of the 43-year-old canoeist. 
 
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 He had been on the run since last Wednesday night, when Ms Kelty sent out a distress signal after pitching her tent on the banks of the Solimoes river, 150 miles west of Manaus. 
 
 According to three other suspects who have been captured, Da Costa was the ringleader who they claim stabbed to death the former primary school headteacher, who had already been injured by a gunshot. 
 
 Ms Kelty was 44 days into her attempt to row 4,000 miles from the source of the Amazon river in Peru, through Brazil to its mouth at the Atlantic. 
 
 He was wanted over the murder of British teacher Emma Kelty (Picture: PA/Family handout) 
 
 Emma Tamsin Kelty vanished in Peru while canoeing along the Amazon (Picture: Facebook) 
 
 It is believed Costa was shot by drug gangsters in an unrelated incident and arrived at the Regional Hospital in Coari in the early hours of the morning, later dying of his injuries. 
 
 Military Police Commander Colonel Alonso Ramos yesterday said the three men under arrest, two of whom are just 17 years old, had confessed to the crime and given details about what had happened. 
 
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 He said: ‘They told us they stabbed her and threw the body into the water. The men who stabbed her body are two of the fugitives who are still on the run and have fled into the forest. 
 
 ‘During their statement the teenagers confessed to participating in the crime and said that those who had killed the British woman were hiding in the bush.’ 
 
 Police believe Ms Kelty was still alive when the gang took and threw her body in to Solimoes river. 
 
 Ms Kelty was 44 days into her attempt to row 4,000 miles from the source of the Amazon river in Peru (Picture: Twitter) 
 
 Some people were arrested over Ms Kelty’s death (Picture: Caters) 
 
 Deputy Chief of Police, Ivo Martins said: ‘Emma was hit by two gunshots from a.20 calibre sawn-off shotgun, while she was resting in a tent she had pitched on the island. 
 
 ‘She had no chance to react to what happened to her. 
 
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 ‘The gang operates like pirates and go out in a canoe looking and hunting for the chance to steal. It appears they did not have a predefined victim.’ 
 
 Ms Kelty’s body has still not been found but military personnel are still searching the river, while a full-scale manhunt for the remaining three gang members continues. 
 
 Police have named them as brothers Arthur Gomes da Silva, known as ‘Beira’, Erimar Ferreira da Silva known as ‘Chico’ e Nilson Ferreira da Silva known as ‘Zé Preto’. 
 
 Two 17-year-olds have been arrested and another man, Erinei Ferreira da Silva, who police say fired the shots into Ms Kelty’s tent as she lay inside. 
 
 It is believed Costa was shot by drug gangsters in an unrelated incident 
 
 Chief police officer in Coari, José Afonso Barradas Junior, said Evanilson Gomes da Costa, known as Baia, died after being shot by a rival group who may have wanted to steal from him the belongings he had robbed from Emma Kelty. 
 
 He said: ‘He was shot be drug traffickers. Who told us that was his own sister. He was in his sister’s house, in the Pera district here in Coari. 
 
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 ‘Arriving there, the traffickers entered into the house and shot at him. They knew that he had gold as well as the money belonging to the British woman, and they went there to rob him. 
 
 ‘The police knew about what happened because his sister called the police to let them know.’ 
 
 Da Costa, 24, was taken to the Coari Regional Hospital. Mr Barradas Junior siad: ‘I got to see him still alive in the hospital, but because the bullets hit his vital organs, he didn’t resist.’ 
 
 He said the belongings that he had stolen from British canoeist Emma Kelty were not found at his sister’s house. 
 
 Mr Barradas Junior said: ‘He is the one who possibly executed the British woman by shooting her when she was in her tent.’ 
 
 He added that Da Costa was also wanted for other murders in the region. ||||| Posting on social media on 10 September, Emma Kelty joked about a warning she had been given about the stretch of the Amazon river she was about to enter. “So in or near Coari (60 miles) I will have my boat stolen and I will be killed too,” she wrote. “Nice.” 
 
 Two days later, Kelty, who was canoeing the length of the Amazon, said she was “in the clear”. But hours later she posted again, describing an encounter with armed men. “Turned corner and found 50 guys in motor boats with arrows!!! My face must have been a picture!! (Town was uber quiet ... too quiet!!) all go ... 
 
 “OK 30 guys ... but either way ... that’s a lot of folks in one area in boats with arrow[s] and rifles.” 
 
 Three people held in Brazil on suspicion of British kayaker's murder Read more 
 
 The following day, as she neared Coari, on the banks of the Solimões river, an Amazon tributary, Kelty triggered a distress signal. She has been missing ever since. On Tuesday, police said they had arrested three males on suspicion of her murder. 
 
 Kelty, 43, from Finchley in north-west London, resigned as head of Knollmead primary school in Surbiton in 2014 to go travelling. No stranger to solo adventures, she had been only the sixth woman to ski solo to the south pole and hiked 2,600 miles alone across the US. 
 
 She had begun kayaking in February after deciding that her next challenge would be to paddle the Amazon from its source in the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 There had already been unsettling moments in her trip, particularly since crossing the border into Brazil’s Amazonas state. On 22 August she told followers how she had paddled hard upstream to reach a beach to rest, “only to find a man waving a machete and ravens eating whatever he had killed. As I paddled hard away ... I could hear his shouts.” 
 
 
 
 In the following days she complained of broken sleep, interrupted by strangers. “Getting more tired every day,” she wrote on 23 August. “Let’s hope I don’t get [four] more guys ‘returning to visit me after dark’ tonight.” 
 
 Three days later, after a “great welcome” and day and night in São Paulo de Olivença, she reported that two men pitched up in a boat close to where she had stopped and just stayed there for two hours, stopping her from changing. “And yes, I did try to engage ... but they were the silent type.” 
 
 On 28 August she said she was “officially beyond triedness [sic]”. “Every night there has been a torch bearer and walker who comes to my tent,” she wrote. When strangers left her alone, Kelty fought “tent-bending” storms and 85% humidity. Yet there were also moments of tranquility. 
 
 “The last couple of days paddling was just what I imagined it to be,” she recounted on 5 September. “Now, I am sitting on my private beach in the sun. So quiet and just perfect.” 
 
 Emma Tamsin Kelty (@Emt101s) Enjoying a moments peace ... all is calm and just enjoying just being. #peru #so2017 #sourcetosea #riverlife #amaz… https://t.co/QFu0QAZkoq pic.twitter.com/Ak6CMLAFmO 
 
 Kelty is believed to have pitched her tent on Boieiro island, facing the town of Lauro Sodré, before she set off her locator flare last Wednesday. A 17-year-old suspect arrested on Monday in Codajás said that was where she was approached by two people. Five others arrived and the group stole her belongings. She was shot twice with a sawn-off shotgun and dumped in the river. 
 
 According to the teenager, whom police did not name for legal reasons, the group tried to sell her two mobile phones, her tablet computer and her GoPro camera in local communities. Another 17-year-old from Lauro Sodré was also arrested, as well as a third man, named as Erinei Ferreira da Silva, whose age was not given. Police are looking for four further suspects. 
 
 After Kelty’s distress call, authorities had launched a search operation involving 60 people, including divers scouring the riverbed. Residents of Lauro Sodré reported having seen Kelty alive, sailing past in her canoe. Fire officers and the Brazilian navy are continuing to look for her body and have searched the area where it was allegedly thrown. 
 
 Rocky Contos, a guide Kelty employed in Peru for the first six weeks of her trip, said he tried to warn her of the dangers she faced, but that she was determined to continue alone. “I told her there are people there who have no regard for life,” he was quoted as saying by the Times. “There are many cases of people being robbed and shot.” 
 
 River pirates are known to operate in the area where Kelty went missing. Local media reported two men were arrested in July after carrying out pirate attacks around Lauro Sodré and nearby communities. 
 
 “This region is a problematic region for pirates,” Barradas Júnior said. “It is a region that has pirates, they do robberies, and it is a disputed region because there are a lot of drugs coming from Colombia.” He said pirates had been known to attack Colombian and Peruvian drug traffickers, steal their supplies and throw their bodies in the river. 
 
 A struggle between rival Brazilian drug gangs to control the lucrative drug trade flowing down the Solimões river was blamed for a massacre in which 56 people were murdered in a prison in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, on New Year’s Day. Dozens more were killed in reprisal attacks. 
 
 The remote stretch of the Solimões where Kelty is thought to have gone missing is the same section where the state’s previous civil police chief, Thyago Garcez, disappeared in December last year, after he and other police officers got into a firefight with drugs traffickers. His body has never been found. 
 
 The Foreign Office confirmed it was supporting the family of a woman who had died in Brazil and said it was in contact with the Brazilian authorities. 
 
 In a statement released by the Foreign Office, Kelty’s siblings, Piers, Giles and Natasha, said their “active and determined sister” had recently embarked on the Pacific Crest Trail in the US, and had also explored the south pole and finally the Amazon river. 
 
 “In a world that is today a much smaller place, the explorer in our sister found herself seeking ways to prove that challenges were achievable,” the statement said. “We are extremely proud of our sister who was dearly loved by us all and her strength will be sorely missed.” ||||| Image copyright Emma Kelty 
 
 British kayaker Emma Kelty was shot by a gang of seven men who threw her body into the Amazon, say Brazilian police. 
 
 Locals reported seeing Ms Kelty still conscious when she was in the gang's canoe. Police say they won't know if she was alive when she was dumped in the river until her body is found. 
 
 The 43-year-old, from London, had been attempting to travel the entire length of the Amazon on her own. 
 
 She was killed last week in an area known for drug traffickers and pirates. 
 
 Police have arrested three men over her murder, but another man thought to be involved has since been killed. 
 
 The former head teacher was camping by the upper stretches of the river in northern Brazil on 13 September when she was spotted by a gang of "pirates", who were in a canoe, police said. 
 
 They fired two shots at her tent from a 20 calibre rifle before stealing her belongings, including a drone, two mobile phones and a tablet. 
 
 The suspects, according to police, say they tried to make it more difficult for her body to be recovered by cutting her shoulder with a knife. 
 
 They wanted to attract animals with her blood and prevent her body from floating. 
 
 Image copyright Brazilian Police Image caption Evanilson Gomes da Costa is thought to have shot Emma Kelty, before being killed by a rival gang 
 
 Lead investigator Jose Afonso Barradas said the men tried to sell her possessions and "were heard boasting about having a lot of money and gold". 
 
 One of the men, Evanilson Gomes da Costa, is believed to have been responsible for firing the rifle at Ms Kelty - according to Brazilian police he died on Wednesday after also being shot. 
 
 Police said it was likely he was killed by a rival gang who were trying to get hold of Ms Kelty's stolen cash. 
 
 Jardel Pinheiro Gomes, 19, Erinei Ferreira da Silva, 28, and a 17-year-old boy have been arrested and police are still looking for three other men. 
 
 The Brazilian Navy and divers from the Amazon fire brigade are searching for Ms Kelty's body. 
 
 Her kayak was found by police, who have recovered some of her stolen belongings - one phone, one credit card, and one GPS system. 
 
 Image copyright Brazilian Police Image caption The Brazilian Navy are helping with the search for Emma Kelty's body 
 
 Image copyright Marinha do Brasil Image caption Her kayak was found by the Navy after she was killed 
 
 Ms Kelty was 42 days into a 4,000-mile trip along the Amazon river, which she had been documenting on social media, when she was attacked. 
 
 Just a few days before her death, she wrote on Twitter about the dangers of the area she was entering: "So in or near Coari (100km away) I will have my boat stolen and I will be killed too. Nice." 
 
 Her family said they were extremely proud of her and "her strength would be sorely missed". 
 
 Ms Kelty's brothers Piers and Giles, and sister Natasha, said in a statement: "Emma was an active and determined sister who challenged herself, latterly through her adventures on the Pacific Coast Trail, as well as in the South Pole and Amazon River. 
 
 "In a world that is today a much smaller place, the explorer in our sister found herself seeking ways to prove that challenges were achievable. 
 
 "We wish to give our immense thanks to the Brazilian Navy, police and Foreign Office for their action and support."
– More details are emerging about the murder of British adventurer Emma Kelty during her trip along the Amazon in Brazil, and they're of the worst kind. But police also revealed that her killers made a dumb move that alerted authorities to the crime, reports the Telegraph. Police initially believed that Kelty herself sent out a distress signal from her GPS device, but now they say one of the bandits involved in her death accidentally pressed the button while trying to figure out how to work the device. "Stupid," says a local police official. The signal led police to a riverside village, and they were eventually able to arrest three suspects. Three more are at large, and a seventh man was shot to death, reportedly by a rival gang out to steal Kelty's gear from him. A local resident says the gang member provided details of the crime before his death. It seems that the bandits came across Kelty's remote campsite and incorrectly assumed she was a drug trafficker. "When the men saw her tent they thought it belonged to a Colombian with drugs, so they started firing from about 50 meters away," the resident tells the Telegraph. He says Kelty was hit in the arm and began screaming for help, and the bandits then moved in. According to the resident's account, the men cut off her hair, demanding to know where the drugs were, then sexually abused her, cut her throat, and dumped her body in the river. Authorities have found Kelty's kayak but not her body. The 43-year-old former school headmistress was about 40 days into a 4,000-mile trip, notes the BBC, and she planned to be on the river five or six months. The Sun has a video of Kelty getting ready to embark on the trip. "I can't wait," she says, smiling.