A clown on a solo bicycling trip across the Amazon disappears. Her kindness toward children was her fatal mistake

In December 2023, a clown known to many as “Miss Jujuba” embarked on a solo bicycle journey across the Amazon region of Brazil toward her native Venezuela. Along the way, she vanished — and as investigators later learned, her kindness toward children and a struggling family would lead to her tragic end.

Julieta “Miss Jujuba” Hernández Martínez, a Venezuelan performer and activist, had lived in Brazil for eight years, working as a clown, puppeteer, and educator. She was a beloved figure in community art circles and children’s programs. When she set out from Rio de Janeiro toward Venezuela, she aimed to bring laughter and art to children in remote towns along her route.

While doing so, Hernández Martínez often shared photos and messages from the road, showing her small bicycle loaded with gear and her unmistakable red nose. But just before Christmas 2023, her messages stopped.

What happened to Miss Jujuba?

When she disappeared, Hernández Martínez had reached Presidente Figueiredo, capital of Brazil’s vast Amazonas state, a frontier town surrounded by wilderness. Two weeks later, residents recovered pieces of her bicycle in the forest nearby, prompting a police search.

According to investigators, while at a roadside inn, Hernández Martínez met a struggling couple with five children and felt moved to help. “She used the little money she had to buy them food and spent the night with the poor and miserable family,” her sister later told Global Voices.

According to the authorities, the man and woman she had helped had attacked her. The man sexually assaulted and robbed her, and the woman, allegedly in a fit of jealousy, strangled her and set her remains on fire before burying the body.

Hernández Martínez’s legacy

The case shocked Brazil and Venezuela, sparking outrage among feminist organizations, artists, and cycling groups. Supporters held vigils and performances across Latin America in her memory. “She had a knack for making people smile,” one fellow artist told The Guardian, “and she carried that joy even into the hardest places.”

In October 2025, a jury convicted the couple, Thiago Agles da Silva and Deliomara dos Anjos Santos, sentencing Da Silva to 80 years and four months and Dos Santos to 57 years in prison.

Human-rights groups later pushed to have the crime legally recognized as femicide, rather than simple homicide, citing the brutality of the attack and Hernández Martínez’s vulnerability as a migrant woman traveling alone. As of 2025, activists continue to demand that the case be reclassified and prosecuted accordingly.

Miss Jujuba’s bicycle journey was meant to bridge borders with laughter. Her trip ended in tragedy, but her legacy continues to move forward, one performance, one protest, and one memory at a time.