Three Brazilians were arrested Friday after police discovered that they were cannibals who used human meat in empanadas they sold to their neighbors.

50-year-old Jorge Beltrao Negromonte, his wife Isabel Pires, 51, and his mistress Bruna da Silva, 25, were charged in the murders of two young women who went missing last month.

The bodies of Alexandra Falcão, 20, and Giselly Helena da Silva of Alexandra, 31 were found buried in the garden of the trio's home. The women were sacrificed as part of a cannibalistic ritual that would purify their souls, said police spokesperson Democrito Honorato in a statement to AFP.

The women were lured into Negromonte's home with the promise of getting high-paying nanny jobs. Once inside, they were killed. Negromonte reportedly has a black belt in martial arts, though who exactly did the killings was not disclosed.

The trio was tracked down after one of the women used the victim's credit card, reported UKPA.

They belong to a sect that believed in the purification of the world and the reduction of its population said Inspector Wesley Fernandes to UKPA.

The three confessed to the crimes.

They were planning to kill another woman living nearby, said Fernandes.

Negromonte wrote a 50-page book on cannibalism entitled Revelations of a Schizophrenic in which he detailed his conversations with the voices in his head and his obsession with killing woman.

Angry neighbors burned down their house Thursday.