On Thursday, nearly two and a half weeks after their deaths in Brazil's Amazon, the bodies of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira were returned to their families.

Phillips, 57, and Pereira, 41, were shot as they returned from an expedition in the isolated rainforest region of the Javari Valley.

Funeral services for Pereira are scheduled for this Friday in Recife, while Phillips' family will hold a wake and cremation on Sunday in Niteroi, near Rio de Janeiro.

Alessandra Sampaio, Phillips's widow, posted a photograph of herself wearing her husband's wedding band, which was discovered by authorities near his body.

Also, on Thursday, a fourth suspect turned himself in at a police station in Sao Paulo, informing detectives he was the driver of the boat that pursued the two men, according to extracts of his statement published by many Brazilian news agencies.

Gabriel Dantas, age 26, stated that Amarildo Oliveira, the first suspect apprehended, asked him to drive a boat without informing him of its destination or purpose.

Oliveira "shot them with a 16-gauge rifle," when they approached the boat carrying Phillips and Pereira, Dantas reported.

After witnessing the murder of the two men, he allegedly assisted in transporting their remains to the burial site alongside other individuals.

On Monday, Federal Police announced that they had discovered five additional participants in the concealment of the bodies and detained three individuals.

Phillips, the author of scores of pieces on the Amazon and a longtime contributor to The Guardian and other major news organizations, was conducting research for an upcoming book in the Javari Valley.

His guide was Pereira, with whom he had previously been in 2018 to the region beset by drug trafficking, illegal gold mining, and fishing.