Rio De Janeiro, Brazil -- Prosecutors formally charged four men in the death of a 73-year-old American nun who worked to defend poor rainforest communities, court officials said Tuesday.
Rayfran Neves Salles was charged with firing the six shots that killed Dorothy Stang on a muddy stretch of road deep in the rainforest. Clodoaldo Batista was charged as an accomplice.
Two other men, Amair Feijoli and Vitalmiro Moura, were charged with homicide. Feijoli is accused of hiring the two gunmen and Moura, a rancher, is charged with ordering Stang's killing. All but Moura are jailed; the rancher has not been found.
Stang wanted a stretch of rainforest to be declared part of a sustainable development project for poor settlers, but Moura wanted to develop and log the area.
Also Tuesday, officials said ballistics tests linked a revolver found on Moura's ranch with the four bullets recovered from Stang's body. The slugs from two more bullets fired into Stang have not been recovered.
Brazil's Supreme Court is considering a motion to have the killing declared a federal crime, which would take the case out of the courts in the notoriously corrupt Para state.
Stang, a naturalized Brazilian originally from near Dayton, Ohio, spent the last 23 years of her life in the lawless Para state, trying to protect the rain forest and peasants from loggers and ranchers vying for the area's rich natural resources.