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." ||||| HEARTBREAKING footage shows murdered British teacher Emma Kelty saying "she can't wait" to start her fateful kayaking trip through the Brazilian Amazon. 
 
 The former headmistress, 43, was killed by ruthless river pirates who shot her and slit her throat before dumping her body which still has not been found. 
 
 Emma Kelty filmed two months before she was murdered by pirates in the Amazon 
 
 The video ends with Emma standing against a spectacular mountain backdrop in Queropalco, Peru 
 
 The message Emma sent to James Contos when she found out she had wrongly been reported dead - two weeks before she was actually killed 
 
 Filmed on June 17, around two months before she died, the haunting video shows the Londoner preparing to start her solo "source to sea" adventure in Queropalco in Peru. 
 
 Asked how she is feeling, Emma said: "I can’t wait. Can’t wait to start – get up to the top and actually start kayaking down." 
 
 When asked how long the journey would take, she says “about five, six months.” 
 
 She adds: “Yeah, it’s a long time, long time.” 
 
 Today it was revealed that Emma's family were told she had been killed two weeks before tragedy in a harrowing false alarm. 
 
 When the tragic canoeist found out about the scare, while she was in Peru, she joked: "Let's hope it's not a premonition." 
 
 Ariel Diaz Cattalurda/FocusOn News Agency Emma pictured at the start of her Amazon adventure 
 
 Ariel Diaz Cattalurda/FocusOn News Agency The Brit teacher appeared excited while in Peru ahead of her six month kayaking expedition 
 
 Ariel Diaz Cattalurda -FocusOn News Agency The 43-year-old white water rafts in July 2017 at the start of her tragic journey 
 
 Ariel Diaz Cattalurda/FocusOn News Agency Emma practices her kayaking skills on River Maranon in Peru in the Upper Amazon 
 
 James Contos/FocusOn News Agency James 'Rocky' Contos organised Emma's Amazon journey in Peru 
 
 James Contos, a whitewater kayaking guide who assisted Emma during her “source to sea” expedition of the Amazon, said he was incorrectly informed she had been murdered near the city of Iquitos on August 28. 
 
 One of the indigenous guides who had been with her in the Andes also told him that the canoeist's body had been found. 
 
 Contos contacted her brother Piers to break the tragic news, who told friends and started the process of making contact with the British Embassy in Peru. 
 
 He told Brazil's G1 website: "However, I thought it seemed strange, because Emma's last posts put her a long way from where the body was." 
 
 Emma Kelty, who was killed in the Amazon, was mistakenly thought to have been murdered two weeks before her death 
 
 The adventurer was kayaking alone in Brazil. Her vessel pictured being off-loaded from a rescue boat 
 
 American Contos, an experienced canoeist himself, decided to send a message to Emma on her GPS device - and to his and her family's relief she replied. 
 
 "Let's hope it's not a premonition!!", she wrote back. "I am in contact with Piers. Many thanks for getting in touch." 
 
 He said: "There had been three other kayakers paddling down the Amazon Marañón River sometime behind Emma, possibly just paddling a shorter section of the river, and it may have been one of them. 
 
 "The news that it was Emma's corpse was wrong. She was well and already in Brazil when I managed to get in touch with her." 
 
 Just two weeks later, and 89 days into her 4,000 mile trip, Emma’s family received the same news that she had been killed, but this time the news was sadly true. 
 
 Civil Police Artur Gomes da Silva admitted to slitting her throat and throwing her bullet-riddled body into a river 
 
 Police have released photos of suspects linked to the murder of Emma Kelty in Brazil 
 
 Emma, 43, contacted Contos last year after finding out his SierraRios organisation provides support and training to people wanting to kayak down the Andes mountains where the Amazon river begins. 
 
 She began to train six months before her expedition began on June 18. 
 
 He said: "I hiked with her to the source of the river, from where she started paddling a kayak.” 
 
 Mr Contos supported her for the next 43 days from the beginning of the journey to the base of the Andes, where she continued her trip alone. 
 
 A graphic showing the Brit teacher's last known location 
 
 He said: "She wasn't a very competent kayaker in whitewater rapids. 
 
 "But, she was determined to do everything by her own strength and didn't want to use the raft on some places that were difficult to pass. 
 
 "This led to several problems, including one rapid where it ended up taking her two days to pass a section that would have been a few minutes in the raft." 
 
 From the beginning Emma had decided she wanted to do the expedition unassisted, and the support she had contracted by SierraRios ended on July 30. 
 
 While her body has not yet been found, an Amazonian pirate arrested for her murder has admitted to slitting her throat and throwing her bullet-riddled body into a river. 
 
 Brazilian Artur Gomes da Silva made his confession after being held following an anonymous tip-off, police chief Jose Barradas revealed. 
 
 The suspect, whose mugshot was released by detectives today, was found hiding in bushes with a phone and a GPS tracker. 
 
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 We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours. ||||| British canoeist Emma Kelty was tortured and raped as she died after being shot, villagers have claimed. 
 
 The full details of the adventurer's last moments were revealed in a confession by one of the suspects hours after the attack. 
 
 Ringleader Evanilson Gomes da Costa, 24, died Wednesday after being shot by rival gangsters. 
 
 Residents of the small riverside community of Lauro Sodre, near to where the crime took place, said all seven men accused of her murder are well-known drugs users in the village. 
 
 And one local who knows da Costa - known by his nicknamed Baia - said the gangster spoke to him in the early hours of the morning following Ms Kelty's death last Wednesday night, revealing what they had done. 
 
 The man, who didn't want to be named, said: "He said he was one of four men. The woman had put up her tent on the beach in exactly the area where the Colombia drug traffickers go through, and which is crawling with pirates who wait for them to arrive to attack.
– 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.