A 32-year-old man charged with the murder of his former girlfriend told a friend in Brazil he had killed her, and sent him a video of her body, his trial has heard.
The murder trial heard Miller Pacheco contacted his friend Pedro Enrique Eduardo in the early hours of New Year’s Day of 2023 saying he had killed witness Marcela Fonseca’s cousin, Bruna Fonseca.
Marcela Fonseca told the court Mr Eduardo had called her after his phone call with the accused.
Mr Pacheco, a Brazilian national whose full name is Miller Misserani da Cunha Bello Pacheco, has denied the murder of Bruna Fonseca (28) at his apartment at Liberty Street in Cork on January 1st, 2023.
At the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork on Tuesday, Marcela Fonseca said she was living in Ireland at the time and that her cousin and best friend Bruna Fonseca had moved here in September 2022 with her niece, Maria.
She said Bruna Fonseca had been in a relationship with Mr Pacheco in Brazil, but they had split up. He followed her to Ireland. They split up again within a few days of him joining her at a flat in Blackpool, and he went to live in the flat at Liberty Street.
Miller Pacheco. Photograph: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision
The witness said she went to Mr Pacheco’s flat on Liberty Street on the evening of New Year’s Eve after Bruna Fonseca had messaged her saying she had taken a knife off Mr Pacheco, fearing he was going to kill himself.
She and her friend Juliana Souza found Bruna Fonseca and Mr Pacheco there with red eyes, indicating they had been crying. Bruna Fonseca left with them and showed them a cut to her finger which she said she got while trying to take the knife away from Mr Pacheco.
The trial heard that Bruna Fonseca and her niece Maria went to a Brazilian-themed New Year’s Eve party in the Oyster Tavern later that night. Mr Pacheo did not want her to go but he went along later and spent the night following her around the party, the jury heard.
At about 6am, Marcela Fonseca received a phone call from Pedro Enrique Eduardo saying Mr Pacheco had contacted him to say that he may have killed Bruna Fonseca and he had sent him a video of her body.
Marcela Fonseca said she and Ms Souza went to Mr Pacheco’s flat and met him outside the front door with a white sheet. She asked him if he had killed her cousin.
“He said: ‘It was not me’, and I asked him if he killed my cousin and how he killed my cousin and he said: ‘I choked her’,” Ms Fonseca said. She told senior defence counsel Ray Boland the exchange was in Portuguese and he may have used the word “suffocated” rather than “choked”.
Ms Souza told the court she had missed four calls from Marcela Fonseca at about 6am. When she rang her back, Ms Fonseca said: “Miller has killed Bruna,” she said.
Ms Souza said Mr Pacheco tried to stop them entering the building, but they managed to get into the hallway and locked the door behind them. They knocked on Mr Pacheco’s flat door but could not get in. They met him again when they came downstairs.
“Miller and Marcela started to argue. She asked: ‘Where is Bruna, did you kill Bruna? Miller was quiet and said it wasn’t me,” said Ms Souza, adding Mr Pacheco then went upstairs and changed his clothes and came down with a suitcase and was going to leave but Marcela Fonseca stopped him.
“Marcela said: ‘No, wait here for the guards’,” Ms Souza told the jury. She said Mr Pacheco remained with them until gardaí arrived some 10 minutes later. He was arrested and taken for questioning.
The case continues.