A 32-year-old man accused of the murder of his former girlfriend was on a call with his friend in Brazil when he turned his phone around to show her lying covered in blankets at his apartment, a court has heard.
Brazilian national 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. He was arraigned on the charge at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork on Monday.
Outlining the evidence that the jury are likely to hear over the next two weeks, prosecution counsel Bernard Condon SC said the accused and Ms Fonseca had been in a relationship in Brazil where she worked as a secretary in a university and he worked as an engineer.
He said that Ms Fonseca had returned to live with her parents in the city of Formiga in Minas Gerais province in south-eastern Brazil before she and her niece, Maria Fonseca came to Ireland to presumably make a better life for herself, arriving in Cork on September 23rd, 2022.
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Mr Pacheco followed Ms Fonseca to Ireland arriving in Cork on November 18th, 2022, and lived with her briefly at an address on Watercourse Road before she moved out to live in a flat on Southern Road in the city while he went to live in a flat on Liberty Street.
Mr Condon said that the jury would hear evidence of how Ms Fonseca had begun dating a young Argentina man she met on an English course in Cork. They would hear details of contacts between herself and Mr Pacheco throughout the month of December 2022.
He said that they would hear how there was a lot of phone contact between them on December 17th and on December 18th and 19th, he sent her 120 texts. They would also hear that at a Christmas Eve party hosted by her cousin, Marcella Fonseca, he was staring fixedly at her.
Mr Condon told the jury of five men and seven women that they would also see CCTV footage of Mr Pacheco turning up on Christmas Day at the Mercy University Hospital where Ms Fonseca worked as a cleaner and asking radiographers about her.
He said that they would hear evidence that Ms Fonseca told Mr Pacheco she was going to a New Year’s Eve party in the Oyster Tavern in Cork and how he went along and filmed her as she was dancing and kissing another man, which she was perfectly entitled to do.
He said that they would hear that she returned to Mr Pacheco’s apartment – according to him to facetime a dog that they had when they lived together in Brazil – but that it appears an altercation broke out and people in the building heard a woman screaming around 4.15am.
He said they would also hear evidence of how Mr Pacheco had been in touch with a friend in Brazil, Pedro Enrique Eduardo and that he contacted him that night. When Mr Eduardo asked him how Ms Fonseca was, he turned the phone on her to show her lying covered in blankets.
The jury said that they would hear that Mr Pacheco texted Mr Eduardo at 5.15am that morning, saying, “Forgive me, it is too late, there is no way back, I should never have come here, I am not a monster, I could not hurt a fly, forgive me, bro.”
He said that they would hear evidence from Ms Fonseca’s cousin Marcella Fonseca and her friend Julianna Souza that they turned up at the Liberty Street flat that morning when they could not contact her and saw Mr Pacheco leaving with a sheet.
The jury would also hear evidence that Mr Pacheco told gardaí that Ms Fonseca started hitting him and hurting him so he tried to restrain her using a move he had seen in the movies where he put his arm around her neck and that they fell down between the bed and the table.
Mr Condon said that the evidence from Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Margot Bolster would be that Ms Fonseca died as a result of asphyxia and the question for the jury would not be whether Mr Pacheco killed Ms Fonseca but whether he intended to do kill her. The case continues.
