A man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend was a “coward” who choked the woman to death after failing to manipulate her into resuming their relationship, a trial has heard.
Miller Pacheco (32), of Formiga, Brazil, is on trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, charged with the murder of Bruna Fonseca.
The 28-year-old was found dead in the accused man’s flat on Liberty Street in Cork city on New Year’s Day 2023.
Ms Fonseca moved to Ireland from Brazil in September 2022 in search of a “better life”, the trial heard. Mr Pacheco travelled to Cork two months later to be reunited with her, but they broke up within days of his arrival.
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In his closing speech, Bernard Condon SC, prosecuting, told the jury Mr Pacheco’s thinking regarding Ms Fonseca was that, “if I can’t have her, no one can”.
He said Mr Pacheco was a “self-absorbed and childish” man who made “his problems, her problems”.
He said that when Ms Fonseca broke up with Mr Pacheco, he used “emotional blackmail” in an attempt to get her to change her mind.
“He had become like a child depending on Bruna, who was a functioning adult. He was prepared to weaponise victimhood and use it against her. That is emotional blackmail. He is an arch manipulator. He is a coward.”
Counsel said the accused man’s decision to hang around the hospital where Ms Fonseca worked on Christmas Day 2022 could be characterised as stalking
He said the accused had “dangerously” weaponised suicide and used it as “an emotional stick” with which to beat Ms Fonseca despite making no actual attempts to harm himself.
Mr Condon said Mr Pacheco’s “fragile male ego” was tested by the break-up. “The anger in him and the resentment and jealousy led him to kill her. He may have regretted it but it doesn’t change the fact that he did it.”
Counsel said if it were a case of self-defence, one would expect the accused to “scream it from the heights”. The reality, he added, was that Ms Fonseca “was in his house caring for him, not attacking him”.
He said it had been established beyond a reasonable doubt “that the accused put his hand over her throat and pressed, that he intended to kill her and that this was manual strangulation with the right hand”.
In his closing speech, defence counsel Ray Boland said the prosecution’s closing speech was in effect an emotional manipulation of the jury via a “character assassination” of his client.
He said there was no evidence to suggest the accused felt that if he could not be in a relationship with Ms Fonseca, then “nobody could”.
Mr Boland said his client’s account was that he put Ms Fonseca in a chokehold to stop her from hitting him.
“He could not see her face and could not have seen the difficulty she was in,” he said.
He said there was nothing to prevent Mr Pacheco from fleeing the scene and there was no evidence of him intending to kill Ms Fonseca.
Mr Boland noted that there was no history of violence in the relationship. He added that State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster had not completely ruled out the possibility that events occurred in the manner described by the accused.
Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford told the jury to set aside their “prejudices, subjective feelings or emotions” and to focus solely on the evidence in the case. The judge will continue her charge to the jury on Thursday.
