Missing woman was pressuring Flamengo captain to acknowledge paternity of her son
IN THE week since Brazil crashed out of the World Cup, football has dominated the front pages in Brazil. But rather than poring over the reasons for their team’s quarter-final exit against the Dutch, Brazilians have been following with horrified fascination an investigation into an up-and-coming soccer star’s alleged role in the disappearance of a young woman.
On Wednesday, police arrested Bruno Fernandes de Souza, goalkeeper, captain and current idol of fans at Rio de Janeiro club Flamengo, Brazil’s most popular team. Recently courted by AC Milan and Porto, the 25-year-old is accused of having orchestrated the kidnapping of Eliza Samudio, who had been pressuring the married father of two to acknowledge paternity of her four-month-old son.
Though no body has yet been found, police believe the 25-year-old woman’s murder was ordered by the player.
The case has thrown a spotlight on the decadent world of some of Brazil’s top football stars. Fernandes, known simply as Bruno, admits he met and had sex with Samudio at a party with other players in May of last year.
“It was an orgy. These parties are common in our circle. I was with her, everyone was with her,” he told Veja magazine before his arrest.
Bruno claims Samudio was a well-known groupie who sought out football players for sex. Her page on a social networking website has photographs of her with several Brazilian footballers, along with one of her and Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, with whom she told friends she shared “some kisses”.
Samudio had worked as a hostess for a sports events firm in São Paulo, and also starred in at least one pornographic film.
She fell out with Bruno when, three months after the party, she filed a paternity suit against him. At first the star fought the claim.
Samudio claimed he physically attacked her during one meeting in Rio. It is also claimed that at the beginning of last month he told her he was ready to perform a DNA test, and told her to go to his home city of Belo Horizonte. Shortly afterwards she disappeared. On June 24th, police received an anonymous tip-off that Bruno and two friends had killed Samudio, sparking the investigation.
Police found the missing woman’s baby in a favela in Belo Horizonte in the care of a friend of Bruno’s wife, Dayanne, who is also now under arrest for attempting to cover up a crime. But the most damning evidence against the football star is a statement from his cousin, who cannot be named because he is under 17 years of age.
The cousin, who lives with the player, told police he heard Bruno tell two friends to “resolve the problem” after they had lured Samudio to his country retreat outside Belo Horizonte.
The next day the cousin went with the two friends as they brought Samudio to the house of another man. In his statement he told police this man tied up the woman and strangled her, and then fed her remains to four Rottweilers.
Michel Assef Filho, Bruno’s lawyer, told reporters that his client is “horrified” by the claims made in his cousin’s statement, and denies any involvement in Samudio’s disappearance. But yesterday police said they now believe the goalkeeper was present when Samudio was murdered
Though one of Brazil’s most promising young players, Bruno is no stranger to controversy. In 2008, several prostitutes accused him of aggression during another orgy with players from a rival team.
Earlier this year he was again in the headlines when he defended his teammate Adriano, following accusations the striker had hit his girlfriend during a fight. Questioned about the case, Bruno asked journalists: “Who hasn’t raised a hand to a woman?”
Now the keeper’s career hangs in the balance. Flamengo have suspended his €90,000 a month contract, and his shirts have been withdrawn from sale in the club’s shops.
On Wednesday night the Globo network played a recording made inside the Rio police station in which Bruno, tipped by many as a future star of the Brazilian national side, can he heard saying: “If I had any hope of playing in the World Cup in 2014, it is over.”