When Érika de Souza Vieira brought her lethargic-looking uncle into a Brazilian bank, employees quickly sensed something was wrong.
“I don’t think he’s well. He doesn’t look well at all,” remarked one suspicious clerk as Vieira attempted to have her elderly relative sign off on a 17,000 reais ($3,250) loan.
Paulo Roberto Braga was indeed unwell. In fact, the 68-year-old appeared to be deceased.
Shortly after entering the lender in Rio de Janeiro late on Tuesday with her deceased uncle, Vieira was arrested and charged with violating a corpse and attempted theft through fraud, according to the Rio newspaper O Dia.
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“She knew he was dead … he had been dead for at least two hours,” said the investigating officer, Fábio Luiz Souza, on the breakfast news program Bom Dia Rio on Wednesday. “I have never come across a story like this in 22 years [as a cop],” added Souza, who said visible signs of livor mortis left no doubt as to Braga’s state.
Footage of Vieira’s surreal and macabre alleged attempt to cash in on her relative’s corpse has gone viral on social media, with Brazilians voicing astonishment at the scene.
At one point in the images – which bank workers began filming after smelling a rat – one suspicious employee comments on Braga’s pallid complexion. “That’s just what he’s like,” Vieira replies, before trying to place a pen in his limp hand once again.
Brazilian journalists shared their viewers’ bewilderment.
“It is just unbelievable. It seems like a wind-up, but this is serious,” exclaimed news presenter Leilane Neubarth as she reported the scandal on the network GloboNews. “She has gone into the bank with a cadaver – and has tried to get money with a human being who is dead.”
Another journalist, Camila Bomfim, was similarly stunned. “This is the last straw … This goes beyond all limits because there can be no doubt … about the difference between a living person and a dead person,” Bomfim said.
Ana Carla de Souza Correa, a lawyer representing Vieira, insisted it was not so. “The facts did not occur as has been narrated. Paulo was alive when he arrived at the bank,” Correa told reporters, claiming there were witnesses who could prove that. “All of this will be cleared up,” the lawyer added. “We believe in Érika’s innocence.”
Police chief Souza said he was also investigating if Vieira was, in fact, the deceased man’s niece. “Anyone who sees that [footage] can see the person was dead,” he said.”
