Eliza Samudio ( O Globo)
One of Brazil’s soccer superstars is under arrest for masterminding the murder of his former mistress — a model and porn actress — whose dismembered body was fed to dogs.
Bruno Souza, 25, and six other people, including his wife Dayane, are being held in the grisly case.
Souza, the goalkeeper for Brazil’s championship Flamengo team, met the beautiful victim, Eliza Samudio, at a teammate’s party last year and got her pregnant the first night they spent together, police said.
But he became enraged when she insisted on keeping the baby. Samudio filed a complaint in October, saying Souza beat her and tried to force her to swallow an abortion-inducing drug.
After their child, now 4 months old, was born and Samudio tried to prove Souza was the father, he hired a former police detective, Luiz Aparecido Santos, to kidnap, beat and murder her, investigators said.
They suspect that Samudio, 25, was kidnapped from a Rio de Janeiro hotel on June 4 and driven to a suburban house near the city of Belo Horizonte, six hours away.
One of Souza’s cousins, who allegedly took part in the abduction, said in a deposition that Santos committed “barbaric tortures” of Samudio while loud music blared to cover her screams, the newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo said.
When Samudio begged Santos to stop, saying she couldn’t bear it any more, he allegedly replied, “You are not going to bear it any more. You are going to die.”
Police said Santos strangled Samudio, cut up her body and fed some of the parts to Rottweiler dogs at the home. The other parts were buried in concrete, they said.
Police said Souza had planned the crime, told other plotters to “solve the problem” of Samudio, and witnessed her torture and strangulation.
“According to witnesses, he accompanied Eliza to her sacrifice and her death,” said Edson Moreira, a police investigator.
Souza was arrested Wednesday.
“An idol like Bruno, from such a major team, is a monster for what he has done to this girl,” said Moreira.
Souza was taken in handcuffs from his prison cell for DNA testing yesterday to establish a physical link to the murder. But he exercised his legal right to refuse to give any samples.
Souza, who captained his team to the Brazilian championship last year, said he is innocent and has a “clear conscience.” He complained that the Samudio case might spoil his chance to play for Brazil in the next World Cup.