Annie Walton Doyle
The woman who ‘wheeled her dead uncle’s corpse into the bank to withdraw a loan’ has broken her silence and asked a disturbing question.
Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, made headlines when footage surfaced of her wheeling her uncle’s body into a bank, attempting to have him withdraw $3,250, as reported by The Washington Post.
The 42-year-old is facing charges of violating a corpse and attempted theft through fraud, per The Guardian. Police have also announced they’ve launched a separate manslaughter probe.
After being released from prison pending an ongoing investigation, Nunes has broken her silence on the disturbing incident.
The mother-of-six says she is being falsely labelled and she’s ‘not a monster’.
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Footage shows Nunes at a bank in April with her 68-year-old uncle, Paulo Braga.
She can be seen talking to her deceased uncle and asking him to sign financial documents allowing the loan to be taken out.
The video seemingly shows her also holding up Braga’s drooping head.
Nunes reportedly says (per the New York Post): “He is like that. He doesn’t say anything.”
MailOnline reports that Braga was hospitalised with pneumonia and on the day he was discharged, Nune accompanied him to the bank branch.
Staff at the bank alerted police and paramedics, who declared Nunes’ uncle was dead.
Cadaver marks reportedly indicated he would have been deceased a couple of hours before being wheeled into the bank.
Nunes has been released from prison – the judge overseeing her case removed her from pretrial detention as she’s not considered a flight risk and she has to care for a young daughter with special needs.
The mother has now broken her silence on the incident, insisting she had no idea her uncle was deceased when they had reached the bank.
Discussing her time in prison, Nunes recalls: “They were horrible days away from my family. I lived moments in my life that I couldn’t bear any more.
“Very difficult. It was horrible, I didn’t realise that my uncle was dead… I’m not that person they’re talking about, I’m not that monster.”
Nunes says she is currently under psychiatric treatment and claims that she took Zolpidem, a sedative prescribed to treat insomnia.
In an interview with Brazilian show Fantástico, the woman says: “I can’t remember much.”
Nunes also claims she may have taken more than she was prescribed by her doctor that day, adding: “I don’t know if it was the effect of the medicine that day.”
The Rio de Janeiro Civil Police has filed a report with the Public Ministry, alleging that Nunes was aware of Braga’s passing before wheeling him to the bank.
Civil Police chief Fábio Luiz claims in his findings, obtained by TV Globo: “She knew this fact [of death], as he is [in the video] with his head down and without any movement, however, right before entering, she holds him by the neck so that he has his head up, simulating a person alive.
“There is no doubt that Erika knew about Paulo’s death, but, as it was her last chance to withdraw the money from the loan, she entered the bank with the corpse, simulated for several minutes that he was alive, even pretending to give water, took the pen and held his hand close to the hand of Paulo’s corpse.”
According to an autopsy report obtained by Metrópoles, Braga’s initial cause of death was listed as broncho-aspiration and heart failure.
Nunes has a disturbing question for those who have doubted her version of events.
She asks: “How do you give a paper to a dead person to sign?”
No date has yet been set for Nunes’ probable trial.
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