A woman in Brazil took the corpse of her uncle into a bank and tried to guide his limp hand into signing a loan.
“I can’t sign for you, it has to be you…Sign it so you don’t give me any more headaches.” she scolds the elderly man, whose lifeless body was seated in a wheelchair.
Next, she excused his silence to the teller and said, “He doesn’t say anything, that’s just how he is.” Keep reading to learn more about this bizarre incident!
*Please be warned there is graphic content below.
On April 16, video surveillance shows a (rideshare or taxi) driver helping Érika de Souza Vieira Nunes place an elderly man into a wheelchair, which the 42-year-old woman acquired from the mall.
As the car drives off, Nunes then enters an elevator, afterwards strolling through a mall, pushing her uncle, identified as 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga.
The now viral video shows Nunes in a Rio de Janeiro bank with Braga, whose eyes are closed, mouth wide open and his head flopping wildly with every movement.
Once the pair is with a teller in a booth, Nunes takes Braga’s hand and tries to guide it into signing paperwork for a $3,250 loan.
After she places his identification on the counter with the papers, his arm falls off the counter back into his lap and his head swings backwards.
Catching his head with her left hand, Nunes uses her right hand to hold his, and tries to help him grip the pen. According to a translated transcript by Reuters, Nunes says, “Uncle Paulo, are you listening? You need to sign it. If you don’t sign it, there’s no way. I can’t sign it for you.”
Telling the concerned teller that she’s his niece and caregiver, she then explains, “He doesn’t say anything, that’s just how he is.” Turning to the corpse, she adds, “If you’re not okay, I’m going to take you to the hospital.”
Before scolding the body, she appears to flash a smile at the camera behind the teller.
“If you don’t sign, there’s no way,” she says in another part of the video. “I can’t sign for you, it has to be you. What [can I] do?”
“Sign it so you don’t give me any more headaches, having to go to the registry office. I can’t take it anymore,” Nunes adds.
Then, according to the Washington Post, an employee interjects, saying, “I don’t think he’s okay. There’s no color in his face.”
Growing suspicious, bank staff contacted police, who arrested and charged Nunes with theft by fraud, along with abuse of a corpse.
CNN Brasil reports that when paramedics arrived, it was determined the man had been dead for a couple of hours and must have been dead when he arrived at the bank.
But Nunes denies the charges, insisting she didn’t know her relative was dead when she rolled him into the bank.
Arguing her case, the woman’s lawyer said in a news conference, “the facts did not occur as has been narrated” and the man “was alive when he arrived at the bank.”
“[Nunes] is completely shaken and medicated,” adds the lawyer.
However, investigators say medical evaluation reveals Braga died lying down, not sitting, and that he had been dead for hours at the time of the bank incident.
“Anyone watching the video can tell he was dead,” said lead investigator of the case, Fábio Souza, told the television network Globonews, per The Washington Post. “Can you imagine her? She was touching him. She knew he was dead.”
Braga’s autopsy shows the cause of death was related to respiratory aspiration of stomach contents and heart failure.
It also shows the man died between 11:30 am and 2:30 pm local time Tuesday, and the time-stamped surveillance video shows Nunes in the parking lot, exiting the car with Braga about 1:02 p.m.
Investigations are still ongoing.
This incident is one of the most bizarre we’ve seen! Let us know what you thoughts in the comments section and please share the story so we can hear what others have to say!
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