Bruno Fernandes de Souza: Soccer goalie who had GF Eliza Samudio killed and fed to dogs is SIGNED by new club!
This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some, readers' discretion advised.
A new football team has hired the 38-year-old Brazilian goalkeeper who planned the kidnapping and brutal murder of his model girlfriend. Bruno Fernandes de Souza received a 22-year prison sentence after admitting to planning the murder of Eliza Samudio, 25, whose corpse was dismembered and fed to his pet Rottweilers in June 2010.
The former model and actress was abducted, assaulted, and killed by a group that also included a former police officer. The goalkeeper, who goes by his first name Bruno in Brazil, cheated on his wife with Samudio, and she had his child. A paternity and child support lawsuit ensued, and Bruno subsequently confessed to organizing the plot.
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How was Bruno de Souza charged?
In March 2013, a judge sentenced him to 22 years and three months in prison after finding him responsible for ordering Eliza's murder, concealing her corpse, and abducting the couple's infant son. Nevertheless, in July 2019, Bruno's closed jail term was changed to a semi-open one.
In a semi-open prison system, prisoners are permitted to work outside the prison during the day but must return each night. However, due to insufficient facilities at Varginha Prison, officials permitted him to sleep at home, where he was ordered to stay between 8 pm and 6 am every night. Bruno was given parole by the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice in January of this year. The only stipulation of his release is that he reports to the Rio de Janeiro Penitentiary Administration Secretariat every three months.
Who signed Bruno de Souza?
A club in Sao Paulo has now signed the former Atletico Mineiro, Corinthians, and Flamengo player. On Wednesday, Orion Futebol Clube posted a photo of the player grinning broadly and raising a clenched fist to social media to announce the signing. The club, which will take part in the Super Copa Pioneer this year, wrote, "Backup for the position, welcome!" Orion is the seventh team to acquire Bruno since 2017 when he was granted habeas corpus before being ordered back to prison three months later. Bruno's previous club was Atletico Carioca in Sao Goncalo, Rio de Janeiro State.
How did Eliza Samudio die?
As per reports, Samudio met Bruno at a footballers' party in May 2009 and became pregnant by accident. The goalkeeper demanded that she have an abortion, but she refused, instead demanding that he claim paternity of the child. Samudio had contacted police prior to her disappearance on June 4, 2010, claiming she had been held prisoner by Bruno and his associates, who forced her to take an illegal abortion drug. Bruno is accused of holding a pistol to her head and telling her, "You don't know who I am or what I'm capable of - I'm from the favela." The infant, named Bruninho, was born in February 2010, but the star steadfastly denied paternity.
Prosecutors claimed during the trial that Bruno had murdered Samudio after she threatened to sue him for failing to pay child support.
'Barbaric tortures'
The footballer's teenage cousin Jorge Rosa claimed in a statement to police that he and Romao picked up Samudio and her son from a Rio de Janeiro hotel after she accepted the footballer's request to discuss the paternity allegations. He claimed they transported her 220 miles to Belo Horizonte, where she was locked up for six days on a property that Bruno and his wife used as a weekend getaway. Then, it is claimed that the model was given over to former military policeman Santos, who subjected her to "barbaric tortures" before killing her by neck-tying her in front of her four-month-old boy.
'Images from the worst nightmare you could imagine'
Santos, who was reportedly paid £8,000 to kill her, allegedly turned up the stereo's volume to block out the victim's screams, as reported by Daily Mail. "His acts were almost impossible to describe without breaking down - images from the worst nightmare you could imagine," detective Edson Moreira said of the case. Police subsequently discovered Samudio's four-month-old baby in a Belo Horizonte slum, alleged to have been abandoned there by Bruno's wife Dayane. Later DNA tests confirmed the footballer's paternity and Samudio's mother was then given custody of the child, according to the outlet.