Cork court hears victim told murder accused 'this love you feel is sick' days before her death

“You need a doctor, Miller, this love you feel is sick and I don’t want that,” the woman who was killed on New Year’s Day 2023 in Cork told her former boyfriend 12 days before her death.

A recording of this conversation from December 20, 2022, was retrieved from Bruna Fonseca’s phone by gardaí carrying out an investigation into her death.

Transcripts of the conversation in Portuguese translated into English were read to the seven women and five men of the jury hearing the case before Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork on Tuesday by prosecution barrister Imelda Kelly and Detective Sergeant Michael O’Halloran, with Ms Kelly reading Bruna’s words and the detective reading Miller’s.

32-year-old Miller Pacheco denies the murder of his former girlfriend, 28-year-old Bruna Fonseca, at his apartment at Liberty Street in Cork on January 1, 2023.

Reference is made to them being in a relationship at home in Brazil for five years, being separated for eight months, getting back together shortly before Bruna came to Cork and her getting together with an Argentinian student called Gian in the language school in Cork and then Bruna breaking up with Miller days after he arrived in Cork, earlier that December.

Miller said: “F***ing Argentinian, f***ing bastard… you don’t care about me.” 

Bruna said: “After all this, you have to get treatment. Otherwise every relationship you have will be this way. Don’t you want to get better?... When you said you wanted to forgive yourself were you thinking about me, were you thinking about the wellbeing of your family?... This is just a show to try go get me to stay… I will have to live with my mistake for the rest of my life. That does not mean I don’t remember every day what I did. I should have done it in a different way…I thought you had learned there is not only Bruna on Earth.” 

Miller said at different stages: “You don’t care if I am well or unwell… You are not going to have sex with me, even knowing all the pain you caused me… What I have to say will make no difference… I asked you Bruna not to abandon me but you are going to abandon me.”

Bruna said: “I want to be single and you won’t let me. What is the other path? Go to a convent? Become a nun? … I cannot live like this, it is wrong. Any slip, you say, ‘Ah, I am going to kill myself’… I spent eight months walking on eggshells, that you would do something. 

"I lived every day thinking about it… The smallest sign it is not going to work out, you say, ‘I am going to kill myself’. I have to be perfect 24 hours a day. During the eight months I would only be talking to you because I would believe that if I did not talk to you, you would not wake up the next morning.” 

Miller said as he cried on the phone: “I am leaving. Going to Brazil. I lost. I am leaving. Be very happy. … It is going to be a long time before you see me. It might be a long time before you see me… Because I might not want to see you.” 

Miller asked Bruna to get together with him one last time and she said: “No, no, it will f*** you up even more.” He said: “I promise it won’t f*** my head up… Why do you want it with someone else and not with me?” 

Bruna said: “You deserve someone who truly loves you. Don’t humiliate yourself for crumbs.” He said: “I am not going to humiliate myself. Just one last time.” 

Bruna said: “No is no. It has no other meaning. No, no, no, no, no, no… When you get treatment you will realise how much you have humiliated yourself here. I am telling you to get treatment. Please let me leave… let me go, let me go, let me go.” 

The trial continues.