Man accused of murdering Bruna Fonseca thought 'if I can’t have her, nobody can', Cork court told

The man on trial for murdering a young Brazilian woman in Cork was characterised as a self-absorbed coward who weaponised victimhood and suicide in an attempt to manipulate the woman before murdering her because “if I can’t have her, no one can”. 

The defence described Wednesday’s prosecution closing speech as a character assassination of the defendant and said there was absolutely no evidence of the accused man thinking that if he could not have the young woman, then nobody could.

The two senior counsel made their closing speeches to Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford and the seven women and five men of the jury at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork today.

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

Prosecution closing speech

Prosecution senior counsel, Bernard Condon, said the accused intended to kill her and that “it was the intention for some time, certainly it was on his agenda and was on his list”. Fturmoil

“The prosecution say it is established beyond reasonable doubt that the accused put his hand over her throat and pressed, that he intended to kill her and that this was manual strangulation with the right hand,” Mr Condon said.

“Miller Pacheco was a very needy person, a very self-absorbed person who had became like a child depending on Bruna, who was a functioning adult… He made (his problems) her problem. He was prepared to weaponise victimhood and use it against her. That is emotional blackmail. He is an arch manipulator. He is a coward,” he said.

He describes Miller video-recording her kissing a man in the early hours of New Year’s Day at a party. He said that instead of standing up in any way to the man in the nightclub, instead he exercised control over Bruna with a cowardly attitude of “poor me”.

“Here is the bottom line, his thinking – supported by the evidence – was ‘if I can’t have her, nobody can’,” Mr Condon said.

Defence closing speech 

Defence senior counsel, Ray Boland, said there was emotional manipulation of the jury by the prosecution in what he described as a character assassination of Miller Pacheco.

“He tells his friends he killed her, he shows them the body, he confusedly brings a sheet out to dump it, but nothing else though. The prosecution says he has his backpack and passport (outside on the street afterwards) but that is so that he will have his documents on him for the guards. There is nothing to stop him leaving, going away.

“He seems to be a very tightly wound individual. Other students said he was quiet and serious. He certainly seems to feel things deeply. There is absolutely no history of violence in the relationship in the previous six years,” Mr Boland.

The defence senior counsel asked the jury to consider Bruna’s words to Miller when she asked in exasperation if he needed to see her having sex with another person in order to get it into his head that her relationship with him was over. 

Mr Boland said that he made no criticism of the late Ms Fonseca when he said that kissing someone at the party in front of Miller was something new. And that the accused was “in genuine psychic turmoil”.

He said Miller held her around the neck from behind with his arm to stop her hitting him. “He could not see her face and could not have seen the difficulty she was in… How long does it take — and this is a morbid question — for the person to die? Did he miscalculate in holding her until she is quiet?” Mr Boland suggested.

The trial continues.