The Brazilian goalkeeper who ordered the kidnap and twisted murder of his model girlfriend has been signed by a new football club aged 38.
Bruno Fernandes de Souza was sentenced to 22 years in prison after he confessed to plotting the killing of Eliza Samudio, 25, whose body was dismembered and fed to his pet Rottweilers in June 2010.
The actress and model was kidnapped, beaten up and murdered by a gang that included a former policeman.
The goalkeeper, who is widely known in Brazil by his first name, cheated on his wife with Ms Samudio and she had his child.
Followed a paternity and child support lawsuit – Bruno later confessed to organising the plot.
Brazilian goalkeeper Bruno Fernandes de Souza (pictured) who ordered the kidnap and twisted murder of his model girlfriend has been signed by a new football club aged 38
Bruno Fernandes de Souza was sentenced to 22 years in prison after he confessed to plotting the killing of Eliza Samudio (pictured), 25, whose body was was dismembered and fed to his pet Rottweilers in June 2010
He was handed 22 years and three months in prison in March 2013 after a court found him guilty of ordering Eliza’s murder, hiding her body, and kidnapping their baby son.
But Bruno’s closed prison sentence was converted to a semi-open one in July 2019.
In a semi-open prison regime, prisoners are allowed to work outside the prison during the day, but they must return to the prison each night.
However, inadequate facilities at Varginha Prison meant that officials had allowed him to sleep at his home, where he was ordered to stay between 8pm to 6am every night.
And in January this year, the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice granted parole to Bruno.
The only condition of his release is that he present himself at the Penitentiary Administration Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro every three months.
Now, a team in Sao Paulo has snapped up the former Atletico Mineiro, Corinthians, and Flamengo man.
Orion Futebol Clube announced the signing on social media on Wednesday by posting a picture of the former lag grinning widely and raising a clenched fist.
The club, which will compete in the Super Copa Pioneer this year, wrote: ‘Backup for the position, welcome!’
Orion is the seventh team to have signed Bruno since 2017, when he was granted habeas corpus before being ordered to return to jail three months later.
Bruno’s last team was Atletico Carioca in Sao Goncalo, Rio de Janeiro State.
Ms Samudio met Bruno at a footballers’ party in May 2009 and fell pregnant by accident, it is claimed.
The goalkeeper demanded she have an abortion but she went ahead with the pregnancy, instead insisting that he assume paternity of the child.
Before her disappearance on June 4, 2010, Ms Samudio had approached police claiming she had been held captive by Bruno and his associates, who forced her to take an illegal abortion drug.
Bruno allegedly put a gun to her head and told her: ‘You don’t know who I am or what I’m capable of – I’m from the favela.’
Jailed: Bruno Souza, former goalkeeper of Brazil’s Flamengo soccer club, was sentenced to 22 years and three months in prison for the murder of his former lover in
Model: Eliza Samudio is believed to have met Bruno at a party held by another footballer. She later presented a report (left) to police against the footballer, claiming he had got her pregnant
Baby Bruninho, was born in February 2010, but the player refused to acknowledge he was the father.
During the trial, prosecutors alleged that Bruno ordered Ms Samudio’s murder after she told him she would take legal action to force him to pay child support.
In a statement to police, the footballer’s teenage cousin Jorge Rosa claimed he and Romao picked up Ms Samudio and her son from a Rio de Janeiro hotel after she accepted an invitation by the footballer to talk about the paternity claims.
He said they drove her 220 miles to a property in Belo Horizonte which Bruno and his wife used as a weekend retreat, where she was held captive for six days.
Ms Samudio was then allegedly handed over to former military policeman Santos, who committed ‘barbaric tortures’ on her before strangling her to death with a neck tie in front of her four-month-old son.
Santos, who was allegedly paid £8,000 to murder her, played loud music on a stereo to drown out the woman’s screams, it was claimed.
Edson Moreira, a detective who investigated the case, said: ‘His acts were almost impossible to describe without breaking down – images from the worst nightmare you could imagine.’
Police later found Ms Samudio’s four-month-old baby in a Belo Horizonte slum, alleged to have been abandoned there by Bruno’s wife Dayane. DNA tests later proved the footballer’s paternity. The child was then handed into the care of Ms Samudio’s mother.
DailyMail
