A 29-year-old man was placed in police custody on Tuesday after being arrested the day before at an area on the A8 motorway in Var with the body of his ex-partner in his car, announced the Nice prosecutor, Damien Martinelli. Monday afternoon, the body of Larissa Brito was discovered by customs officers during an unannounced check in the Cambarette Nord area, near Brignoles (Var). The body showed signs of stabbing and was hidden under plastic bags. The driver was then placed in police custody as part of an investigation opened by the Draguignan public prosecutor's office.
At the same time, a man reported to the Nice police the disappearance of a friend, a young woman of 25 years of Brazilian nationality. At the beginning of the afternoon he went to the young woman's home, near the Promenade des Anglais, and saw a man come out with things, before noticing that the home had recently been cleaned. Investigators quickly made the link between the two cases and identified the victim as the missing young woman. The driver, originally from Savoie and already convicted of traffic offenses and drug violations, was identified as the victim's former companion.
Skip the ad
The Draguignan public prosecutor's office then relinquished responsibility in favor of the Nice public prosecutor's office, which opened an investigation into the murder of a former spouse, entrusted to the Nice judicial police. “During his custody, the accused person contested the facts with which he was accused,” said Damien Martinelli. The Nice public prosecutor's office also requested his placement in pre-trial detention. According to the victim's mother, interviewed by Nice-Matin from Brazil, the former companion would have been violent towards her daughter when they were a couple.
“What happened to my daughter?”
The relationship, which lasted five months and ended about two and a half years ago, was said to have been particularly contentious. The former companion “harassed her daily on social networks, but also in person. He said that if she was not with him, she would no longer be with anyone else,” assures Liliane, Larissa’s mother, quoted by Nice-Matin. According to her, the man had recently resurfaced in her daughter's life saying he wanted to “make peace”.
The day the body was discovered, worried about no longer receiving news from Larissa, her mother filed a complaint at a police station in São Paulo. Desperate, she also contacted the suspect on WhatsApp. “What happened to my daughter?” she wrote to him. According to the story reported by Nice-Matin, the man then tried to reassure her by providing several explanations. In particular, he allegedly claimed that he was going to buy a new charger for Larissa, his having “fell in the water”.
A few hours earlier, the young woman herself would have sent her mother a final message to inform her that her former companion was in her apartment. She then allegedly stopped responding to his messages. When the mother contacted the man, he allegedly claimed that Larissa was sleeping. These elements, reported by the victim's relatives and the press, will have to be compared with the investigators' findings.
An autopsy ordered
The first elements of the investigation point to a crime committed in Larissa's apartment, in Nice, before her body was transported in the suspect's car. An autopsy was ordered to determine precisely the causes and circumstances of death.
Skip the ad
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Consulate General of Brazil in Marseille, is closely monitoring the case and is in contact with the local authorities and the family of the Brazilian citizen, who benefits from the necessary consular assistance,” the Brazilian authorities also indicated in a press release.
Originally from São Paulo, Larissa Brito had lived in France for about three years and worked as a model. His family, who remained in Brazil, launched a fundraiser to finance the repatriation of his remains. She hopes to raise 100,000 reais, or around 17,000 euros, to cover administrative, funeral and transport costs.
