Three bungee jump instructors facing homicide charges after launching a 21-year-old woman off a 130-foot Brazilian bridge without a safety line attached now claim they “can’t remember” which one of them was responsible for securing her harness.
Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas had posted a lighthearted caption to her Instagram Story just hours before her fatal June 13 jump at the Ponte do Esqueleto — Skeleton Bridge — located between Limeira and Cordeirópolis in São Paulo state. “Who was the crazy person who let me jump off a bridge???” she wrote. Her fiancé was watching when she went over the edge. The rope never left the platform.
Now, in interrogation footage obtained by EPTV, the three men charged in her death are pointing fingers everywhere but at themselves.
Luis Felipe Feliciano Egoroff, 32, acknowledged he and fellow instructor Maicon Fernandes Cintra, 42, shared responsibility for rigging the safety line — but told investigators his memory simply went dark at the critical moment. “After that, it erased from my mind,” he said. Cintra, who was stationed at the rear holding Freitas by her feet, admitted the team routinely rotated who handled the rope, offering no clearer explanation for the catastrophic oversight.
“I simply cannot understand,” he told investigators.
The third instructor, Vitor de Freitas Gonçalves, 27, was called to assist the victim. He also told authorities the team has no idea what happened to the GoPro camera Freitas was given to record her jump.
A bystander filming the event caught the rope lying slack on the bridge deck as Freitas disappeared below the railing and could be heard screaming, “Guys, the rope!” Freitas survived the initial impact. An off-duty nurse rushed down to help but was unable to save her.
“She wanted to be a physical education teacher,” her teacher Valdinei Barbosa recalled. “I always encouraged her, because she had the right aptitude for it.”
All three men were charged with homicide and are being held without bond. Investigators determined they were operating under the banner of informal businesses — unregistered, unauthorized to use the federally owned structure. When police arrived, two of the suspects had fled into nearby woods and had to be tracked down by a police helicopter.
Three additional individuals connected to the event were also detained for questioning and later released.
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