Just hours before she fell to her death from a 130-foot bridge in Brazil, 21-year-old Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas was doing something familiar: posting on Instagram.
An aspiring physical education teacher, Rodrigues de Freitas kept an active social media presence, regularly sharing gym selfies and close-up snapshots that chronicled much of her daily routine.
Now, investigators believe she may have unknowingly recorded the final moments of her life.
According to authorities, Rodrigues de Freitas was given a GoPro camera shortly before she was thrown from an abandoned bridge in what was described as an “airplane style” launch. In the maneuver, two instructors held her above their shoulders while she stretched her arms out wide.
She was wearing a helmet and appeared to have on a harness, but investigators say she was not actually attached to the structure when workers sent her over the edge.
The missing camera has since become a central focus of the investigation, as officials believe it may contain harrowing bird’s-eye-view footage of Rodrigues de Freitas’s fatal fall.
Local pedagogist Rafael Goulart, who was waiting in line when Rodrigues de Freitas plummeted from the bridge, claimed one of the bungee jump workers had approached her motionless body after the fall.
‘They were worried about the equipment, either to hide evidence or because of its financial value,’ he told TV Globo.
Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas, 21, was thrown to her death off a 130ft bridge in Limeira, Sao Paulo, Brazil. She appeared to be carrying a GoPro, which is missing, in her right hand
Rodrigues de Freitas, 21, from Brazil, was thrown to her death on Saturday at the Skeleton Bridge in Limeira, Sao Paulo
Three men, Luis Felipe Feliciano Egoroff, 32, Vitor de Freitas Gonçalves, 27, and Maicon Fernandes Cintra, 42, were arrested for homicide with eventual intent
Andrea Dantas Levy, the police chief in charge of the case, said Monday that the vital camera in question may have been taken. During questioning, no one could explain where it was.
‘Honestly, I don’t think it’s still there, given the number of people who came to the bridge later to look for it,’ Levy said.
‘I believe that, unfortunately, someone may have taken the camera,’ she continued.
Levy explained that she had been at the scene with the forensic team but had not found the camera in question, according to G1.
The police chief added that the camera belonged to the organizers, which she added ‘cannot be called a company,’ and had been with Rodrigues de Freitas during the fatal incident.
‘It’s likely that during the fall, it slipped out of the victim’s hand, even though it was strapped to her wrist,’ Levy said.
Brazilian authorities have arrested the three men – Luis Felipe Feliciano Egoroff, 32, Vitor de Freitas Gonçalves, 27, and Maicon Fernandes Cintra, 42 – who held Rodrigues de Freitas over their heads.
They have been charged with homicide with eventual intent – but one of the suspects, Egoroff, has already said that he did not recall what happened before the incident.
‘I went first, and after that, it got erased from my mind,’ Egoroff said in a deposition obtained by CNN Brazil. ‘I can’t remember.’
Brazilian police are still looking for a GoPro camera that they claim Rodrigues de Freitas was holding when she fell to her death
In an Instagram story posted around 7.30am, Rodrigues de Freitas snapped the bridge and wrote the caption, ‘Who was the crazy person who let me come jump off a bridge???’
Gonçalves told authorities that Rodrigues de Freitas’s death was ‘truly a fatality,’ per the outlet.
However, he insisted that ‘no one leaves home intending to do something like that.’
During a custody hearing held on Sunday, Enrico Paisani, a representative of the Sao Paulo public prosecutor’s office, confirmed that Rodrigues de Freitas was holding the GoPro when she was thrown off the bridge, CNN Brazil reported.
Judge Paulo Henrique Stahlberg Natal, who is overseeing the case, has also noted that the camera attached to Rodrigues de Freitas at the time of her fall has not been found.
Rafael Gomes dos Santos, the attorney representing the bungee jump instructors, claimed that someone could have taken the missing GoPro.
‘There was a crowd of people there,’ Gomes dos Santos said, according to Folha de Sao Paulo.
Gomes dos Santos also said that the instructors were shaken and that they had been doing this for years without anything similar happening, according to BBC Brazil.
In a television interview, he claimed that his clients did not know how to explain that Rodrigues de Freitas had been hurled off the bridge without any attachments.
The camera that Rodrigues de Freitas had while she bungee jumped could hold the key to the next step of the investigation concerning her tragic death
Rafael Goulart, who was in line when Rodrigues de Freitas fell to her death, blasted the workers in charge and said they had assassinated the young woman
Judge Paulo Henrique Stahlberg Natal said that the GoPro camera attached to Rodrigues de Freitas when she fell to her death had still not been tracked down (file photo)
The judge, Natal, wrote that instructors had failed to follow basic protocols, such as double-checking, before Rodrigues de Freitas’s fatal fall.
‘By failing to attach the safety rope, essential equipment for preventing death, and by failing to realize the mandatory pre-dive check, the defendants assumed the risk that the victim would fall in free fall and pass away,’ Natal said.
He stunningly claimed that technical instructions had not been relayed prior to the death.
Goulart, the pedagogist waiting in line to jump when Rodrigues de Freitas died, blasted the incident as a ‘disgrace.’
Calling her death an ‘assassination,’ Goulart directly took aim at those in charge of the bungee jumping operation.
‘They killed the girl,’ he told Metropoles TV. ‘It was not an accident. It was not a security fail. They simply did not do the bare minimum for the sport to happen.’
Goulart added: ‘The name of the sport is rope jump. It’s jumping with a rope. They didn’t use a rope.’
In a video that circulated after Rodrigues de Freitas’s death, bystanders could be heard yelling out, ‘the rope, people, the rope’, as employees let go of the young woman.
‘The first scene I remember was seeing one of the employees removing the GoPro camera strap from the neck of the body that was already on the ground,’ Goulart told TV Globo.
Luis Felipe Feliciano Egoroff, one of the instructors, 32, claimed he could not remember the events resulting in Rodrigues de Freitas’s fatal fall
Vitor de Freitas Goncalves, 27, told authorities that ‘no one leaves home intending to do something like that,’ referring to Rodrigues de Freitas’s death
Maicon Fernandes Cintra, 42, was one of the three men arrested in connection with Rodrigues de Freitas’s death
The men in the video of the accident wore T-shirts with the logos of ‘Entre Cordas’ and ‘Ih Voei.’
According to local police, the names of those groups linked back to informal practitioners, G1 reported.
However, there were no actual official companies behind the jumping operation.
The three men were allegedly a group of sports enthusiasts who began organizing events at various locations roughly a year ago.
Rodrigues de Freitas’s mother, Valdenia Rodrigues, paid tribute to her ‘princess’ on Sunday.
‘My beloved daughter, today alone I wanted to hug you more than a thousand times,’ Rodrigues wrote. ‘How much your departure hurts me. I love you eternally, my princess. And thank you so much for being a part of my life for these 21 years.
‘What an honor it was to hear you call me mom. God, thank you for this privilege,’ she wrote on Instagram.
On Saturday around 7.31am, Freitas posted a shot of the Skeleton Bridge in Limeira, Sao Paulo, writing, ‘Who was the crazy person who let me come jump off a bridge???’ It would be one of her last posts.
