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Three Instructors Charged After Woman Dies in Brazil Bridge Jump Without Safety Ropes

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Hours before she plunged more than 130 feet from a bridge in Brazil, Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas appeared to joke about the stunt she was about to attempt.

“Who was the crazy person who let me jump off a bridge?” the 21-year-old wrote in what local media described as her final Instagram post.

By Saturday, Eduarda, who was from Jandira, São Paulo,  was dead after being launched from Skeleton Bridge, also known as Ponte do Esqueleto, in Limeira, a city in the eastern part of Brazil’s São Paulo state.

The bridge has become a well-known spot for rope-jumping and is about 100 miles northwest of São Paulo, according to The New York Times. A police report cited by the outlet described the bridge as standing roughly 30 meters, or just under 100 feet, above the ground.

Videos circulating online show Eduarda in the moments before the fatal fall, with both arms outstretched as two men hoist her over their heads and toss her from the side of the bridge. A third man can be seen nearby.

The two men are wearing what appear to be harnesses connected to a rope, while the third helps lift Eduarda by the ankles before stepping back as she is carried toward the edge, according to the footage.

Eduarda is wearing a helmet, though no safety cord is visible. Local police said she had asked to be launched from the bridge like a plane.

She is also seen holding a GoPro-style camera, but police were unable to locate it at the scene. The instructors told investigators they did not know where it was. It was not immediately clear whether Eduarda had previous experience with rope jumping.

Earlier footage from the same bridge reportedly showed other jumpers being launched similarly, but with a thick rope fastened to their harnesses at two points. In Eduarda’s case, the clips on her harness appeared to be empty.

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In a previous statement, the governor’s office said Eduarda “did not resist the fall” and that her safety equipment had not been properly secured.

When police arrived, a nurse was trying to resuscitate Eduarda, but officers found she had no vital signs.

Three men identified by police as jumping instructors were arrested Sunday in connection with Eduarda’s death.

Luis Felipe Feliciano Egoroff, 32, Vitor de Freitas Goncalves, 27, and Maicon Fernandes Cintra, 42, were charged with homicide with eventual intent, local officials said.

Under Brazilian law, the charge applies in cases where a person did not intend to kill but engaged in dangerous conduct that carried a fatal risk.

The three men worked for the company that offered rope jumps at the bridge, according to a police report. Authorities said two of them left the scene after being questioned by officers and were later apprehended. Police described the arrests as occurring “in flagrante,” a term often used when suspects are caught during or immediately after an alleged crime.

The company was not authorized to conduct jumps from the bridge, according to Brazil’s Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services.

Police investigator Andrea Levy told reporters that the three men acknowledged Eduarda had not been connected to safety ropes, but said they did not remember who had been responsible for checking her equipment, The Associated Press reported.

Their defense attorney said in a statement to Brazilian media that his clients were in shock.

The activity is often compared to bungee jumping, but the mechanics are different. In bungee jumping, the cord stretches and snaps the jumper back upward. Rope jumping uses climbing-style ropes instead, sending the person into a wide swinging motion rather than a vertical bounce.

The sport has a deadly history. Dan Osman, who is credited with originating rope jumping, was killed in 1998 during a jump at Yosemite National Park in California. A cord failed during the stunt, and Osman fell several hundred feet into a canyon as a friend watched from above.

Skeleton Bridge was once part of a defunct railway line, according to local media reports.

Eduarda’s death has also triggered a dispute between local and federal officials over responsibility for the bridge and the surrounding area.

City officials in Limeira said in a statement that they plan to sue the federal government, arguing that local authorities had repeatedly tried to secure the area around Skeleton Bridge before Saturday’s fatal fall.

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Limeira Mayor Murilo Félix said the city council had been trying for more than a year to pass local measures “demanding action from the federal bodies responsible for the area.”

“The tragedy this Saturday (13), which resulted in the death of a 21-year-old woman, makes the continuation of this omission unsustainable and unacceptable.”

Félix added that the federal government is “exclusively” responsible for the bridge.

As the investigation continues, Eduarda’s family, friends and community members have shared tributes online remembering her life.

Eduarda was buried in São Paulo state on Sunday, according to The Associated Press.

Local gym Panobianco Academia posted a tribute to Eduarda after her death, along with a selfie of her wearing leggings printed with the gym’s logo.

“Maria Eduarda left her mark through the dedication, affection, joy and respect with which she treated everyone around her. Your presence illuminated the environments and your memory will remain forever in our hearts.”

In a separate post, Panobianco Academia said it would close on Sunday in Eduarda’s honor.

“Those we love never truly leave us,” the post read. “They remain alive in our memories, in our hearts, and in all the love they left behind.”

Eduarda’s mother also shared a short statement on social media addressing her daughter’s death.

“My beloved daughter, today alone I wanted to hug you more than a thousand times,” she 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.”

No Justice No Peace Sign

Grand Juror On Breonna Taylor Case Claims Homicide Charges Were Never Offered

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A grand juror in the Breonna Taylor case has spoken out against claims made by Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron, stating that the jury was never offered homicide charges to consider against the officers involved in the killing of Taylor. 

The grand juror made the anonymous comments after a Louisville judge allowed the panel’s members to speak publicly about the secretive proceedings. The juror didn’t file suit to speak publicly, however, until Cameron announced that no officers would be directly charged for the shooting death of Taylor during a botched narcotics raid that wasn’t even meant to occur at Taylor’s residency. 

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Instead, the grand jury only charged one officer out of the four with endangerment of Taylor’s neighbors due to the fact that some of the dozens of bullets fired hit her neighbors home; but no charges were made for the bullets that hit Taylor. The grand juror claims that when the jury asked about bringing other charges against the officers, they were told “there would be none because prosecutors didn’t feel they could make them stick,” according to the statement. 

Cameron has also been quite adamant about not allowing the grand jurors to speak about the proceedings, but didn’t appeal the judges ruling either. This could likely be because on September 23rd when Cameron announced the results of the grand jury investigation that resulted in one endangerment charge, he claimed that prosecutors “walked the grand jury through every homicide offense,” a claim that has now been refuted. 

Cameron also claimed that the “grand jury agreed” that the officers who shot Taylor were justified in their returning fire after Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, shot at the officers who barged into their home without any warning or announcement that they were law enforcement. The gun Walker had was legally owned as well. 

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However, the grand juror also refuted these claims and stated that the “panel didn’t agree that certain actions were justified, and grand jurors did not have homicide charges explained to them. The grand jury never heard anything about those laws. Self defense or justification was never explained either.”

Kevin Glowgower is the grand juror’s attorney, who claims that his client’s biggest discrepancy with the Kentucky attorney general is the way that the results were  “portrayed to the public as to who made what decisions and who agreed with what decisions.”

Beyond the statement posted on Tuesday the grand juror has no intention of speaking out further about the cases proceedings. Cameron has only acknowledged that his prosecutors didn’t present homicide charges due to the fact that the two officers who shot and killed Taylor were justified in returning fire after Walker shot them. 

Cameron said Tuesday that it was his decision “to ask for an indictment that could be proven under Kentucky law. Indictments obtained in the absence of sufficient proof under the law do not stand up and are not fundamentally fair to any one.” 

Breonna Taylor was a Black emergency medical technician who was working on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic when she was shot multiple times in her own home while she was sleeping by white police officers who barged into the home. The officers were raiding the home as a part of an ongoing narcotics investigation, however, the officers didn’t announce their identity upon arrival and didn’t find any drugs in the home either. Her death fueled the already burning fires of racial justice in America, as protests against police brutality in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement have been ongoing since the spring.