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An autopsy performed on the body of the nine-year-old girl found dead last Sunday in an eucalyptus in Peniche revealed that the cause of the boy’s death was violent assault, contradicting the boy’s minor’s accidental thesis. This result was announced hours after the questioning of the girl’s father and stepmother until Tuesday morning. Sandro Bernardo and his wife, Márcia, were expected to be heard on Monday afternoon, but the Leiria court wants access to the autopsy report before listening to the two suspects in the death of Valentina Fonseca.
The girl’s father and stepmother, whose body was hidden in an area of bushes in the Serra d’El-Rei, about six kilometers from the house of the two suspects, are heavily accused of qualified homicide, a sentence of prison that can go up to 25 years, and the desecration of a corpse, punishable with up to two years in prison. But, although there are suspicions that Valentina was suffocated by her father in the bathroom, the case continues to be handled by the Prosecutor’s Office, which will take the suspects to court for questioning after they have been heard by the Judicial Police (PJ) on day the body was found.
In reaction to the death of Valentina, who was initially suspected of living in joint custody but currently resides with her father to facilitate access to classes online due to the covid-19 pandemic, the boy’s mother, Sónia Fonseca, made a Facebook post to thank everyone who helped with the searches, however, not to mention the outcome of the case or the fact that her former partner is one of the suspects.
“I hereby thank you for all the help you have given us … To the authorities, to all the people who volunteered, in general, in my daughter’s records. On my behalf and on behalf of my entire family, thank you very, very much, ”he wrote on social media.
But she was not the only one to react to this death with macabre outlines. The population of Atouguia da Baleia, the town where Valentina lived, was puzzled by what happened. Several residents told Lusa that the girl’s father and stepmother were seen as a normal family. Luís Pereira, for example, even spoke to the boy’s father to find out if there was news about his whereabouts on Friday, the second day of searches. “I am impressed. It is unthinkable,” he admitted.
And Adelina Cândido, who knows Valentina’s family, guaranteed that, despite being a poor family, they are “very good people”. The president of the Board of Freguesia, Afonso Clara, for his part, even admitted that he was surprised by the fact that Valentina’s father “does not seem to be suffering”, in addition to always presenting a “serene air” during the searches, which It brought together dozens of people from various places, namely Mafra, Lourinhã, Caldas da Rainha and Lisbon. “This result surprised us all,” he shot.
Although residents have assisted authorities in the search, mayors are now concerned that confirmed cases of the new coronavirus are significantly increasing in the region, as security and social detachment may have been overlooked, as the focus on that moment he was with Valentina.
Crime on Wednesday
The Leiria PJ had already said that he does not believe that Valentina’s death was an accident, as revealed by the thesis presented by the girl’s father, but that of a qualified homicide and the concealment of a corpse. In the first analysis, carried out on Sunday, no traces of blood were found in the house of the two suspects, so the hypothesis of accidental death was considered unlikely.
According to the PC, the boy “died in the room, on Wednesday, in a context of violence, during the day” and the body was “taken to the place at the end of that day”. On Sunday afternoon, the father of the minor was at the house to collaborate in the reconstruction of the events and the searches involved more than 600 elements, who hit some 4,000 hectares until they found the body, covered in bushes. Without confirming that his father had confessed to the place where the body had been left, the coordinator of the Leiria Judicial Police, Francisco Jordão, said that the discovery of the location “started from the analysis” of interrogations and interviews with several people.
As will be remembered, Valentina’s brother witnessed the process and told authorities that he saw the girl go to the bathroom with her father and stepmother and that she never left.
