Initial explanations ‘blamed’ forgetful gravedigger – but body “was decapitated”
Reports on Saturday described the ‘shock’ of a family preparing to bury a deceased elderly relative – in a plot in which his late wife had already been laid to rest – discovering a mystery body lying on the earth under the marble tombstone.
“When we removed the stone covering the grave, we immediately saw the body on top of the earth. They were bones but they had clothes on”, Tiago Grilo – nephew of the deceased – was quoted by Correio da Manhã.
The clothes were not the usual choice of clothes for anyone to be buried in: they were described by noticiasaominuto as “a pair of workman’s overalls and trainers”.
Equally ‘odd’ was the assertion by the same source that the bones were those of a woman. (How was that detail so obvious, given the choice of clothing and state of the remains?)
Saturday’s reports then quoted chairman of the local Cadima parish council Carlos Gregório suggesting the whole situation may have been caused by ‘negligence’.
“We assume that it was an unofficial transfer, carried out by a former collaborator of ours. But we cannot even confirm this, as he no longer works for us and his telephone number is not active,’ Gregório told “Jornal de Notícias” – admitting that the episode was ‘very serious’ and nothing like this “has never happened before’.
“The corpse must have been buried dozens of years ago”, he added.
Again, some of yesterday’s reports refer to the case being in the hands of PJ judicial police “who have not found any indications of crime”.
But today, that may be changing.
Further investigations by Correio da Manhã suggest crime may well have been involved, for the simple reason the body was ‘headless’.
It was “decapitated”, local resident Manuel de Oliveira claims in the tabloid’s Sunday edition – “with the head beside the body”.
Oliveira is in no doubt: “this smells of a crime that could have been committed far from here, and under cover of darkness, someone could have brought the body and placed it there so it would not be found”.
Certainly, residents do not believe the remains are of anyone who lived in the parish, says the paper. The fact that a woman was ‘laid to rest’ in workman’s overalls and trainers would, one imagines, almost certainly have become a local ‘talking point’.
Thus, the episode appears still very much open – albeit the grave, in Cadima cemetery, Cantanhede (Coimbra district) is once again closed, with the recently deceased uncle now buried with his late wife.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
