Nurse Mariana Fonseca faces 23 years for her part in ‘murder-dismemberment’
The grotesque Algarve murder-dismemberment of a young man – simply because he had inherited some money following his mother’s death – has seen the Order of Nurses reopen an expulsion process on one of the guilty: ‘angel-faced’ nurse Mariana Fonseca.
Fonseca is currently appealing a 23 year sentence for her part in the crime.
She was initially given a suspended sentence in a court decision that shocked all those with knowledge of the case; later this decision was revised on appeal, and Fonseca ordered to serve 25 years behind bars, later reduced to 23.
Since then, the young woman has applied for various jobs; changed her appearance, and changed her defence lawyer, in the hope that she may not have to spend any time in jail at all.
The order to present herself at a designated jail was never expected to come through before October this year.
But while two (final?) appeals are presented (one to the Supreme court again, alleging that the right of contradiction has been prejudiced), another to the Constitutional Court, the Order of Nurses has decided to reopen the process it suspended while awaiting the decision of the appeal court.
This has always been the most bizarre of stories.
On emerging from the first court case, with just a suspended sentence, Fonseca tried to get her old job back, at Lagos Hospital – and when the institution said that it no longer had a position open to her, she sued them – and reportedly won €30,000 in compensation.
During the Covid pandemic, the young woman applied for various jobs, wearing a mask and “with a new appearance”.
According to Correio da Manhã today, she was taken on by a ‘small institution in the Alentejo’, after dying her hair and eye-brows red, but was let go during the first two weeks of trial period “when the institution realised who they were dealing with”.
A source has told CM that Mariana Fonseca was “always very helpful, with an enormous need to please” – but the mere fact that she had been party to such brutality, and faces 23 years behind bars, must have tipped the balance.
CM’s television channel, CMTV, is promising an ‘exposé’ on this convoluted saga this evening.
Mariana Fonseca lives in Greater Lisbon now, and has not wanted to answer press inquiries, says the paper.
Her ‘partner’ in the murder-dismemberment is dead, having committed suicide in Tires women’s prison after being handed her 25 year jail term.
