A harrowing triple-0 call has revealed the horror and distress of the woman who found the body of a murdered Brazilian mining executive floating in Sydney Harbour.
Mario Marcelo Santoro was found guilty of choking Cecilia Haddad to death and dumping her body in the mouth of the Lane Cove River on June 28, 2018. He was sentenced to 27 years in jail.
Thousands of texts revealed that Haddad had broken up with Santoro about 10 days before she died – threatening she would call the police if he didn’t move out of her apartment because she was fearful of his jealous and overbearing behaviour.
The body of the 38-year-old, who had been employed as a consultant for the Newcastle-based Australian Rail Track Corporation, was found the next day by panicked kayakers who immediately called emergency services.
‘We’ve found a body in the water,’ Christine Baird screamed as she sobbed uncontrollably in the call aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday.
Brazilian mining executive Cecilia Haddad’s body was found in a Sydney river in 2018
The operator adopts a soothing tone telling Ms Baird to stay on the phone and asks Ms Baird if she knows who the body belongs to. The response is a despairing ‘no’.
‘My husband’s just holding, her body is floating upside down in the water,’ Ms Baird says in a wavering voice.
‘I think it’s a young woman. Yeah, maybe about 20,’ she incorrectly guesses.
‘I thinks she’s a young girl who didn’t come home last night. I just feel sick for her family. I’ve got teenage daughters.’
Ms Haddad had been weighed down with gym weights in the pockets of her khaki cargo pants, but her body still found its way to the river bank.
NSW Police spent months painstakingly building the case against Santoro, who fled to Brazil 36 hours after he murdered Ms Haddad.
Mario Marcelo Santoro admitted to a Brazilian court he was responsible for her death, going into disturbing detail about strangling her
Haddad and Santoro broke up 10 days before she was murdered (pictured together)
CCTV footage at Santoro’s home provided police with their first piece of vital evidence.
The footage helped detectives track Santoro’s moves in the crucial 48 hours after the horror crime.
Police were also able to use Santoro’s phone data to show he was in Ms Haddad’s apartment, in the north western Sydney suburb of Ryde, on the day she was killed.
In late June a Brazilian federal court in Rio de Janeiro sentenced Santoro to 27 years in prison for the murder.
The former engineer was convicted of aggravated homicide, asphyxiation, femicide and concealment of a corpse.
Santoro earlier admitted to the court he was responsible for Ms Haddad’s death, going into disturbing detail about strangling her.
He confessed to the crime on the second day of the trial.
Sydney woman Christine Baird rang triple-0 in horror after finding murdered Brazilian woman Cecilia Haddad’s body in a river
Santoro revealed he had gone to Ms Haddad’s Ryde apartment without her permission where the pair then got into an argument.
He told the court he wanted to shut her up and grabbed her around the neck and ‘squeezed very hard’ until she fell into his arms.
‘She fell limp in my arms, I don’t remember if she hit her head on the floor. I picked her up, desperate and put her on the sofa … She wouldn’t wake up,’ he said breaking down in tears, as reported by local publication Globo.
Ms Haddad’s mother had to leave the courtroom during Santoro’s chilling admission while her brother sat in the front row shaking his head, Nine News reported.
Santoro, who pleaded to Ms Haddad’s family for forgiveness, had told one of the witnesses, who is his priest, to reveal his confession during the trial.
Also at the trial were three Australian police officers who were called to give evidence.
On the day Ms Haddad’s body was found, Santoro was seen on CCTV travelling from Sydney to Rio de Janeiro.
Ms Haddad, who had lived in Australia for 10 years, was reported missing after failing to turn up to several appointments.
She’d enjoyed a barbecue with friends just two days before her body was found.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk