A poignant triple-0 call has revealed the horror and grief of the woman who found the body of a murdered Brazilian mining executive floating in Sydney Harbour.
Mario Marcelo Santoro was found guilty of asphyxiating Cecilia Haddad and dumping her body in the mouth of the Lane Cove River on June 28, 2018. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
Thousands of texts revealed that Haddad had broken up with Santoro about ten days before her death, threatening to call the police if he did not move out of her apartment, fearing his jealous and overbearing behavior.
The body of the 38-year-old, who worked 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 found a body in the water,” cried Christine Baird as she sobbed uncontrollably in the call, which aired Sunday on 60 Minutes.
The body of Brazilian mining director Cecilia Haddad was found in a river in Sydney in 2018
Using a calming tone, the operator tells Mrs. Baird to stay on the phone and asks Mrs. Baird if she knows who the body belongs to. The answer is a desperate ‘no’.
“My husband is just holding him, her body floating upside down in the water,” Mrs. Baird says in a hesitant voice.
‘I think it’s a young woman. Yeah, maybe about twenty,’ she guesses incorrectly.
“I think she’s a young girl who didn’t come home last night. I just feel sorry for her family. I have teenage daughters.’
Mrs. Haddad was weighted down with gym weights in the pockets of her khaki cargo pants, but her body was still making its way to the river bank.
NSW police spent months painstakingly building the case against Santoro, who fled to Brazil 36 hours after killing Ms Haddad.
Mario Marcelo Santoro admitted in a Brazilian court that he was responsible for her death, and went into disturbing details about the strangulation of her
Haddad and Santoro broke up 10 days before she was killed (pictured together)
CCTV footage at Santoro’s house provided the police with the first piece of vital evidence.
The footage allowed detectives to track Santoro’s movements in the crucial 48 hours following the horror crime.
The police were also able to find Santoro’s pCorrect records to show that he was at Mrs Haddad’s apartment, in the northwestern Sydney suburb of Ryde, on the day she was murdered.
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 murder with aggravation, asphyxia, femicide and concealment of a corpse.
Santoro previously admitted in court that he was responsible for Ms Haddad’s death, giving disturbing details about strangling her.
He confessed to the crime on the second day of the trial.
Sydney woman Christine Baird called triple-0 in horror after finding the body of murdered Brazilian woman Cecilia Haddad in a river
Santoro revealed that he went to Mrs Haddad’s apartment in Ryde without her permission, where the pair subsequently got into an argument.
He told the court that he wanted to silence her, grabbed her by 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 the floor with her head. I desperately picked her up and put her on the couch… She wouldn’t wake up,” he said in tears, as reported by local publication Globo.
Ms. Haddad’s mother had to leave the courtroom during Santoro’s chilling confession, while her brother sat in the front row shaking his head, Nine News reported.
Santoro, begging Mrs. Haddad’s family for forgiveness, had told one of the witnesses, his priest, to reveal his confession at the trial.
Three Australian police officers were also called to testify at the trial.
On the day Mrs. Haddad’s body was found, Santoro was seen on CCTV as he traveled from Sydney to Rio de Janeiro.
Ms Haddad, who had lived in Australia for ten years, was reported missing after failing to keep several appointments.
Just two days before her body was found, she had enjoyed a barbecue with friends.