Ecstacy victim died in boyfriend's bedroom, inquest told
A 14-year-old ecstasy victim died in her Brazilian boyfriend’s bedroom a week before her body was found in the garden of a nearby house, an inquest heard today.
In a startling statement, Alceu Tofanell Junior told how he discovered Jamie Maughan’s body in the backyard of a house on July 2, 2004 and that her boyfriend Weldo Freitas Cavalcante admitted she had died in his bedroom almost a week earlier.
Fellow Brazilian Mr Tofanell told Cavan County Coroners Court that Mr Cavalcante, who has since left the country with the aid of the Brazilian Embassy, had appeared worried and nervous after Jamie’s mother reported her missing from the night of Saturday, June 26, 2004.
Speaking through an interpreter he said: “He (Mr Cavalcante) wanted to leave Ireland.”
Mr Cavalcante also told him to tell anyone who asked that Jamie had left his house at 2.30am on Saturday, June 26, he added.
The teenager’s distraught mother, Josephine Farrelly, said on the body of her daughter being dumped in the garden: “I think he (Mr Tofanell) carried Jamie across with Weldo and I always did.”
As she walked by Mr Tofanell in court, she said: “Tell the truth.”
Outside the court, where evidence was given that Jamie had died after consuming ecstasy, her father, Brian Maughan, said: “It was ridiculous that he (Weldo Cavalcante) was allowed to leave. It has been a cock-up from start to finish, never mind now.”
Mr Cavalcante, who was in his 20s, was sentenced to two years imprisonment at Cavan Circuit Court last July on charges of the statutory rape of a girl under 17 at Cavan on June 26, 2004 – almost a week before Jamie’s death.
As Mr Cavalcante had spent time on remand, he was released on January 6, 2006 from the Midlands Prison and left the country.
After the jury passed a verdict of death by misadventure, the family’s solicitor, Larry Burke, said: “The DPI were clearly furnished what they thought only enough evidence to proceed against Weldo Cavalcante on the grounds of statutory rape.”
Mr Burke said: “He dumped her body behind an abandoned house just up the road. He put together a concocted story for gardaí, part of it is in the deposition he gave to the inquest today that he had waved the child goodbye on the night in question.”
He added: “The family can’t understand how further charges weren’t proffered as a result of all that, and that is what their difficulty is.”
Mr Burke said: “Weldo Cavalcante was under the supervision of the Garda National Immigration Bureau pending his appearance before this inquest.
“The Brazilian Embassy then intervened and paid for his ticket home under the noses of the Garda National Immigration Bureau, it was an act of absolute national cowardice. The Ambassador from Brazil to Ireland must be approached by the Minister for Foreign Affairs forthwith and asked to explain this action, and how the summons could be ignored, how the need for him to attend at this inquest could be ignored, it is an absolute disgrace.”
The solicitor said he had been informed a review was being carried out into the gardaí’s handling of the investigation into her death.
Mr Tofenell, from Sau Paulo Brazil, said he was not in Mr Cavalcante’s house in Harmony Heights on the Saturday night she went missing.
He claimed the next time he saw her was five days after she was reported missing, when he discovered her body in the back garden of the vacant house, also in his Harmony Heights estate.
He claimed he went down there to relieve himself as he waited for the bus to work on Friday July 2.
Mr Tofenell said he went out and found Mr Cavalcante and asked him to ring the gardaí. “At the time I tell him, he said ’My life is f****d’.”
He said they then travelled on the bus and it was only after arriving at work in Liffey Meats in Ballyjamesduff, that he informed his supervisor and gardaí were informed about the sighting.
Later after the body was found, Mr Tofenell said: “He (Mr Cavalcante) told me ’She died in my bedroom’.”
He added: “I asked him many times what happened, and he did tell me, yes she was dead in my room. Asked why did he not tell the truth – he said he was scared.”
A statement from Mr Cavalcante, which was given to gardaí, queried whether he given an ecstasy table to the teenager. He replied: “No.” He said: “She took a pill I don’t know if it was ecstasy.” In his statement to gardaí, he again said she left his home at 2.30am.
Under cross-examination, Mr Burke asked Mr Tofenell: “Isn’t it the case that Weldo Cavalcante was a drugs dealer?” Mr Tofenell replied: “I don’t know about his business.”
The solicitor claimed Mr Cavalcante had supplied the 14-year-old with drugs. Mr Tofenell said: “I don’t know I wasn’t there.”
Dr Margaret Bolster, deputy state pathologist, said Jamie had died after consuming the drug ecstasy.
She said Jamie had a level of ecstasy of 3.4 micrograms per millilitre, which was well within the lethal levels of a dose of the drug.
The pathologist said she believed Jamie had died elsewhere and was dumped in the back garden of the house as there were post mortem abrasions on the body.
“The body was in that position from around the time of death or within a few hours,” she said, adding her death was several days prior to being found.
Dr Bolster said immediate medical attention after an incident always aided anyone’s chances of survival.
In court, Ms Farrelly said: “Jamie was a very generous, caring person but was not street wise.”
The heartbroken mother said she had rung Jamie’s phone over a 100 times between the time she went missing and the phone going dead the following Tuesday.
She said she discovered the relationship with Mr Cavalcante, who was described as twice Jamie’s age, after she found a photograph of him in her bedroom when she went missing.
Ms Farrelly said after she called over to Mr Cavalcante’s house, also at Harmony Heights, on the Sunday or Monday night he invited her in to search it. She said: “He said ’Yes I know Jamie, yes she was in my house but she left.”
The inquest heard a witness summons had been served on Mr Cavalcante in Cloverhill Prison, Dublin on January 6, 2006.
Gda Carmel Henry from the Garda National Immigration Bureau said the gardaí were about to deport Mr Cavalcante upon his release but cancelled it when they were made aware of the summons.
The inquest heard he was served with a new letter, requested to sign-on at a garda station and accommodation was found for him in a Dublin hostel.
Gda Henry said the Brazilian Embassy had requested his passport from the bureau as they had arranged his flight home, but were denied it on account of the summons.
Despite the summons, she told the inquest the bureau received a faxed letter from the Brazilian Embassy Consular Section on January 10, 2006 to say Mr Cavalcante had left on a flight for Sau Paulo via Paris.
On how he left the country without his passport, she said: “The embassy of Brazil would have issued him a single travel emergency travel document to certify he was a Brazilian national.”
She said: “From the information I have Mr Cavalcante contacted the embassy and told them he wanted to go home.
“They would have to have assisted in giving him the travel document. From my information they drove him to the airport and put him on the flight.”
