Brazilian national Miller Pacheco arrived in Cork on 18 November 2022 to join Bruna Fonseca. The relationship ended within days. After a course of almost 2,000 messages, Pacheco manually strangled her on New Year’s Day—44 days after his arrival. A unanimous jury convicted him of murder.
Bruna Fonseca
Fonseca was a 28-year-old Brazilian university graduate and librarian who moved to Cork in September 2022 and worked at Mercy University Hospital through a contractor. She and Pacheco had been in a relationship in Brazil for about five years. After he arrived, the relationship ended within days.
The course of conduct entered in evidence
The trial heard that Pacheco sent Fonseca almost 2,000 messages between 18 November and 1 January. On Christmas Day he went to the hospital looking for her; messages in evidence showed her asking him not to contact or search for her and describing his behaviour as terrorising her.
His 19 December browsing history included material about killing quickly, conditions necessary to kill, knife fighting and repatriating a body. The defence said these searches related to intended self-harm. They are reported as trial evidence, not as a separate conviction or standalone proof of premeditation.
New Year’s Day and the verdict
After a New Year’s Eve event at the Oyster Tavern, Fonseca went to Pacheco’s Liberty Street flat for an intended video call concerning their dog in Brazil. Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster testified that Fonseca died from asphyxia caused by manual strangulation and had more than 65 external and internal injuries.
Pacheco admitted applying a chokehold but claimed he was restraining Fonseca after she struck him and had not intended to kill. The jury rejected that account. On 22 January 2026, after one hour and two minutes, it unanimously convicted him of murder.
Life sentence and appeal position
Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford imposed the mandatory life sentence on 23 January. Defence counsel told the court Pacheco accepted the verdict and would not appeal. That is a reported statement of intention, not an assertion that every future legal process was irrevocably waived. No subsequent appeal was located through 26 July 2026.
No prior convictions were identified in the available sentencing coverage. That absence is not converted into a claim that none existed. Nor does the record establish visa category, asylum, unlawful presence, removal or transfer.
Chronology
- September 2022: Fonseca moves to Ireland.
- 18 November 2022: Pacheco arrives; the relationship ends within days.
- 25 December 2022: hospital visit and stop-contact messages later entered in evidence.
- 1 January 2023: Fonseca is murdered.
- 2 January 2023: Pacheco is charged and remanded.
- 12 January 2026: Central Criminal Court trial begins in Cork.
- 22 January 2026: unanimous murder conviction.
- 23 January 2026: mandatory life sentence.
Cost benchmark
Life imprisonment has no fixed release date. At the Irish Prison Service 2024 average, the 12-year statutory no-parole-grant floor represents an illustrative €1,188,864 staffed-space benchmark. The official Parole Board process is discretionary; eligibility never guarantees release.