Law&Crime Sidebar - 7 Chilling New Details in Woman's Fatal Rope Jump Investigation

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

The tragic death of 21-year-old Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas, who plunged 130 feet during a rope jumping incident at an abandoned bridge in Limeira, Brazil, has sparked international outrage. Three instructors have been arrested and charged with homicide with eventual intent amid stunning claims that the young woman was tossed off the platform without being attached to any safety ropes. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber is joined by Matt Lawrence, the director of Bungee Consultants International, to analyze the catastrophic safety failures and potential red flags surrounding this informal operationHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Were there any red flags leading up to the death of the young woman who was allegedly thrown off a bridge in a rope jumping incident gone horribly wrong? What steps should have been taken? What was supposed to happen? I'm going to bring on an expert in this field as we also address new developments in the case. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. All right, so we're back talking about this because we want to explore a little bit more about this. tragic situation in Brazil that has gotten so much attention, both in the media and online, and rightfully so. This is not a case you see every day. We're talking about the fatal fall of this 21-year-old woman, Maria Eduardo Rodriguez de Fretas, who plunged to her death in a roping incident where she was allegedly tossed off an abandoned bridge and wasn't attached to any rope or cords,

130 feet down. Horrible. And it was all apparently caught on video that is circulated on social media. We can seemingly hear bystanders on the tape screaming in Portuguese, the rope, people, the rope. So in a little, we're going to be bringing on a bungee, a roping expert to talk about potential red flags, liability, what should have been done. Because right now, three instructors are facing charges. Luis Philippe Feliziano Egharov, 32 years old. Vitor de Fretas González, 27 years old, and May Khan Fernandez-Cintra, 42 years old.

They were arrested, and they're charged with what we understand to be in Brazil homicide with eventual intent to allegedly fled the scene before they were captured. And by the way, according to NBC News, Brazilian law characterizes this as killing someone, not necessarily with the intent to kill, but by engaging in a dangerous act that carries a known risk of death. And since we last spoke, there have been some developments here. you might recall that we discussed how this all happened at a bridge in Lumera, a city over 90 miles north of Sao Paulo, Brazil. This is known a skeleton bridge. It was part of a rail line. It hasn't been an

operation for 30 years. And as we reported last time, according to 30 UOL Años, the municipality was considering taking legal action against the federal government over alleged negligence in maintaining and controlling access to this bridge. The city government reportedly said that it previously sent letters to the federal government requesting there be security inspections of this bridge. Well, guess what happened since we last spoke? Reportedly, counselwoman Bruno Magal Hayes reportedly confirmed to Bacchino to see us that this bridge is going to be torn down by the federal government now. It kind of makes you think I had to take something like this for that to happen. I mean, assuming all the allegations are true about this bridge. And also from a legal point of view,

I got to also say kind of have that consciousness of guilt kind of thing, right? Taring it down because do you agree, there's a risk there? Now, Magal Hay said, quote, the federal government authorized it. The mayor provided the equipment, and now the bridge will be demolished. The important thing is that lives will not be lost here. Now, here's something else that's interesting.

Social media influencer Estefani Gonzalez posted that she was at that same skeleton bridge the month before this happened, that she engaged in the same kind of rope jumping activity with the same instructors, the same suspects, the same defendants. And she posted a video of her looking like Superman-style jump on her Instagram page back in May. And it wasn't just her.

She said there were 90 participants that day. After Maria Eduardo's death, she opened up about what she experienced in a series of videos. And one of the things she said was that the organizers of this activity apparently told participants not to distract the rope operators, that they didn't want them to lose attention, lose focus. She said that in her experience, there were several safety checks of the equipment that the operators would share duties. So with that in mind, she says when it comes to Maria Dwarda, quote, I don't really know what happened. Now, you also have delegate Andrea Dantes Levy, who told the outlet Globo that the company operating this rope jump, quote, didn't even have authorization to be there and that this was a result of a failure to verify and supervise the placement of that rope on the jump.

G1 reports that in the video, the men allegedly carrying Maria Dwarda appear to be wearing shirts emblazin with the brands Antre Cordos and Ivoi. Authority say these are informal groups of rope jumping practitioners. There's no official company behind this operation. And according to the New York Post, a defense attorney for the suspect said that they don't know who was responsible for attaching the safety line that day. Defense counsel also reportedly told the G1 outlet that these individuals were highly experienced, that this had been the company's only. death in years. According to NBC News, defense lawyer said the suspects are in shock. According to O Globo, they apparently didn't have a reason why this young woman was reportedly not secured properly. G1 reported that the suspects also appeared disoriented, that they couldn't say, again, whose job it was

to do what that day, or explain why the rope wasn't attached, why a safety check wasn't apparently done. I will tell you, according to Bacchino the CS, one of these individuals that was arrested allegedly told authorities, he didn't even realize that Maria Dwarda hadn't been secured and only understood what was going on when he heard people screaming. That's when he claims he left the platform, saw what happened, claims he repels down, sees police and a healthcare professional performing life-saving measures. Hey guys, real quick. So the weather's getting nicer, means it's time for a little spring reset on the closet. And I'll tell you, for me, it is always about quality over quantity and going for pieces that are easy for every day,

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on this bungee roping instructor, because I have a lot of questions about how this works and what should have been done. On our last show, I spoke to Adria La Barca, who's a Brazilian criminal defense attorney, because I wanted to get a better sense of the charges, the criminal process, and the case. Here's a little bit of what you had to say. They're being charged with homicide. This case, it brings up a very old debate about intent or blame, which is what we call Dolo or Hupa. They're being initially charged

with homicide with the intention to kill somebody, which is homicidio Doloso. So here's what's going on. This case has brought a lot of media attention to it. When this happens, sometimes these cases are dealt with

in a different way that they would be dealt in other cases. For example, we have many other cases, similar cases of accidents with sports. And those were always dealt with as non-intentional, as negligence, as in parisia. In this case, because of the media attention, it's been dealt like it was intentional for them to kill these people, which, as a lawyer, personally, I don't think those apply. This is why they are in jail right now. Because when it comes to a case of

homicide where there is no blame with negligence with which you call on the procedural culposo where we talk about the negligence in bedicia the duty to protect but the absence of protection those cases they are not punishable by prison you don't get in prison because of this type of crime so when you don't get in prison for some type of crime you can't be in preventive detention that's what's going on right there are three people in preventive detention because of this crime. And in order to get that preventive detention, they have to charge them initially with omicidio Doloso.

I imagine that the defense is going to argue that this is a case of Copa, this is a case of omicidio culposo. And why is that? There's a line in criminal doctrine, which is we have Dolu Eventual and Coppa Conscienti, which is, in one side, you have the individual. intent, but it's not exactly clear. You know that there's a risk and you don't care that somebody might die because of that. And in Cuppa Concenti, you have a situation where you know there's a risk, but you hope that is not going to happen. In your conscience, you're clear that

you're trying your best to not make it, to not let that happen. And here's the catch. This is very difficult to prove in court. So when you have any type of doubt, the court has to rule in favor of the defendant. This is why I believe this is going to fall as armistidial proposal, because it's going to be very hard to prove intent in this case. Even though there is a lot of negligence and there were a lot of things that happened in order for this accident to take place, where there should be more responsibility, the government should have blocked the bridge, the police should have been seeing what is going on if they know there's always the risk of this accident that people go there to jump, there should be some kind of security there.

The people that wanted to make this jump, they should have at least ordered an authorization. They should have a legal company, at least, and they didn't. Every other thing that happened to make this possible, to make this horrible accident possible. But in court, which is what is going to be analyzed, actually, is only the fact in that day that led to that accident. So you have federal authorities and state authorities and the police that are going to answer this. And administratively, they're going to enter this in their own companies. But as to the death itself is going to fall only on the people that were there at the moment, that were carrying her, that should have secured her.

And for those people, it's going to be very hard to prove that they had the intent of killing her. Okay, I want to bring on an expert in this field. I'm joined by Matt Lawrence, director of Bungy Consultants International. Thank you so much for coming on. I definitely wanted to get your kind of voice on this to understand it because I have a lot of questions. So first of all, what is the difference between bungee jumping and rope jumping? Because I feel like sometimes the two get conflated. And even with this story, there seems to be confusion between the two. Great. Yeah, that's a great question. So the activity that we were looking at here was, like you said, called a rope swing or a rope jump. And for the untrained eye, this could look very much like a bungee jump, but it's not. There's no bungee cords there here in this activity. The dissipation of the potential energy, let's call it, is done through air drag, the pendulum swinging motion. Whereas in bungee jumping, that is done through the dissipation of energy through the up and down, rebounding,

that the rubber stores in the court. So you're bouncing up and down, slowly getting, the oscillation is getting smaller and smaller, and that's how that energy is dissipated. So it's, although they look quite similar in terms of, you know, someone jumping off a structure, they are quite different, and they are treated differently with regulations.

I want to get into that, but is rope jumping more dangerous? If done correctly, it doesn't have to be more dangerous. It's really how it's done. You know, it could be more. more dangerous if it's not done correctly. Are the cords and the safety equipment different? I mean, you talk about not being a bungee court, but is the equipment different? Well, this is the thing about one, one activity is fairly regulated and the other isn't. So you

could use a wide range of equipment in an activity that's not regulated. So if you, there can be very safe equipment that could be used. But there's also the potential to be used very unsafe equipment. So there's not a like safe, unsafe. Talk to me about what you mean it's regulated. Um, regulates it and is it regulated different in different countries? Yes. So well, again, I can know I'm a bungee jumping expert and I don't I'm not an expert of rope jumping but my understanding is that rope jumping being a fairly new activity is not highly regulated. I have no knowledge of any safety standards that exist out there for that. There are many safety standards for bungee jumping

depending on which jurisdiction you are in, you will be using one or the other. But in terms of rope jumps, no safety standards exist. So that is really the main problem. And when you ask something like, how could this happen? You know, the answers to that are the barriers for entry into that activity are quite low. And anybody with a harness and a rope can really, and really with the knowledge that they think they can go out and do this, can do so and make a quick buck.

doing it. They're operating in an environment with no safety or no recognized safety standards. And that safety standard is a key element in the ecosystem to create any safe environment for a consumer. And a good safety standard will govern all aspects of the operation, the design, the manufacture of all the equipment and the operation of the activity itself. And then the third component that's missing here is the oversight. So you can follow a safety standard and do it very well. and get away with that. And in some jurisdictions, there are no safety standards and people are being responsible and following,

or no oversight, and they're just following a safety standard. But that third ingredient is the oversight. What I mean by that is the government body or other body, which we call the authority-haven jurisdiction or their H-J, and they will regulate the activity according to the safety standard that exists here. So without those components, it gets a little bit dice here, you know.

Now, in Bunchy, gentlemen, for example, Well, the barriers generally are quite high. It takes a lot to invest the time and effort to create a bungee site. You know, you need different equipment. You need to create a structures. And with those regulations, you need to go through a lot of engineering and so forth to get to that point where you can actually open the doors. Yeah, if you don't have that, you can't do that, you know.

And I even understand. It's like who you can sell and buy the equipment, right? It becomes regulated too, which I think is a good thing when you're talking about inherently, you know, a dangerous activity. But at the same time, if it's properly. regulated and there's the safety checks. I mean, before we even get into this, do you see a lot of accidents? Like you talk about rope jumping.

First of all, is rope jumping becoming more and more popular? Are you seeing more reports of accidents? And even in bungee jumping in general, going there, typically speaking, do you see a lot of accidents? So for the rope jumps, I, again, you know, we, when something happens, we hear about it, right? Because a lot of people equate, oh, this is this is bungee jumping. Look, the people are jumping off stuff. So we hear about all that stuff. So they do become a little bit more prevalent as time goes on.

And it seems to me that that activity is gaining some momentum and that other people are doing it. And with that barrier to entry being very low, we could see a lot more of them. And so I think it is a great time for a regulator and these jurisdictions to get on top of it before, you know, other serious accidents occur. Let's go to what happened here. So you read about it. You see the video. When you look at it, are there any red flags that pop up? out to you. Yeah. Well, first and foremost, my heart goes out to the victim and her family and

what was a tragic, but very, in my opinion, very, very preventable incident. And yeah, how could it been prevented? Well, I can't comment on really, the video footage is very limited. So what you see is, you know, you see just a clip. So it's, it's quite hard to tell how the provider of that service is operating based on that limited footage that is available. So I can't go very specific on that. However, what I can tell you is had they been operating in an environment, which I just described, which is that standard environment with that regulator, this is what it could have looked like. So there would have been a site operations manual there that would have outlined many things, which you can't see in that video again. You know, the manual would have called for a lot of site infrastructure, such as, you know, physical barriers that separate clients from public from where the equipment is being stored when it's in use and when it's not in use. You know, the barriers such as fencing, safety lines, controlled areas where people can't just walk in.

to and that there's a certain protocol for the procedures. Are they attached up on the edge? Are they attached up in a safe area? So when you're in a regulated environment with a standard, you're not free to walk around. If you're able to walk around and go and touch everything and walk to the same area that the participants are in, you know, that's a big red flag. But, you know, there's a lot of things that as a consumer, if you want to see, do your research, there's lots of things you can do to, you know, either before, you, you know, before and after you arrive at the location to determine whether or not there's going to be a good thing. In advance, if this is a real company, they would have a real company with a business registration,

you could look that up, look up the name of the company. Do they have a real website and isn't not just a social media page? Do they have a permanent operation with real brick and mortar? If a company does, they put significant investment into their attraction, and they have a lot more to lose and a lot more to be careful for. You can ask if they have insurance. You can ask if they follow a safety standard. You can ask how much experience they have in terms of the number of dispatches they've done

and the number of years they've been operating. So those are all things you can do in advance. Once you get there, there are some basic things that you can look for. And I wanted to go back to what I mentioned about the safety standards. If you're following a safety standards, and I'll just give you, I'm going to use bungee jumping as the example because that's what I'm an expert in. Our safety standards are governed by two fundamental principles. One is called redundancy.

The other is called competency. and they apply to both equipment and procedures. Let's talk about competency and equipment. If a piece of equipment is competent, the load ratings are above, like let's say a 10 to 1 ratio, above what they need to be for the activity. And they're also designed and suited for doing

what you're doing with them during that activity. As far as people go, when we talk about competence, if someone is competent, they will have the required knowledge, skills, training, and experience to perform that safely, which means they've gone to some type of courses, the on-site training program of the operator as well. You know, you have competent equipment and competent people.

And then when we talk about redundancy, we're also talking about procedures and equipment. So if you're a guest on site and you're looking at this, when I talk about redundancy, let's look at the harnesses. There's two harnesses on that person. Or does that single harness have two attachment points that allow, you know, two attachments that. So if one fails, you know, the other. Can I ask you about that real quick? So you're talking, is there a backup? Like, for example, I don't know if this is the cases that happen, but somebody's like, oh, my gosh, we forgot one cord.

We forgot one rope. there's a backup in case somebody forgets it. Like, is that something that exists? And that's in the layman's terms, that's what redundancy is as we apply to equipment. Okay. Okay. So when you say a backup,

is there, so is there a backup harness? Let's, let's just use that wording. So is there two harnesses? Is there a backup party says, is there two ropes that are attaching that person to the harnesses that connect to the structure?

That's a backup. Is there two carabiners that attach those ropes to each connection point on the harness? There's the other backup. So those are all things that, you know, just a lay person can look at see. I don't see that second carabiner.

I don't see that second rope. This is just a single point attachment. This doesn't look very good. And then when we talk about procedures, and this is the other big one, when we talk about redundancy for procedures, it's, again, the backup procedure. So if someone's putting a harness on you, is there a second person going around,

checking that adjustment, making sure it was tightened properly and secured properly? Is there a second person looking at that connection that you did with that carabiner after the first person did it? You could have two carabiner on there, but if only one person is doing it, maybe one of them doesn't get done up properly. He got distracted by the person beside Metaccombe,

I'm asking the question. So that second person checking all those connection points is very important in creating redundancy on a bungee jumping site or in a rope swing that complies equally to both. One of the things that, I mean, the main aspect about this is when you see the video, if these allegations are true, looks like the rope is right there.

You see it tangled up, right? I mean, that's the argument there. How is it possible they didn't notice it, right? If they're accused of that. It does become a question, you know, how could you not notice it? And it was reported when you, you look at the video, Maria Adwarda appears to be wearing a helmet and harness, but she wasn't

attached to the safety equipment. The instructors, the argument is, do seem to be attached to a safety rope. So there seems to be that level or arguably that level of consciousness. How do you just not see the rope there? How do you not see she's attached when hanging her unless, like you said, there's an issue of competency or there's an issue of distraction? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we don't know if that is the rope that was actually supposed to be used for that. It could have been. It may not have been. It could be attached somewhere. It's probably attached somewhere on the bridge and it's just waiting for them to attach it to the person. That rope there, I don't know. I couldn't tell if it was long enough or strong enough or whatever to be the actual rope that was supposed to be being used. What is evident though that there is no rope attached to that person. That is very, very evident in the video. And again, that's just simple. Like, again, if you have a site operations manual and you have competent people, what's required when you're right to site operations ban is a series of checklist that, that everybody has to go through as they're performing a hookups. And so it's like before that person gets to the edge, there's 10 things that have to happen. Okay, first of all, let's check the harnesses.

Double check the harnesses. Second, pick up the rope, connected to the thing. That gets double-checked as well. And before that, they can even get a detach from their safety line, which, you know, there should be a safety line on that person until they are connected to the whole entire rigging system. So all those things have to happen. Harness checks, connection checks, anchor checks, before anybody can even just proceed to the point where they can even get into a position to jump.

And then once they get into that position, there's another series of checks that have to happen. Okay, put your feet to the edge. Get to this point. Get to that point. I'm going to count three. You're going to do this. You're going to do that.

And if those aren't occurring properly, you need to pull back and start over. So there was a very low level in that video of, what the actual procedures were and the order of those procedures. And so again, what could have happened, yeah, people are distracted by lights and cameras and saying, here's what I want to do. They're all cut up and I've got to get the shot instead of focusing on the safety. And the crew members have just got to zone all that out and be able to go through their checklist if they have any to create that safe jump.

And my guess is they probably didn't have a written site operations manual that they could even follow. Otherwise, it doesn't happen. If you have that, you're just an environment where that works. And if they don't, it's probably what happened. What's confusing is, you know, you have defense counsel for at least one or all the suspects saying this is the first time anything like this has happened. They've done so many before. I talked earlier about how an influencer did a jump on that same bridge with the same operators. They said there was safety checks.

There were 90 participants that day. It takes just obviously one thing like this to happen and everything changes and you wish it didn't. But that's confusing too, right? It's not like they were operating for two days and then this happened that people make mistakes. But at the same time, how does something like this happen? Yeah, well, you can ride a horse backward your whole life and never fall off that horse. You know, but there's elements of, you know, there's layers to the onion. Okay.

And if you only got a couple layers, you could be safe for a long time. Oh, I'm getting away with not having that double check because my one guy, he's doing it right every time. But eventually it catches up to you. You know, eventually you get it. And so this is where, you know, it just needs a bit more structure and regulation. A lot of more questions are going to be asked about this. Matt Lawrence, thank you so much for coming on and trying to make sense of what we're seeing here. Really appreciate it.

You're quite welcome. Anytime. Thank you. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts. Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, X Instagram, my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern.

See you next time, everybody.