This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The mother of the murdered Brazilian woman Cecilia Haddad has broken down in tears in a Rio court as she told of a frantic final phone conversation with her daughter in Sydney before she disappeared.

Milu Muller, 70, said that during the call she heard ex-boyfriend Mario Marcelo Ferreira dos Santos Santoro, 40, who is accused of Haddad’s murder, banging on her daughter’s apartment door.

“I could tell his voice clearly,” she said. “He was shouting ‘open the door’ and ‘I want to talk to you.’ Cecilia told him she did not want to talk and twice threatened to call the police.”

The suspect, who was not present at the pre-trial hearing at a court in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, is accused of the murder of the 38-year-old in Sydney in April. He then allegedly returned to Brazil to avoid arrest.

The pair had dated but Cecilia had told family she felt frightened because he did not accept the end of their courtship.

Muller told the court on Wednesday her daughter told her that Santoro had initially treated her like a princess but after they broke up he became obsessive and “persecuted her.”

Cecilia Haddad murder: former Brazilian boyfriend confessed to killing, court hears Read more

The phone call happened at lunchtime on Saturday 28 April, Sydney time.

Haddad had previously told her mother, who had recently had heart surgery, about her concerns about Santoro but the older woman believed she was being careful what she said to avoid alarming her.

“I told her to go to the window to check that he had left,” she said. “But she said she was sure he had. I asked her to hire private security but she said it would be too expensive. She said he had a flight booked on Monday to return to Brazil, so there would not be any need to worry about him after that.

“I never heard from her again.”

She then broke down in tears.

After her daughter did not check in with her the next day as they had agreed, Muller sent a series of increasingly desperate messages to her daughter on Facebook Messenger.

“Then I received a message from her account telling me that she was going to the mountains until Thursday,” she said. “It was obvious from the tone and content that it was someone pretending to be her.”

Police in Rio arrested Santoro at a relative’s house in July, after he had apparently fled Australia. He is expected to appear in court to testify on 17 December.

Judge Daniel Werneck Cotta will decide if Santoro will face a full trial. If he does, the result will be decided by a jury of seven. If convicted, he could face a sentence of 30 years.