Update on investigation into woman thrown off bridge after 'staff forgot to attach safety rope'

A court in Brazil has upheld the detention of four people involved in the death of a 21-year-old woman during a bungee jump.

Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas plummeted 131ft to her death on June 13 after being tossed from a bridge for a bungee jump, before the cord had been attached.

Shocking footage of the incident showed the 21-year-old being carried to the edge of the bridge with her arms out, before throwing her off the edge.

Moments after she disappeared over the edge, a horrified witness is heard screaming 'the rope, people, the rope!'.

The tragedy happened at the Skeleton Bridge in Limeira, in the state of São Paulo, an old disused bridge which is popular with bungee jumpers.

Brazilian news broadcaster G1 has now provided an update in the case, with four people named as defendants. These are Evelyne dos Santos Gonçalves, who was reported as being the event's organiser, and three people identified as the instructors accused of throwing her, Vitor de Freitas Gonçalves , Maicon Fernandes Cintra , and Luis Felipe Feliciano Egoroff.

Judge Guilherme Lopes Alves Lamas ruled on 12 August to uphold an indictment for homicide. A trial hearing has now been scheduled to start on 17 September.

A woman was thrown of a bridge without a rope (NBC News)

The judge also ruled against granting the defendants bail after defence attorneys argued that they are first-time offenders, ruling that the allegations are extremely serious, and highlighting that defendants had allegedly tried to delete video of the incident.

The court will also consider questions around any safety procedures carried out by the organisation running the jumps, including proper licensing for such activities.

Police have claimed that the operators were not properly licensed and were not an official company,

Police spokesperson Andréa Dantas told G1: "It's a group of people who met through this sport, who ended up getting together and have been organising these events in various destinations for about a year now."

Maria was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency workers after the fall.

An eyewitness told local outlet EPTV how panic had started spreading as people realised what had happened.

Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas was fatally launched off a bridge in Brazil this weekend (X)

"There were a lot of people there - not just a few. There were many people at the site," said witness Higor Diniz. "There were children there, too, and they saw it happen... Some of the children were only six years old."

He added: "It was a very intense scene. People panicked. Some who were farther back grabbed their belongings and started leaving."

Maria herself had taken to social media just hours before the fatal incident, posting about how she was nervous and excited to try bungee jumping.

"Who was the crazy person who let me jump off a bridge?" she wrote in an eerie caption.

Taking to social media after her daughter's death, Maria's mother shared a series of heartbreaking posts paying tribute to her daughter.

In one post she wrote: “That damned rope took you away from me forever.

“My beloved daughter, only today I wanted to hug you more than a thousand times. How it’s hurting me your departure.”