A Life Too Short: The Isabella Nardoni Case (Isabella: O Caso Nardoni)

Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?

There's a burglar in this building!

Someone threw a kid from up there! Oh my God!

Threw a kid? From what height?

From the sixth floor. They've thrown a kid!

There's a burglar in the building! Oh my God!

Good Lord!

Oh my God!

Please, dear!

I'm just filling out…

Can you hear me?

I can hear you. Help is on the way.

The girl was found on the lawn.

The safety net on the window of Isabella's room

was cut with a knife and scissors.

All we could think of was,

"Oh my God, no! That's the love of our lives."

"They've thrown the love of our lives through a window."

Awaiting in expectation to hear Alexandre and Anna Carolina's statements.

They were at the apartment.

The police are certain of that.

People saw their own loved ones in that victim.

JUSTICE BE DONE

I had never seen a case that moved public opinion this much.

They made a spectacle out of it.

What the fuck?

The jurors are led to believe the prosecution knows everything.

But that's not true in Isabella's case. We don't know everything.

It was atypical, a situation the police hadn't encountered before.

The mom left the girl there alive.

When she went to pick her up, she was dead.

They fabricated a version of the facts to calm society.

Criminal materiality!

Who killed Isabella?

The perfect crime doesn't exist even if it's premeditated.

The lies started coming out.

Excuse us!

Our legal system wasn't ready for a case with such importance.

Then, the police started to investigate.

The news started to come out, and it was one surprise after another,

one shocking fact after another.

THE ISABELLA NARDONI CASE

Look at this. So beautiful.

So many photos of you.

-Look, Gi. The two of you. -June festival.

I'm Isabella's cousin. Four months older than she was.

ISABELLA'S COUSIN

There we go.

We were inseparable.

Our parents had us when they were very young,

so we basically had each other.

I think I was much calmer than her.

She had a stronger personality.

She was more…

Agitated.

She was more agitated, exactly.

I was more laid back, I was calmer.

She fought for what she wanted, so to speak.

You used to be…

Yeah, I had an easier time taking things as they are.

I took a "no" better than her.

I was 17 when I got pregnant. I was still in school.

And it scared us.

-But my brother… - My dad.

…her father, conceived a few months earlier.

I was so happy to have a granddaughter.

Or a grandson. I didn't know.

Then we heard about Carolina.

That was different because Carolina was 17.

ISABELLA'S FATHER

We got divorced when she was 11 months old.

During the four years since then, we had our ups and downs.

In the beginning,

our relationship was like a typical relationship

between divorced parents.

We got along, but that got harder after he met Jatobá.

ISABELLA'S STEPMOTHER

We wouldn't talk much then.

But I could notice that she would act in a more mature manner

after she had her own kids.

Isabella loved her siblings.

She really liked hanging out with them. She liked being around them.

For a mom who lets her kid spend the weekend at her dad's,

it's comforting to know that they enjoyed spending time with their siblings.

I wanted her to be a part of that.

They were a part of her life, so she had to experience that.

My last memory of her…

On that Friday, she went to her dad's.

MARCH 29TH, 2008 NORTH OF SÃO PAULO

When the accident happened,

my day had been pretty regular.

It was a Saturday. I was hanging out with my friends.

We were at a barbecue, and my phone rang.

"Mom, Isa was in an accident."

"What do you mean?" "She fell off the building."

"Where?" "At Alexandre's."

"She fell, she fell."

It was so quiet that night.

You could hear the dew falling from the sky.

Then we started to hear a ruckus in the apartment next door.

When we went to bed, we heard a couple fighting.

It was a quick fight, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Then the silence was restored.

Right after that, we heard a person on the ground floor.

Yelling, "They tossed Isabella! Help! They tossed Isabella!"

I said, "Let's go downstairs and see if we can help."

I went towards Isabella. She was lying there on the grass.

There was a glass door close by. It was dark.

When I crouched to see if she had a pulse,

Alexandre Nardoni came out through the glass door.

He said, "There's someone in my apartment. He threw her out of the window."

He said that someone in his apartment had thrown the kid through the window.

And he said that this person was wearing a black shirt.

The doorman was wearing black.

We changed out of our pajamas and left.

It seemed like an eternity to get there.

Five minutes felt like five hours.

We were praying on our way there

because we couldn't even imagine what happened.

We had no idea what had happened.

When we got there, there were lots of police officers.

My husband tried to go in by car, but the police didn't let us.

So I got out of the car and ran down the street.

I remember I got out of the car while it was still moving.

I opened the door and ran in.

When I got there, she was on the ground.

She was breathing very slowly.

I wasn't even worried about questioning what happened,

why it happened, or how it happened.

All I wanted was for her to get help as soon as possible.

So, I didn't leave her side, not even for a second.

I was comforted back then because she was still breathing.

Alexandre Alves, 29 years old,

arrived home with Isabella, his current wife,

his three-year-old daughter, and an 11-month-old baby.

They went in through this garage gate.

It was cold that night.

Right after he parked, according to other sources,

he took the six-year-old to the apartment that's on the sixth floor of the building.

The building is very safe.

Every balcony has safety nets, as you can see.

It's a brand-new building,

but a few minutes after that, according to other sources,

he came downstairs to pick up the other children,

and the girl was found right here, on the lawn.

I remember I tried to get in the ambulance.

I tried to stay by her side, but they didn't let me go in the back.

I went in the front.

I remember being inside the ambulance

and leaving the scene.

So when we got to the hospital,

as far as we knew, it was just an accident.

So I was there, I was hugging my daughter,

and then the doctor came to talk to us.

It wasn't long before they showed up to talk to us,

to tell us that she hadn't made it

and that we could go into the bedroom.

Unfortunately, it was very brief.

Very brief.

We all fell apart.

Carolina actually fell to the ground, sliding on the walls towards the ground.

So I went to my daughter, and I held her.

She looked at me and said, "Mom, why did this happen to me?"

I had no words.

What would I even say to my daughter? She'd just lost her daughter.

After a while, I could only say,

"Sweetie, we need to let her go so she can move on."

When I finally realized she hadn't made it,

the only thing I could whisper into her ear was,

"You can go."

"Go in peace."

"I'll take care of everything on this end."

Those were my last words to her.

Then, the police started to investigate.

The news started to come out,

and it was one surprise after another, one shocking fact after another.

POLICE

SÃO PAULO PD 9TH PRECINCT

We're here at 9th Precinct Station

in the north of São Paulo, and there's been a lot of movement.

Lots of reporters here throughout the afternoon and the evening

waiting in expectation to hear Alexandre and Carolina's statements.

I was on call when we received the news

that a child had fallen from their parents' apartment's window.

That's the first piece of information we'd gotten.

JOURNALIST AND WRITER

At first, everyone was unsure if it had been a crime,

a homicide, something of the sort,

or if it had been an accidental fall.

Back then, there was so much news of children who, when left alone,

had fatally fallen from windows.

ANOTHER CHILD FALLS OFF A WINDOW

CHILD FALLS OFF A WINDOW AND SUFFERS HEAD TRAUMA

CHILD FALLS OFF A WINDOW OF A BUILDING IN PERDIZES

They asked me to go to the 9th Precinct Station,

and I got information during a collective interview

with Officer Calixto Calil Filho.

There was a suspicion, including the family, of a homicide.

A five-year-old child around 11:30 p.m. last night

was thrown from the sixth floor of a building.