A motorist who ran over a naked woman and carried on because he thought he had hit a dog has been charged with manslaughter after he drove across town with her body on the roof and claimed he only noticed it was there when he parked in his garage.
The victim, Viviana Beatriz Villalba, originally from Dos de Mayo, in Misiones province, in Argentina, arrived in Girua, in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, to start a new life for herself and her four-year-old daughter and managed to get herself a job in a local nightclub.
On the night she died, she had been celebrating her 22nd birthday, and police are looking into why she was walking naked from the waist down on the street at 3 am when she was hit by the car on the RS-344 between Santo Angelo and Girua.
Police confirmed the security footage showed her walking before she was hit by the car, and the driver, a 21-year-old man who was returning from a party in Santo Angelo, was behind the wheel of a Volkswagen Fox.
Viviana Beatriz Villalba poses in undated photo. She was run over on the road between Santo Angelo and Girua, Brazil, on Jun 08, 2025. Note: Private photo taken from social media. (Newsflash/NX)
Police said he noted that he thought he had hit a dog or other animal because of the thick fog, although security footage shows him driving with the body on the roof and no obvious signs.
He added that he had not stopped to check on the animal because it was dark and he thought he might be robbed.
Another contradiction is that a person who was travelling with him at the time apparently noticed the victim's leg, but the driver carried on.
Picture shows the car involved in the incident with the body, undated. Viviana Beatriz Villalba was run over on the road between Santo Angelo and Girua, Brazil, on Jun 08, 2025. Note: Private photo. (Newsflash/NX)
The body had started to slide down the roof and had got wedged in the rear end of the vehicle, and the driver insisted that when he noticed, he called the military police immediately.
After their arrival, he refused a breathalyser test and was arrested on charges of manslaughter while an autopsy is being carried out on the body.
The investigation is ongoing.
(MJ Leidig / newsX)