The family of Tainara Souza Santos, 31, run over and dragged about 1 km north of São Paulo by an ex-boyfriend, hopes she will recover and live happily with the support of family and friends.
The victim, a mother of two children, had both legs amputated and has been in an induced coma for more than a week. She had surgery Monday to insert pins in her hip and a feeding tube.
“She will be happy again,” said Lúcia Aparecida Souza da Silva, Tainara’s mother, in an interview with TV Globo’s Fantástico program. “She has a lot of love, she will have a lot of affection from us, from her friends, from her family. From everyone.”
Lúcia also called for an end to cases of violence against women, recalled the times she taught her daughter to walk when she was still a baby and said: “I’m going to be her legs, now.”
The case
Douglas Alves da Silva, 26, crushed Tainara this Saturday morning (29) at Parque Novo Mundo, north of São Paulo. He hit her with a black Golf on an avenue that provides access to the Tietê seafront and continued driving even with her body trapped in the vehicle.
Security cameras recorded the collision. Drivers who were nearby also filmed the car with the woman’s body being dragged along part of the Tietê seafront.
After the collision, military police used security camera footage and radar data from the area to identify the suspect. Police arrived at an address believed to be his, but he was not there.
According to the police report, the collision occurred near a bar and those present witnessed the entire episode.
An employee at the establishment told police the driver acted intentionally by running over and running over the victim. While the woman was already under the vehicle, the driver allegedly pulled the handbrake and made sudden movements with the car.
Tainara’s family and a family lawyer said they had a brief relationship, which had already ended at her initiative.
Lawyer Marcos Leal, who is defending Douglas, said he did not intend to hit Tainara, but rather the man who walked alongside him as he left a bar. He claims Douglas did not know Tainara and never had a relationship with her – which contradicts reports from Tainara’s family and a friend of Douglas’s who was inside the vehicle at the time of the collision.
The passenger in the car said Douglas was furious when he arrived at a bar and saw Tainara with another man. She also said he intended to hit her. The driver was arrested the day after the incident.
In 2025, the number of feminicides recorded in the city of São Paulo reached 53 cases, the highest in the historical series – the record even occurs two months out of the year. In 2024, there were 51 cases of femicide from January to December, the highest number ever recorded so far.
According to a survey by the Sou da Paz Institute, the capital of São Paulo was the scene of one in four feminicides committed in the state. Comparing the first ten months of 2025 with the same period last year, the increase is 23% in the city. Compared to 2023, the growth was 71%.
The data reinforces the historical trend of violence against women: the majority of cases occur at home (67%) and victims are murdered with sharp weapons or blunt objects – instruments used in more than half of crimes committed in the state.
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