Ruben Couto, the ‘university charmer’ charged with the horrific murder of a fellow student was discovered dead in his jail cell in Lisbon last night.
Despite being on a form of suicide watch – being checked on every hour – he managed to kill himself between the hours of 10pm – 11pm.
The family of his 23-year-old victim, gifted musician Beatriz Lebre, has already been informed.
This was a particularly vile murder in that Couto, 25, appears to have duped his victim’s family into believing he was trying to help them find their daughter, when, in fact, he had bludgeoned her to death and dumped her body in the Tejo river (click here).
PJ police unravelled Couto’s story even before Beatriz’s body was recovered. Indeed, the young man tried to commit suicide by slashing his wrists on the first night that he was held in preventive custody.
Since that time he had been being ‘checked’ on every hour at the EPL prison where he was being held.
How he managed to hang himself has not been explained.
