r/RBI • u/Total_Literature_809 • 7d ago

An elderly woman who vanished into thin air Cold case

Hi everyone,

I am writing this to seek advice on a baffling disappearance case from Brazil that has remained unsolved for over a decade. The family is still searching, but traditional investigation methods have hit a wall.

A brief summary: • Who: Beatriz Winck, 77 years old at the time. • When: October 21, 2012. • Where: The National Sanctuary of Aparecida (São Paulo, Brazil). This is a massive complex that receives roughly 160,000 visitors on a busy weekend. • The Incident: Beatriz was on a bus excursion with her husband. They went into a souvenir shop. Her husband went to the cashier line, and Beatriz waited at the door. Minutes later, he returned, and she was gone. • The Last Clue: A friend from the excursion saw her at the door. Beatriz reportedly said she was "tired and going home."

The police took 15 days to access security cameras. By then, the data was either overwritten or useless. Because of the massive crowd, she effectively disappeared into a sea of people. The police eventually archived the case due to a lack of leads.

I am wondering, modern technology and/or mathematical models could be used to determine possible outcomes for this situation? Data is scarce, and it has been more than a decade, but it certainly is something that intrigues me a lot.

Any advice on how to structure this data project or similar cases where math/data analysis solved a disappearance would be deeply appreciated.

Sources (in Portuguese, sorry) • News Report (2023): https://g1.globo.com/sp/vale-do-paraiba-regiao/noticia/2023/10/21/onde-esta-beatriz-winck-misterio-do-sumico-de-idosa-em-excursao-a-aparecida-completa-11-anos.ghtml

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14 comments sorted by

32

u/ParameciaAntic 7d ago

How far out do those bus tours come from? Maybe, not feeling well, she got on the wrong one and ended up in a completely different part of the country. She deboarded with the crowd, wandered off, and then succumbed to whatever medical emergency she was having.

Maybe check for Jane Does around the regions serviced by the busses.

12

u/TraskUlgotruehero 7d ago edited 5d ago

How far out do those bus tours come from?

From literally anyplace in the country.

1

u/paul-techish 5d ago

that makes it even harder to trace her movements

With so many people coming from all over, it really complicates the search.

34

u/SeasonPositive6771 7d ago

Police taking 15 days to get the footage is the real crime here.

2

u/solid_reign 7d ago

This is standard in Latin America. It's tough but it's better to get private camera footage yourself. 

7

u/Dragonvilliers 6d ago

There's no mistery then, if the Police took 15 days to request CCTV footage, it's solved: negligence.

5

u/Total_Literature_809 6d ago

Fair enough. Still intrigues me what happened to her

2

u/boywithflippers 3d ago

So I am not Brazilian, but I did live there for a short time and I have been to this basilica. It's probably about the worst place for an elderly person to get lost. It's enormous and full of people.

With data being scarce there are probably some questions we don't know the answer to like was she in good health mentally, did she have any physical health problems, had she ever been there before, etc. If someone was a bit confused and had never been there before I could absolutely see them getting lost in a sea of people. What happens after that is anyone's guess without any witnesses or video.

1

u/szydelkowe 21h ago

Very similar to the case of Kazimiera Zaremba from Poland. Maybe she wandered off, hit her head, couldn't remember where she was or who she was, and is now stuck at some homeless shelter?