“Don't shoot! Don't shoot!” Cries, in Portuguese, begging not to shoot, come from the basements of 23 boulevard François-Grosso, in Nice. It was approximately 6 p.m. on Sunday when the neighborhood was alerted by loud female voices, responded to by male screams. A few moments earlier, a man was seen on the sidewalk, armed with a rifle, before rushing into the first floor of the private parking lot of the Bel Air Mansion building.
Informed via an emergency call point, the municipal police arrived on site in less than ten minutes. Dive underground in turn. The clamor gets worse. A woman narrowly escapes, paralyzed but physically unharmed, surrounded by the police.
Taken for a hostage, she wanted to reason with him
Endless minutes pass, the scandal seems to have faded. Stillborn silence, torn by an explosion. The madman has just taken his own life.
The first elements of the drama suggest a hostage taking. A reading of the facts reproduced on our website. In reality, it was nothing of the sort.
“There was no hostage. The lady is a friend who wanted to reason with him, to prevent the irreparable. Rui would never have hurt anyone… except him”, Isabela confides gently Alves. The deceased's daughter-in-law contacted our newspaper to set the record straight. Without bitterness. But not without emotion. In a few words muffled with modesty, deafening her pain, she delivers the chilling story of a slide towards dementia.
Getting lost in paranoia
It's been six months since his father-in-law hardly slept. Out of hassle? By illness? The quadra of Portuguese origin could not explain it. Didn't ask for help. No diagnosis will be made. But from sleepless night to sleepless night, his nature, as jovial as it was helpful, was lost in paranoia. In September, believing he was being chased throughout the building, he ended up being hospitalized. A few days. Not enough. “Without his agreement, it is impossible to have him treated in a psychiatric establishment,” laments the daughter-in-law, venting her helplessness and containing her anger in the face of “the inaction of the health services”.
“There will be a relapse. There is always a relapse,” she told herself. Sunday sadly proved him right. In the midst of decompensation, Rui Nóbrega Gonçalves seizes the rifle owned by his 22-year-old son, a gun holder. He rushes down to the parking lot after exiting onto Boulevard François-Grosso. A friend, Marli Marcelino, saw him, started after him, caught up with him in front of the basement box.
“Don't kill him!”
“Não disappears! Não disappears!” Screams do not discourage the desperate. But bring in the municipal police. The patrol rushes into the garage, revolvers in hand. An unbearable face-to-face ensues. “Não o matem”, shouts the friend who throws herself at the madman, interposing herself between him and the agents. Not speaking Portuguese, they do not understand that the woman is begging them not to kill him. The confusion is total. The danger, maximum. A gunshot could go off at any moment.
“No letters”
Showing immense composure, the police try to defuse the situation. In vain. The man ended up giving his friend a sinister ultimatum: “I don't want you to see this, Marli, please go away. Either way, I'm going to kill myself.” Terrified, the woman gives in and surrenders to the police, who manage to save her. But Rui Nóbrega Gonçalves will not be able to reason with him.
It is impossible to know if he heard his wife's distress before dying. In front of the entrance to the parking lot, Lígia cried over her incomprehension. “There was no psychological support,” laments Isabela Alvès.
Alone faced with grief, mother and daughter struggle to realize. “Why did he do that?” asks the daughter-in-law. “Deep down, I don't think he really wanted to kill himself. Maybe he said to himself: now that there are the police, it's prison or death. I don't know . He left no letter.”
