Cop and His Glamorous Wife High on Cocaine, Alcohol Die While Celebrating Daughter’s 4th Birthday after Entering Overheated Bathtub

A police officer and his wife, a businesswoman, died of heatstroke after entering an excessively hot bathtub while under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, authorities in Brazil said. The tragic incident occurred as the couple was celebrating their 4-year-old daughter’s birthday.

Military police officer Jeferson Luiz Sagaz, 37, and his partner, 41-year-old nail salon owner Ana Carolina Silva, were found dead inside a motel room in Santa Catarina on the night of August 11, according to Brazil’s G1 Globo. Earlier that day, the couple had been celebrating their young daughter’s birthday, drinking and using cocaine before heading out to a nightclub. Around midnight, they checked into the Dallas Motel.

Tragedy on Daughter’s Birthday

When the couple didn’t show up the next day to pick up their daughter, worried relatives contacted authorities and reported them missing. The couple was later found dead in the motel’s bathtub.

Investigators ruled that both had died from heatstroke. However, they believe the cocaine and alcohol in their systems likely affected their ability to sense or respond to the extreme heat.

When authorities examined the scene, they found the bathtub water had reached a scorching 122 degrees Fahrenheit, and a space heater in the room had been left running at full power, making the conditions even more dangerous.

“The cause of both deaths was exogenous poisoning, favoring the process of heatstroke with intense dehydration, thermal collapse, culminating in organ failure and death,” Chief Medical Examiner Andressa Boer Fronza said Thursday.

Cocaine Played a Role

Toxicology reports later confirmed that both had high levels of alcohol in their blood, along with traces of cocaine. “The use of cocaine, which in doses alone could cause torpor, drowsiness and even coma in the individual, combined with alcohol, which also causes this in high doses, such as torpor, coma and drowsiness,” Director of Forensic Medicine for the Scientific Police, Dr. Fernando Oliva da Fonseca, told G1 Globo.

“Add the two together, increasing the [risk] factor and that’s exactly what may have happened, the person goes into torpor at that temperature and it rises and they don’t feel it and don’t have a defense reaction,” the doctor said.

Torpor is a condition of deep physical inactivity, much like hibernation, in which the body’s metabolism slows down significantly.

Investigators conducted a thorough search of the motel room, the couple’s car, and reviewed security camera footage. Forensic experts from the Civil Police later ruled out other possible causes — including carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, or electric shock — and confirmed that no one else was involved in the couple’s deaths.

“These circumstances, combined with the substances found on the bodies, led the Civil Police to conclude that the cause of death was sudden and not due to third-party intervention,” Police Chief Felipe Simao Gomes said.

Earlier, Carolina’s family released a statement claiming that she was not someone who used drugs and suggested she might have been coerced into taking cocaine and alcohol that night.

Police said the couple had been together for nearly 20 years and that there was no record of violence or conflict in their relationship.