WATCH: Nun carries suitcase later discovered to contain remains of deceased friend
Chilling video from Chile captured a nun walking down the street with a wheeled suitcase that police later discovered to contain her fellow sister’s corpse.
"There was a pact. The person died a year ago and the other has kept her in a suitcase ever since due to the affection she had," police official Juan Fonseca told reporters this week, according to The Times of Malta.
Police in the city of Santiago on Monday responded to a report of a suitcase full of bones, which had sparked a panic about drug cartel activity. After reviewing video footage, police discovered the nun, who was seen with the suitcase and wearing her habit.
BRAZIL COURT SAYS GOVERNMENT MUST COMPENSATE VICTIMS OF STRAY BULLETS IN POLICE RAIDS
The nun, identified by Spanish-language outlet El País as Lorenza Ramirez, 80, who did not belong to a particular religious order but had only taken private vows, had survived her friend, Erica Fernandez, 58, who had died of illness. The police also suggested that Ramirez could have suffered from "some kind of disorder."
The friends had agreed to stay together even after one of them had died. Fernandez passed away in April 2023, and Ramirez hid her friend’s body in her house for the following year.
DOMINICAN AUTHORITIES LAUNCH PROBE AFTER AN IMMIGRATION OFFICER IS ACCUSED OF RAPING A 14-YEAR-OLD
"They maintained a friendship," Fonesca said of the women. "[Ramirez] states that she was very fond of her and they had made a commitment between them that neither of them would report each other if they died," he explained, according to a rough translation.
She had intended to keep to the pact due to her great "affection and loyalty" to her friend, but her daughter, upon discovering the situation, convinced her that she needed to lay her friend to rest.
The police autopsy showed no signs of foul play, so they decided not to arrest the nun; however, she faces a possible fine and punishment for breaching public health regulations for not notifying authorities to her friend’s death so she could properly attended to with a burial or cremation.
Instead, the nun had left her friend’s corpse on the street for garbage collectors to grab, but the bad odor coming from the suitcase had raised concerns. A passerby later investigated the case and discovered the body inside, The Mirror reported.