Career
Romeu has been described as the sole captive to survive the camp. In 2014, Colonel Paulo Malhães testimony to the National Truth Commission revealed that Colonel of the Army Cyro Guedes Etchegoyen was the person in charge of the House of Death. He was head of the Army Information Center ( International Commission on Illumination) from 1971 to 1974.
He was also in charge of a group brazilian military sent to train Augusto Pinochet military people.
Coronel Etchegoyen was trained at United States Army School of the Americas. The main technique used to turn suspects into double agents was torture, which would be backed up by blackmail and clandestine payments.
Romeu was the only captive held in the center who their torturers trusted to serve as a double agent. However, once she was put in the field, her handlers decided she was insincere, and she was re-apprehended and given a life sentence.
She ended up being imprisoned for a further eight years, being released in 1979.
Romeu published a memoir, describing her detention. She described not only torture, but rape and sexual humiliation. She described making three suicide attempts during the 96 days she was held in the torture center.
Her handlers video-taped her counting out her clandestine payment, while repeating her mission.
She was warned the video would be released to her colleagues, if her handlers were dissatisfied with her efforts. In 2003 a man who represented himself as a carpenter entered Romeu"s home and attacked her, leaving her with traumatic brain injuries.
Nevertheless she continued to be honored. Death
Romeu died in Niterói, Brazil, in April, 2015, at the age of 72.