SAO PAULO (AP) - A Brazilian woman listed by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person died Tuesday - just weeks shy of her 115th birthday. The title now reverts to a woman in the United States.
Maria Gomes Valentim died of multiple organ failure, said Helerson Lima, a spokesman for the nursing home where she lived. Valentim would have turned 115 on July 9.
Guinness said Tuesday on its website that Valentim, "the first Brazilian super-centenarian to hold the title" died at the age of 114 years, 347 days.
On May 18, Guinness determined that Valentim was 48 days older than the person previously considered the world's oldest human, Besse Cooper from Monroe, Georgia.
"With Maria's passing, the title of Oldest Living Person reverts back to American Besse Cooper, age 114 years 299 days," Guinness said.
Guinness verified that Valentim was born on July 9, 1896, in the city of Carangola in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. She lived there all her life.
Valentim married her husband, Joao, in 1913. He died in 1946.
Valentim is survived by four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and five great-great grandchildren. Her only son died at age 75 in the early 1990s.