'My friend was killed on school run by vile ex - she made a chilling prediction'
A new series of Killer Britain with Dermot Murnaghan delves into the shocking stabbing of a young mother on the school run and reveals heartbreaking details about her final moments
It was a crime that shocked Britain - the violent murder of a mum while on the school run by her estranged partner, and in front of their three-year-old daughter.
Ricardo Godinho repeatedly stabbed ex-wife Aliny Godinho in broad daylight, and in front of other terrified mothers, as she walked with her little girl to collect her two sons from school in Epsom, Surrey. A court later heard how the distraught girl told a witness immediately after seeing her father kill her mother in 2019: "Mummy's not coming back".
Now, in a new episode of Killer Britain with Dermot Murnaghan, which has uncovered new details of the case, a friend reveals new information about the days and hours before the mum-of-three's harrowing death.
And she reveals how a shocked bystander who witnessed the murder made the extraordinary gesture of letting the dying mother know that her daughter had not been hurt as she took her last breaths. Aliny, 39, had just stepped off the bus with her daughter when Godinho, 41, launched the terrifying attack with a kitchen knife on February 8, 2019.
The couple, who had moved together from Brazil to live in the UK, had separated in December 2018. Godinho, who had followed them in his car, was later arrested and confessed to the crime, but he would only admit to manslaughter during his trial.
During the inquest, Surrey Coroner's Court heard the attack happened in just 17 seconds as Mrs Godinho held their young daughter's hand. Prosecutors said the crime was premeditated and motivated by 'his anger and resentment that his wife was seeking a new life for her and her children."
He was found guilty of murder and possessing an offensive weapon by Guildford Crown Court and sentenced to life with a minimum of 27 years in July 2019. However, when he was transferred to a prison in Brazil in 2022, it meant his sentence was changed to 30 years in jail.
Lucienne Monteiro, a Brazilian friend of Aliny in the UK, told the programme that the mother knew that her ex-husband wanted to kill her, but believed he would never harm her if she was with their daughter, who was Godinho's 'favourite' child.
She remembers: 'I asked her, 'Aliny, do you think Ricardo will do anything bad to you?' And then she said to me, 'I think if you get to him in a bad moment and I am alone without the children he would do it. But if I am with one of the children, he wouldn't do it. So, she believed that she was safe because of the children.
'So, from that week, she took her little child, the girl with her to school every day, because she felt protected. The little one was his favourite one. So, she thought like he won't hurt her.'
She remembers finding out her worst fears had come true: 'We were watching TV or something when my phone rang. And then when I picked up the phone, a friend of ours, he said, Aliny has just being killed, stabbed by Ricardo. I threw my telephone away and I started screaming I never felt so bad in my life like that day.
'She didn't have the time to defend herself. She didn't have any marks on the arm or anything, it was really fast. They said that he stabbed her and then as she was falling down he kept stabbing her, without saying anything. And then when he'd done that, he just look at his little one and then he walk away.'
But she reveals one moment that has given her comfort. "As a mother, I guess you can imagine in your mind, to be going that way and scared that something was happening with her little one,' she says. "So this lady came and said to her, 'your baby's OK'. So I hope she went in peace."
The Crime+Investigation series episode, which airs tonight, also revealed that Godinho had been following Aliny's movements without her knowing, by using the Find My iPhone to track where she was - despite being told by police not to make contact with Aliny or their children following accusations of abusive behaviour and coercive control.
He had also found a way to read her messages and emails, and was a member of a WhatsApp group that Aliny's friends used to support her without them knowing. Portuguese journalist Duarte Mendonça explained: "He had access to an old SIM card that used to belong to Aliny and no one in that group ever noticed it. So, for the longest time, Ricardo was able to keep track of every single conversation of every single move, and it was only up until the day that Ricardo decided to leave the group.
'And they saw the stamp mark saying, 'Aliny has left the group' the group realised that he was there the whole time.' But despite breaking his bail conditions many times, no further action was taken by police. It was later found that Godinho had been using Google to search for how a Brazilian man had murdered his wife.
Friend Luciene also remembered how Aliny was reluctant to go to the police about the danger she felt she was in. 'She says: 'Somebody from his family sent her a message saying that Ricardo said that he was going to kill her. So, I told her, to go to the police and showed this message from this person. And then she said to me that she didn't want to cause any problems between him and this person of his family. She was really worried about the relationship between those people.'
It was on the day of her death when Aliny realised Godinho had access to her emails, WhatsApp messages and location, and reported it to the police at 11.30am - but continued on her daily routine, picking up her children from school.
In the afternoon she started the school run at 2:38 p.m. CCTV captured Aliny catching the bus from where she was staying in Streatham to Epsom, along with her daughter, getting off the bus at 2:55 pm.
Godinho, who had tracked her using Find My iPhone, was waiting for them in his pick-up truck when they got off. He mounted the grass verge alongside where they were walking, jumped out the vehicle and started stabbing her repeatedly, before dropping the murder weapon and driving off.
He began to drive to a police station to surrender, but his vehicle was stopped, and he was arrested around an hour and a half after the attack. Psychologist Emma Kenny told the programme: "When you think about how Godinho attacks Aliny, it's on the school run. It's in front of other parents, it's in front of his three-year-old daughter, that is so symbolic of how fixated he was on ending her life. He doesn't care about witnesses. He doesn't care about the future.'
It showed the murder was premeditated. 'He said, 'It wasn't my fault. It was a heat of the moment thing. It was manslaughter. I was driven to it essentially'. But the problem with that is that manslaughter would show that there was no premeditation, the level of premeditation and the execution of the actual crime shows a huge amount of planning behind it.'
Friend Luciene says she will never forget her. She says: 'She was like my little sister, but he was my friend. I never thought like he would do something this to her because Aliny, she was like, I think she was not from this planet. She was so kind, so calm. So nice, full of grace, harmless. She was like this. She was so sweet.'
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