Woman stabbed to death by 'cold, calm, and collected' estranged husband in front of 3-year-old daughter
A man allegedly murdered his estranged wife in front of their three-year-old daughter after stabbing her "several times", a court has heard.
41-year-old Ricardo Godinho allegedly attacked Aliny Godinho, 39, in Ewell, Surrey on February 8 and was "cold, calm, and collected" as he told his secretary he "stabbed her several times” with a kitchen knife because of “f****** problems”, the Evening Standard reports.
Prosecutor Kate Lumsdon QC told Guildford Crown Court that Aliny, who had separated from Ricardo recently, was walking down a road to pick up her other children from school and was walking ahead of three women when a truck pulled up and a man came running towards her "hunched over."
"As he reached Aliny, he grasped her with one hand and with the other stabbed her repeatedly in the upper body," Lumsdon said. "As she sank to the floor, he continued to stab her in the chest and in the neck."
"During the attack, he didn't say anything, he didn't speak, he didn't shout out or make a sound," Lumsdon said recounting what one of of the unnamed eyewitnesses had said. "He was expressionless, he appeared to be cold, calm and collected. He didn't seem to have any rage, he was doing what he was doing and that was it."
Following the attack, Ricardo abruptly stopped, dropped his wife and the knife, before running back to his vehicle and fleeing the scene.
"The man who killed Aliny was her estranged husband, Ricardo Godinho, this defendant. There is no dispute about that," Lumsdon told the jury. "The issue for you will be what he intended at the time that he did it."
Ricardo is denying murder or possessing an article with a blade or a point -- namely a kitchen knife -- during the ordeal.
The couple, who originally hailed from Brazil, had recently separated after being together for 17 years, the jury heard.
Shockingly, Ricardo called a number of people shortly after the incident and told them what he had done.
"I stabbed Aliny. I think she is dead. I stabbed her several times," he allegedly told his secretary after going back to the office of his maintenance business. He later left the office and said he was going to end his own life, Lumsdon told the court.
The secretary immediately alerted police, who later found him using the company's tracking system.
"While he was in custody, he was heard saying, 'I kill my wife because of f****** problems'," Lumsdon told the jury.
According to police, the knife that was seized from Ricardo appeared to have been a part of a set of kitchen knives.
On December 27 last year, Aliny had gone to the Epsom Police Station "to make an allegation that she was being controlled by her husband Ricardo."
Pc Joel Robinson, the police officer she spoke to, recalled the embattled mother was "very nervous and on the edge of crying."
Robinson learned that Ricardo had been mentally "controlling and abusive" towards her and threatened to kill himself whenever she tried to leave him.
Furthermore, the court heard Ricardo had also "threatened to kill her" multiple times over the years. He kept a watch on Aliny using a tracking feature on one of their children's phones and was also able to go through conversations in a WhatsApp group she shared with her friends.
It was only on February 7 that Aliny realized her husband had unrestricted access to her emails and was also aware of her new address following their separation.
Police learned on February 8 -- the day of the murder -- that Godinho had been regularly accessing his wife's iCloud account.
"It's the Crown's case that Mr. Godinho killed his wife to punish her, out of revenge for leaving him and, as he saw it, keeping him from his children," Lumsdon said, concluding the prosecution's opening note. "He planned it. He armed himself, he lay in wait for her and he killed her in cold blood."
The trial continues.