He had killed his love rival, who had come to his house to fight: a 67-year-old man was on Wednesday sentenced to ten years in criminal prison by the Bas-Rhin Assize Court.
The court reclassified the murder as intentional violence causing death without the intention to cause it, and handed down a lighter sentence than the mandatory fifteen years of the former bookie at the Niederbronn-les Bains casino, the city where the tragedy occurred.
The couple learned of the affair from their mother
On January 22, 2023, Alain Braesch was sleeping when his employer called him in a panic. He warned her that her partner was preparing to go to her house and he was armed. Because Mickaël Godinho, 35, was furious: in the evening, his mother mentioned the relationship of his partner, and the mother of his child, with a man almost thirty years older than him.
This was not his wife’s first infidelity, but according to his last, the mother “stabbed” Mickaël, angry that he had a relationship with an “old man” in front of everyone. “This is a matter of shame, a matter of ego,” analyzed the head of the Assize Court.
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“I’m afraid of him”
Additionally, Mickaël Godinho was drinking that night. Arriving at his rival’s house followed by his colleague, he banged on the door. Alain Braesch opened the door and immediately closed it and then opened it again. “I’m worried about him,” the thin, gray-haired man told the court.
“That’s where it all went wrong,” he said. “Stunned” by the blow to the face, “cornered” in his living room, the lover grabbed a knife and attacked to “protect” himself. The medical examiner counted three wounds, one of which tore an artery.
“He set me up” said Mickaël Godinho to his partner before leaving the scene. The girlfriend alerted the emergency services who would register Mickaël Godinho dead, with a bleeding chest, just 200 meters away.
“The balance of power is clearly in favor of Mr Godinho”
Referring to her daughter-in-law and lover, the victim’s mother, who has her son’s first name tattooed on her left arm, said: “I’m more angry with her than him.”
Described by those close to him as a “big teddy bear”, Mickaël Godinho, a welder, measures 1m81 and 138 kilograms compared to 1m75 and 82 kilograms for his rival. “The balance of power is clearly in favor of Mr Godinho,” an investigator underlined.
At the trial, Alain Braesch described “begging” Mickaël Godinho to stop the beating, wondering: “Why didn’t he stop? Why didn’t he leave?”.
