How killer Fernando Paulino almost got away with murder
KILLER Fernando Paulino’s raging ego made him believe he could outsmart police after he killed his wife in a stabbing frenzy. He was wrong.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
WHEN detectives arrested Fernando Paulino outside an aged care facility in Melbourne’s west two years after the death of his ex-wife, he still believed he had got away with murder.
He spent 20-minutes on the phone talking to top criminal lawyer Tony Hargreaves.
Hargreaves gave Paulino some sage advice about how he thought he should handle his predicament.
Paulino didn’t listen.
The videoed two-plus hour record of interview would ultimately sink the cocky killer.
MORE: Paulino guilty of murdering estranged wife
Paulino was given every chance in the world by the trial judge to get off the murder rap.
DNA evidence had been scrapped, CCTV dumped, and his threats to kill were wiped from the court’s memory.
But locked in a room with two seasoned detectives, Paulino would sink himself like so many killers before him.
He had been previously interviewed by Homicide Squad detectives just hours after Teresa Paulino was brutally murdered on the night of July 15, 2013.
Paulino was told he wasn’t a suspect and he couldn’t have been more helpful during that 25-minute interview.
He told police he had been out collecting hard rubbish when his ex-wife was stabbed to death in the garage of her mother’s Massey Ave home in Reservoir.
Detectives took him for a drive and Paulino pointed out all of the places he’d supposedly stopped at during the “rubbish run”.
He let detectives search his home and factories, handed over his mobile phone and clothes and gave them his laptop computer.
He was confident he had left no trace of his murderous deed.
Those that know Paulino believe murder had been on his mind for sometime, perhaps even years.
The couple split in January 2010 after a particularly nasty incident at a family gathering in Rye.
Paulino tipped over a table in a fit of rage and needed to be restrained after launching himself at his elderly mother-in-law.
For Teresa Paulino, enough was enough.
She had been unhappy for far too long — most of her 23-year marriage — some would say.
The couple slept in separate beds, with the doting mother of two sleeping for years in the bed of her youngest son Luke before he got too old.
She had only endured the marriage for the sake of her children.
Brought up in a caring Italian family, Teresa was affectionately known as “Mother Teresa” by those that loved her.
Even on separating she would dote over her boys, wash their clothes and cook them meals.
She had a new confidence in life and had scored a dream job as a flight attendant and picked up work as an extra in television productions.
She had also started dating a man, but was too shy, and too afraid, to talk much about him.
The attractive 49-year old had been the subject of a vicious smear campaign by her vengeful ex-husband for months before he killed her.
Paulino would claim it was he who kicked Teresa out of the family’s Taylors Lakes home after his meltdown in Rye.
If he did, he immediately regretted it and went about trying to get her back.
But Teresa didn’t want Paulino back.
On the night she was murdered, Teresa sat down to enjoy a meal with her sons at her sister’s home around the corner from their mum’s house.
The dinners had become a routine gathering on Sunday nights at the Mancuso family home since Teresa moved out.
On this night, Mrs Mancuso had gone to Kyneton to help Teresa’s brother make salamis, so the dinner was pushed back to Monday and moved location.
After an hour or so the boys went their separate ways and Teresa drove home to her mum’s empty house on Massey Ave.
She got home around 830pm, smoked her last cigarette and took a shower.
Back in Taylors Lakes, her killer was putting his evil plan into action.
Paulino removed the mobile phone he had clipped to his hip and left it in his work ute.
It remains unclear exactly what Paulino wore when he carried out the bloody execution.
Not a trace of blood was found on him or in his car when police checked just hours later.
He must have bought the shoes he wore with cash and kept them hidden.
Imprints found near the front fence did not match any shoes in Paulino’s wardrobe, but he regularly wore a similar style of work boot.
CCTV images captured from shops near Teresa’s home showed a vehicle matching Paulino’s Mitsubishi Challenger PA drive south past the shops three times in a 12 minute period just before 9pm.
The vehicle was then seen a fourth time driving back past the shops in a northerly direction a short time later.
They were images never shown to the jury.
Paulino crept over the small brick fence in the front yard making sure not to set off a sensor light out the front.
He cut a wire holding a lock off the side gate before making his way into the backyard and tampering with a rear sensor light.
Teresa was still in the shower when Paulino made his move.
She heard a loud bang and her heart skipped a beat.
As she jumped out of the shower she took a phone call from a friend.
Teresa was petrified.
With the phone to her ear she paced around the house and investigated the noise — like the phone was going to save her.
Police found no sign of forced entry into the Mancuso home, which leads detectives to believe Paulino lured her to the back door.
The house was locked-up like Fort Knox, with security shutters on every window.
She would never have ventured outside alone.
What happened next was a murder so savage it left Teresa’s blood splattered across the walls of the garage.
Paulino would have been covered in it.
Wrapped in a dressing gown and fluffy slippers, Teresa’s skull was cracked by a metal bar.
Her brain moved and her jaw shattered.
She was still conscious when Paulino began pounding the knife into her body.
She slipped on her own blood and fell to the ground.
Neighbours heard her last spine tingling screams as Paulino stabbed her 16 times in the chest and back, smashing through her ribs and puncturing her heart.
When he was finished he walked out the same way he entered, leaving a trail of blood.
What he did next remains a mystery.
It was a gap in Paulino’s story that never got filled.
Police believe he washed himself off and changed back into the clothes he later handed over to police.
The bloody clothes and murder weapon have never been found.
CCTV at Woolworthes at Watervale Shopping Centre showed Paulino enter about an hour and a quarter after the murder.
He bought milk and bread, which he dropped off to his elderly mum later that night.
Paulino never spoke a word of what he did to Teresa after that night.
Police bugged his home, phone and cars in the hope he would say something or lead them to the bloody evidence.
He never did.
When Paulino arrogantly agreed to be interviewed by police he had not planned on how it might look to a jury years down the track.
A jury that for a month had heard all of his vicious lies and testimony from his own sons branding him a killer.
For two hours the jury watched Paulino spin a now obvious web of lies to police before they turned-up the heat.
Left alone after the grilling, Paulino nervously chewed his fingernails and spat them on the floor.
He covered his eyes and rocked back in his chair.
Detective Sen-Constable Tony Harwood returned to the room. It had been two years, but he knew he had his man.
“Surely you would have known this day was coming,” he said.
“For what? I haven’t done anything,” Paulino replied.