AUGUSTA — A Massachusetts man convicted of attempting to murder the mother of his children in a Waterville parking lot in 2023 was again sentenced to 18 years in prison Wednesday. His previous 18-year prison sentence was thrown out by the state’s highest court.
Irineu B. Goncalves, 37, received a similar sentence when first sentenced July 2024, after being convicted of attempting to kill a woman with his bare hands outside a Waterville hotel in June 2023.
Each sentence hits him with the same 18-year unsuspended prison time. However the full sentences differed somewhat, with his full sentence in 2024 set at 30 years and his resentencing is 28 years. The result is Goncalves will spend the same 18 years in jail and be released. But if he violates the terms of his four-year probation, he could be re-arrested and have to serve the remaining time on his full, now 28-year, sentence.
His victim, a Vassalboro woman with whom Goncalves had a relationship and two children with, testified she is still in extreme fear of him. She said his appeal and the resulting resentencing process had “reignited the fear I’ve worked so hard to manage.” She asked that he be sentenced to a long enough prison term that she’ll have time to raise her children without fear of him.
“I’m here today not only as a survivor but as a mother who is fighting to protect myself and my children from the man who tried to kill me, and would have left them motherless,” said the woman, who the newspaper is not identifying because its policy is not to identify victims of domestic violence without their permission. “I’m scared when I see someone who resembles him. So I remind myself that he’s in prison. I dread the day I can no longer say those words. My only peace comes from knowing he is behind bars.”
A dozen people, most of them Goncalves’ family members, spoke in support of him Wednesday, 10 via video and two, a brother and sister, in person at the Capital Judicial Center courtroom in Augusta. They said the entire family depended on Goncalves for support, and described him as incredibly caring and kind, and a good role model. They said he was a good father to his two children, from a mother other than the victim, who miss their father terribly since he’s been in prison.
Goncalves said he’s working hard in prison to become a better man including taking part in counseling. He’s learning to manage his emotions and doing anything asked of him by prison officials.
He apologized to the victim, and said he thanks God every day that his attack did not kill her and she is still able to be a mother to their children. He also apologized to police and others involved in stopping his violent attack.
“I know nothing I say today can undo the pain I caused,” Goncalves said. “I want to prove I’m not the man I was that day. I made a terrible mistake. But that doesn’t define me. I will spend the rest of my life trying to be a better man, better father, and someone who never harms anyone again.”
His attorney, Jamesa Drake, called Florida neurologist Dr. Lisa Avery to testify that Goncalves had suffered head trauma twice in his life, once when he was young and fell off a bridge, and again in a 2006 car crash. She said testing showed his brain suffers from dysfunction from that trauma, which can cause him to have an extreme “fight or flight,” reaction in highly stressful, emotional situations, during which he has no conscious thought, only reaction.
That argument was in line with defense expert testimony at his trial, in which a clinical psychologist with experience doing forensic evaluations said Goncalves was in a dissociative mental state and not aware of what he was doing when he told the woman he was going to kill her and then beat and strangled her until she was unconscious.
Drake said 40 people submitted letters to the court in support of Goncalves. She sought a sentence of 10 years.
In an Aug. 7, 2025, decision, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Goncalves’ appeal that his sentence should be vacated and he must be resentenced because Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy erred in including what she said was an assault on the hotel clerk during the incident as an aggravating factor, when in fact no evidence was presented at trial that he had assaulted the clerk.
The justices ruled that considering the alleged assault as an aggravating factor in Goncalves’ sentence could have affected the length of his sentence and so ordered he be resentenced.
Murphy also presided over Goncalves’ resentencing, issuing the same, 18-year unsuspended sentence, as she issued after his trial. She said she regretted everyone having to come back for resentencing and whatever part she played in that.
