Woman who vowed to avenge her dad’s m*rder became a cop, caught his killer after 25 years

A woman who turned to a career in law enforcement to seek justice for her mu*dered father played a pivotal role in his arrest 25 years later.

Gislayne Silva de Deus, hailing from Boa Vista, in the northern region of Brazil, was just nine years old when her father, Givaldo, was fatally sh0t in a bar due to a debt of £20 in 1999.

Givaldo’s k!ller, Raimundo Alves Gomes, took his victim to the hospital but then disappeared.

He was apprehended, brought to trial, and sentenced to 12 years in 2013. However, he managed to avoid imprisonment while contesting the verdict through a series of appeals.

After the last appeal was dismissed in 2016, a warrant for his arrest was issued, yet he managed to evade capture once more.

The news devastated Gislayne, who was now in her late 20s working as a lawyer, and the rest of Givaldo’s family.

“We got used to living with uncertainty, always wondering if we would ever be able to locate him,” she told Brazilian news site G1.

In 2022, Gislayne became a prison officer, saying she “always imagined [Gomes] arriving there to serve his sentence”.

But it remained a daydream, even after one of her uncles spotted Gomes in the city where the m*rder took place later that year.

The uncle alerted authorities, but Gomes disappeared before they could arrest him.

She then applied to join her state’s Civil Police, becoming a clerk in July this year, and immediately applied to join its murder unit.

Once in, she helped to gather information about Gomes’ whereabouts and issued the formal order for his arrest.

Gislayne, now 35, was finally able to confront her father’s k!ller back at the police station and tell him why he had been caught, in a moment which was filmed and shared online.

“It’s because of me that you are here,” she told him, adding: “You are now going to pay.”It took a moment to muster up the courage to face him, Gislayne said, continuing: “When I saw the man who was responsible for my dad’s de*th was finally in handcuffs, I couldn’t hold back the tears.

“It was an explosion of feelings that turned into tears of relief, as it seemed like this day would never come.

‘”My dad was an honest and hard-working man. He encouraged us to study and spent time helping us with homework and times tables. He was always very close to us and caring.

“My sisters and I went through really difficult times after we lost him. What happened could easily have sent us in a different direction, but our mother always taught us to follow the right path.”