When Lynette Goodman decided to pack her bags and start a new life in Spain away from Northampton she had no idea of the trauma that lay ahead.
Six years after her dream move she has found her teenage sons at the centre of a shocking murder investigation, her life and family torn apart by what she insists was “a terrible accident”.
Last May, her twin boys Michael and Ryan, then aged 17, were arguing over some money which had disappeared from their mum’s purse, both pointing an accusatory finger at each other.
A court heard that Ryan admits pushing Michael who fell and hit his head on a metal door knocker. He died instantly.
The court heard that in a moment of panic Ryan concocted an elaborate cover-up, dragging his brother’s lifeless body to a ditch and burying him. He told his mum that Michael, who had a history of going missing, had gone back to England.
Lynette, who used to work for Blackthorn Good Neighbours and met former Prime Minister Tony Blair during his visit to the estate in 2003, reported him missing three months later to police. The body was not discovered until a further nine months. It was only found when an inquisitive asparagus picker stumbled across the decomposed remains, just yards from the family’s front door.
Appearing at court in the nearby town of Xativa, former Northampton Academy student Ryan told the investigating judge that it had been an accident and he was very sorry. He now faces an anxious nine-month wait to hear what will happen to him.
Mum Lynette, formerly of Pikemead Court, Blackthorn, has vowed to stand by Ryan no matter what.
She said: “I love him and I will support him every step of the way. I have to, he’s my son.
“The whole thing has been a nightmare. It was going so well out here, the boys were doing well at school, they had the life of Riley, but now it has all gone so wrong, all because of a terrible, terrible accident.
“This was meant to be a fresh start for all of us. I’d had enough of Blackthorn. It was Smackthorn, there were drugs everywhere and I needed to get away, I didn’t want my kids to grow up around that.
“I lived two doors away from a drug dealer. The children would be playing with syringes, injecting by accident and having to go for AIDS tests.
“When my mum died, my dad moved to Spain and we went with him to get away. It was going to be our new life together in the sunshine. It wasn’t meant to turn out like this.” she added.
The wheels of Spanish justice turn notoriously slowly and distraught Lynette Goodman faces an anxious wait to discover what will happen to her 19-year-old son Ryan, accused of killing his twin brother Michael.
She said: “It took them seven weeks after the body was found to confirm it was Michael. Everything is so long-winded out here, it takes forever. We’re looking at another six or nine months before we get to the end of all this.
“It was a stupid argument. They were brothers, they argued. There’s nothing more to it than that. I can’t believe it has ended like this.”
Ryan, who went to school with younger siblings Shannon and Owen, also twins, in nearby Vallada, will spend six months in a juvenile detention centre pending the outcome of the case.