Victoria Cilliers: Woman who survived her husband’s skydive murder bid remarries

A woman who survived a 4000ft fall after her husband tampered with her parachute has remarried — to a fellow skydiving fan.

Mother-of-two Victoria Cilliers, 48, wed Simon Goodman, a former Royal Marine, in a register office at the weekend.

The couple began dating in 2018, three years after Emile Cilliers, 44, tried to kill her – first by tampering with gas pipes at their home and then by slicing apart her parachute rigging.

Remarkably, Victoria met Mr Goodman at the same Wiltshire parachute club where her ex carried out his skydive scheme.

It is understood only a small group of the couple’s friends and family attended the ceremony followed by a low-key reception.

A friend last night said: “It was a close-knit occasion, just fun and no fuss. Vicki has been through so much, she deserves this happiness more than anyone I know.”

Mr Goodman, 53, originally from Somerset, served in the Royal Marines for 30 years before retiring from the military.

He is now an apprentice paramedic with South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In April 2015, Victoria suffered a broken pelvis and four spine fractures from the skydive fall. Her ordeal was dramatised by Channel 4 in a three-part series The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot.

She described her new partner in 2020 as “her rock”, saying: “I try not to rely on him too much emotionally but practically he’s brilliant.

“He’s been aware of everything from the start. I don’t think I could have dated someone who didn’t know. We have a similar circle of friends and I’ve known him for years.”

She had met former husband Cilliers at an Army base in Wiltshire in 2009.

He told her he had two children from his first marriage but did not mention another two children he fathered with a girlfriend.

The couple married in South Africa but he was a serial womaniser.

He then devised a plot to kill her and pocket $235,000 from an insurance policy to start a life with a secret girlfriend Stefanie Goller.

He initially tried to damage the gas pipes in their marital home in Amesbury, Wiltshire, but Victoria noticed the leak.

Days later, he cut her parachute before a freefall jump.

The main chute and reserve failed. But using her expertise from 2,500 jumps, she inflated enough of the second canopy to slow her descent.

She attributed her survival to “not weighing very much” – around 50kg – and that she landed in a ploughed field with piles of soil partially cushioning her fall.

Cilliers, found guilty of two counts of attempted murder and a third charge of recklessly endangering life, received a minimum 18-year sentence.

Cilliers, who has continued to swear his innocence, initially refused to sign her divorce papers. It also took Victoria several years before she could accept her husband’s guilt.

Originally from South Africa, he faces deportation after his jail term.