Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #488 Maggie Freleng with Belynda Goff

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#488 Maggie Freleng with Belynda Goff · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: For a woman who spent over two decades in prison,
0:03
Speaker 1: Belinda Goff is full of life and humor.
0:07
Speaker 2: I do laugh. I have to say I never stopped laughing.
0:10
Speaker 2: It just became less frequent, but it was still there.
0:13
Speaker 1: But one day the laughter was totally gone, and she
0:17
Speaker 1: considered ending her life. But then Belinda thought about her kids.
0:22
Speaker 3: So you feel, looking back, you're glad you made the decision.
0:26
Speaker 1: To live and fight.
0:27
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I bet your kids are too.
0:32
Speaker 2: They see them might be all right.
0:38
Speaker 1: Belinda knows her situation is no laughing matter, particularly what
0:43
Speaker 1: her conviction did to her three.
0:45
Speaker 2: Kidsful incarceration impacts the children of those wrongfully convicted. It
0:55
Speaker 2: is I mean, it's monstrous that their entire world was shattered,
1:04
Speaker 2: and nobody in authority took consideration for that whatsoever. I mean,
1:10
Speaker 2: the truly innocent babies are being scarred.
1:14
Speaker 1: Belinda's son Mark says growing up with his mother in
1:17
Speaker 1: prison indeed scarred him.
1:19
Speaker 4: I had to grow up really fast, and so I
1:23
Speaker 4: was cooking and cleaning and taking care of things by ten.
1:27
Speaker 1: But he wouldn't let those circumstances define him.
1:30
Speaker 4: The system didn't decide what I was going to do
1:32
Speaker 4: with my future. The system had no bearing on what
1:35
Speaker 4: I decided I wanted to be, how hard I could work,
1:38
Speaker 4: what I could put in.
1:40
Speaker 1: So Mark joined the Marines and says boot camp was
1:43
Speaker 1: the first time he felt like he understood what his
1:45
Speaker 1: mom was going through in prison.
1:47
Speaker 4: Opened my eyes a little bit to what maybe she
1:52
Speaker 4: was experiencing a little bit, and so there was connection there.
1:56
Speaker 1: Mark remembers talking on the phone with his mom all
1:59
Speaker 1: the time.
2:00
Speaker 4: I prayed with her on the phone so many times.
2:03
Speaker 4: Our letters meant a lot.
2:05
Speaker 2: But Belinda says, there's nothing that can take the place
2:09
Speaker 2: of being impresent with them. Nobody give me my children, Maggie,
2:19
Speaker 2: I don't mean my girl and children. Nobody can bring
2:24
Speaker 2: my six year old boy back to me. But the
2:29
Speaker 2: goal is this stops happening to people. I am Belinda Goff,
2:37
Speaker 2: and I was wrong to be incarcerated for twenty three
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Speaker 2: almost to the day calendar years for Rome. I did not.
2:43
Speaker 1: Commit from LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with
2:47
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling today. Belinda Goff. Belinda Goff was born in
3:00
Speaker 1: August twenty seventh, nineteen sixty one, in Streeter, Illinois, about
3:05
Speaker 1: two hours away from Chicago, and mom and I.
3:08
Speaker 2: Had dad use and Lyle and I had three siblings.
3:14
Speaker 2: So there were a total of four of us, one
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Speaker 2: boy and three girls, and we lived in the Midwest.
3:21
Speaker 1: Belinda was the middle child, and she says, out of
3:23
Speaker 1: all of her sisters, she's proud to be the tallest.
3:27
Speaker 2: I'm the tall one of the girls, so and I'm
3:31
Speaker 2: like maybe five four. I just thinking of myself as
3:34
Speaker 2: the average kind of girl, you know. I mean as
3:36
Speaker 2: far as my looks and how I am, I I'm
3:38
Speaker 2: like medium average everything.
3:40
Speaker 1: Belinda says, like her size, her life was also modest.
3:45
Speaker 2: We didn't have a lot of money. Originally my mother
3:47
Speaker 2: was in nursing, but I think after four children she
3:50
Speaker 2: had to stay home and be mom. My dad was
3:53
Speaker 2: in a militourney. He was in the army, and when
3:55
Speaker 2: he got out of the army, he took up the career.
3:59
Speaker 2: Where As a meat cutter.
4:02
Speaker 1: To be clear, she says, a meat cutter is not
4:05
Speaker 1: a butcher.
4:06
Speaker 2: There is a very big difference.
4:08
Speaker 1: A butcher deals with the whole animal, while a meat
4:10
Speaker 1: cutter works with the pieces for customers.
4:14
Speaker 3: I did not know that difference.
4:15
Speaker 2: It is, it is, it is a difference.
4:18
Speaker 1: Belinda's parents were also spiritual people, and they brought the
4:22
Speaker 1: family to church.
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Speaker 2: It was a little small Baptist church there or close
4:26
Speaker 2: just to whatever, a few blocks from where a house was,
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Speaker 2: and you know, we did the regular Sunday service, and
4:32
Speaker 2: you know, I was very involved with the church.
4:34
Speaker 1: And then in the summers, Belinda got to leave Northern Illinois.
4:38
Speaker 2: I was also raised in the cotton fields of Mississippi.
4:41
Speaker 2: When school was released for the summer break, we went
4:45
Speaker 2: to see Grandma in Mississippi.
4:46
Speaker 1: Belinda's mom was born and raised in Mississippi, and her
4:49
Speaker 1: family still lived there.
4:51
Speaker 2: Some of my fondest memories are during the time that
4:55
Speaker 2: we stayed there. We had water from a water pump.
4:57
Speaker 2: You wanted water, you went outside and you pumped. Well,
5:00
Speaker 2: my great grandfather, my grandmother's father, uh was was still alive.
5:07
Speaker 2: He liked to pick on us, you know. He just
5:09
Speaker 2: would do things copy with a rubber band or you know,
5:12
Speaker 2: little things like that, and it would be so irritating
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Speaker 2: at that But I look back at them and I think,
5:17
Speaker 2: how fun that was, How fun that was to just
5:20
Speaker 2: live and be with family, and not a lot of
5:22
Speaker 2: people get to know their great grandfather, you know, or grandmother.
5:29
Speaker 1: Life was good for kid Belinda golf. But as she
5:33
Speaker 1: got older.
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Speaker 2: You know, like most teenage young girls, there's there's a
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Speaker 2: lot of confusion. I think there's rebellion, There's there's a
5:42
Speaker 2: part of you that is just growing because you're you're
5:44
Speaker 2: you're stepping into young adulthood. And so teenage Belinda, young
5:49
Speaker 2: teenage Belinda was very home oriented, but at the same
5:56
Speaker 2: time trying to explore her young womanhood.
5:59
Speaker 1: So Blinda was going out and meeting other teens.
6:02
Speaker 2: I met a lot of friends that are still my
6:04
Speaker 2: friends to this day.
6:05
Speaker 1: And at sixteen she met a boy.
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Speaker 2: I met my daughter's father, the first love, if you would,
6:11
Speaker 2: you know, And that's how that began.
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Speaker 1: They weren't dating for long and then I think.
6:22
Speaker 2: My mom knew instantanancy almost and I still don't know
6:25
Speaker 2: how she did, because she kept asking me if I
6:27
Speaker 2: was pregnant and I kept saying no, But she wound
6:31
Speaker 2: up taking me, forcing me to go to a doctor
6:33
Speaker 2: and you know, doing examining her pregnancy test, and that's
6:37
Speaker 2: how she factually found out, you know, that I was pregnant.
6:41
Speaker 3: Was she was your family supportive of you.
6:45
Speaker 2: You have to under understand the history with this as
6:47
Speaker 2: my mother, and that's a scenario she was born into,
6:51
Speaker 2: so she had to She was born out of wedlock
6:54
Speaker 2: with my grandmother. So for her, it was much more
6:58
Speaker 2: than just her daughter. Getting pregnant was like gay day,
7:02
Speaker 2: the repeat of a nightmare that she remembered as a nightmare.
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Speaker 2: What the instant knee jerk response by both families was
7:10
Speaker 2: to just keep us away from each other.
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Speaker 1: So Belinda and the boy were split up and he
7:15
Speaker 1: was to have nothing to do with the baby. Belinda
7:19
Speaker 1: was on her own. But over time, she says, her
7:22
Speaker 1: family came around to her being pregnant.
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Speaker 2: You know, reality is what it is, and we're going
7:27
Speaker 2: to have this baby, meaning we as a family, the
7:32
Speaker 2: family unit, my dad, my siblings. You know, my siblings
7:36
Speaker 2: were very supportive. Had I not had their support and
7:40
Speaker 2: during that time, I'm not sure how that would have gone.
7:45
Speaker 1: In August of nineteen seventy eight, Belinda gave birth to
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Speaker 1: a baby girl she named Bridget.
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Speaker 2: I was sixteen, a week from a week away from
7:54
Speaker 2: being seventeen years old when she was born. Literally, it's
7:57
Speaker 2: our birthdays are one week apart seven days. To me,
8:01
Speaker 2: she is just truly a gift from God. But I
8:03
Speaker 2: feel that way about all my children, just in different ways.
8:08
Speaker 2: I have three children, and every one of those three children,
8:11
Speaker 2: oh one hundred percent in my heart. And I know
8:13
Speaker 2: the math doesn't hand what it's effect.
8:16
Speaker 1: But before she had her other kids to share her
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Speaker 1: heart with, nearly a decade later, it was just Belinda
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Speaker 1: and Bridget.
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Speaker 2: Well, you know, the reality is is a kid having
8:26
Speaker 2: a kid, a child having a child. Sixteen is not grown,
8:29
Speaker 2: seventeen is not grown. And I don't know if you
8:31
Speaker 2: can relect, most of us can reflect back at that
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Speaker 2: age where we think we're grown, but we're not.
8:38
Speaker 1: Blinda struggled for a bit. She had to drop out
8:41
Speaker 1: of school, and she took multiple jobs in factories and
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Speaker 1: retail to support herself and Bridget. Then a few years later,
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Speaker 1: Belinda was working at a convenience store when a man
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Speaker 1: came in and caught her attention.
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Speaker 2: Just one day he came in to get a cup
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Speaker 2: of coffee, and I felt he was a very and
9:00
Speaker 2: some good looking man. He was a very German Man.
9:04
Speaker 2: He could just talk to anybody, I think, and we
9:08
Speaker 2: just had a way of being able to wait to
9:10
Speaker 2: people and connect with people individually.
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Speaker 1: His name was Steven goff Head.
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Speaker 2: One of the best viewers of anybody yet still to
9:19
Speaker 2: meet in my life, and those cups of coffee just
9:24
Speaker 2: kind of extended.
9:28
Speaker 1: Belinda says she was happy around Steven.
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Speaker 2: He'd like to laugh, and we did that. We could
9:33
Speaker 2: laugh at ourselves. He was he had a really good humor.
9:36
Speaker 2: But he was also a man of God and he
9:38
Speaker 2: loved the Lord and a big part of what he
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Speaker 2: did and focused on, what was the passion in his
9:42
Speaker 2: life was Christian music. He could sing, he could play,
9:48
Speaker 2: and he could write, and he was just very gifted musically.
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Speaker 1: Belinda was smitten. Do I have correct that y'all were
9:57
Speaker 1: only together for three months before you got married, as.
10:00
Speaker 2: You can't remember them the time frame, but it was
10:02
Speaker 2: very short. It was very short. I think both of
10:05
Speaker 2: our families were free shocked.
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Speaker 1: Belinda and Steven got married on June twenty second, nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighty six.
10:13
Speaker 2: We got married. Then we had two sons. So in
10:16
Speaker 2: Togalo I had three children.
10:18
Speaker 1: Mark was born in nineteen eighty seven and Stephen Lee
10:21
Speaker 1: came in nineteen ninety one.
10:23
Speaker 4: We had fun in the home.
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Speaker 1: This is Mark again.
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Speaker 4: My dad was a goofball. He loved to laugh and
10:31
Speaker 4: make games out of nothing.
10:33
Speaker 1: Mark remembers a really bad thunderstorm one day.
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Speaker 4: There was one that was shake in the apartment, the
10:39
Speaker 4: windows rattling. Both me and my brother were you know,
10:42
Speaker 4: we were scared.
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Speaker 1: So Steven started a farting contest, and he.
10:48
Speaker 4: Had a unique skill of basically being able to do
10:50
Speaker 4: that on command. So we went from being scared of
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Speaker 4: a thunderstorm to busting out in laughter.
10:58
Speaker 1: Stephen and Belinda have been described as Yin and yang.
11:02
Speaker 4: I think her humor's a different kind of goofy, but
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Speaker 4: she's I think like your typical mom. She wants everything
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Speaker 4: in order and making sure everything is going how it should.
11:14
Speaker 4: You know, both of them worked really hard, so the
11:17
Speaker 4: time we got was little, so I think we just
11:20
Speaker 4: made the most of that time.
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Speaker 1: Mark remembers that time fondly.
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Speaker 4: We would go, you know, rent movies back when they
11:27
Speaker 4: had VHS tapes, you know, and we'd go and get
11:30
Speaker 4: like four or five movies for the weekend, and it
11:34
Speaker 4: wasn't uncommon for us to just get a pizza and
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Speaker 4: hang out, watch a movie and just enjoy the time
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Speaker 4: at home. It was a simple life, but a good life.
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Speaker 1: Mark says his parents were also people of faith and
11:47
Speaker 1: tried to live those values.
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Speaker 4: It was a love and acceptance of just grace and
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Speaker 4: understanding that we're broken human beings and we're all in
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Speaker 4: the same you know, we're all in the same broken
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Speaker 4: world together.
12:00
Speaker 3: Do you think your parents enjoyed each other's company and
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Speaker 3: enjoyed being together?
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Speaker 4: Oh, they absolutely did. I mean, you know, no marriage
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Speaker 4: is perfect, but I never I never witnessed any real
12:13
Speaker 4: fighting or arguing. I can't look at my childhood and
12:19
Speaker 4: say that anything was a red flag or alarming.
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Speaker 1: But Mark is right, despite his and Belinda's happy memories,
12:31
Speaker 1: no marriage is perfect, and those imperfections would end up
12:35
Speaker 1: playing a devastating role in Belinda's fate. In nineteen ninety four,
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Speaker 1: the Goths were living in Green Forest, Arkansas, a town
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Speaker 1: of about three thousand people. The family had moved there
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Speaker 1: a few years earlier because of Stephen.
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Speaker 2: We came to Arkansas because that's what he wanted to do,
13:01
Speaker 2: because he had he felt he had some connections down
13:04
Speaker 2: here well in the Brandson area, and at the time
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Speaker 2: he had a band, a Christian band.
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Speaker 4: His dream was, you know, being a musician, and he
13:14
Speaker 4: chased that as hard as he could.
13:16
Speaker 2: Legal was to hopefully break into maybe the brandsoon area
13:21
Speaker 2: or whatever. The music area never.
13:23
Speaker 4: Really came to fruition, but you know, of course I
13:26
Speaker 4: viewed him as the musical hero. Anyway.
13:33
Speaker 1: Steven's band was made up of a bunch of friends
13:36
Speaker 1: and it was called Friends. And although the name wasn't unique.
13:41
Speaker 4: They had a unique show. They had a guy who
13:43
Speaker 4: kind of had was like almost like a clown. Basically
13:47
Speaker 4: they put on these little skits in between things, but
13:51
Speaker 4: vocally and how he performed honestly remind me of Elvis
13:56
Speaker 4: a lot, I think, and Elvis was his like that
14:00
Speaker 4: was his hero.
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Speaker 3: Do you remember listening to a lot of.
14:04
Speaker 4: Elvish I do. Elvis was around for sure, and I'm
14:11
Speaker 4: sure I got I mean, I loved Elvis too, but
14:14
Speaker 4: I'm sure that absolutely was by Osmosis.
14:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:19
Speaker 1: Belinda worked at a Tyson Chicken plant at this time,
14:23
Speaker 1: though she had to take leave for a bit to
14:25
Speaker 1: recover from a hysterectomy having her uterus removed. Belinda says
14:31
Speaker 1: it was a painful recovery. The incision went from hip
14:35
Speaker 1: to hip like a big smiley face on her abdomen.
14:39
Speaker 1: I've never had a c section. I've never had my
14:41
Speaker 1: abdomen ripped open. I mean, were you able to could
14:46
Speaker 1: you physically lift your arms over your head?
14:48
Speaker 2: No, there was no when how you progress is just
14:51
Speaker 2: being able to stand up on your legs, but you
14:54
Speaker 2: cannot stand up straight because you know, so the the process,
15:00
Speaker 2: in the initial process of probably at least a couple
15:03
Speaker 2: of weeks, is just trying to stand up straight. That's
15:07
Speaker 2: not kind of walking, or that's putting it bet on
15:09
Speaker 2: the floor your week, I guess is you know how
15:13
Speaker 2: else do you say it? Like what you take for granted,
15:15
Speaker 2: like going in here to the kids room and grabbing
15:18
Speaker 2: a launder basket of dirty laundry just to run over
15:20
Speaker 2: the washingroom, you know whatever, you know, those simple things.
15:24
Speaker 2: I could not do those simple things because it required
15:26
Speaker 2: everything to be healed, that you know what.
15:31
Speaker 1: On the evening of Saturday, June eleventh, Belinda was having
15:34
Speaker 1: dinner with her husband and youngest son. It was supposed
15:39
Speaker 1: to be an anniversary dinner at first, until Belinda and
15:42
Speaker 1: Stephen realized she'd been off by almost ten days.
15:47
Speaker 2: I had the wrong day for our anniversary. And then
15:49
Speaker 2: he was very amused by the fact that I was not,
15:53
Speaker 2: that he was not the one that messed up the
15:55
Speaker 2: anniversary that I did. So we were just having a
16:00
Speaker 2: nice dinner at home and nothing per se out of
16:07
Speaker 2: the ordinary, and he got a phone call and and
16:14
Speaker 2: that's where everything begins that nobody knows what he is
16:17
Speaker 2: or was.
16:19
Speaker 1: After the phone call, Stephen left.
16:22
Speaker 2: I do not know what he was going to do.
16:23
Speaker 2: I know what he told me. He told me he
16:26
Speaker 2: was going to go on to get some smoke, some cigarettes,
16:31
Speaker 2: which I felt was a ruse.
16:32
Speaker 1: Did he normally not really tell you the truth of
16:35
Speaker 1: where he was going? Like, why did you think cigarettes was?
16:39
Speaker 2: I thought it was off because I knew he had some,
16:42
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't know what to have. There was
16:48
Speaker 2: nothing else I can elaborate on that. I don't know
16:51
Speaker 2: who was on the phone. I don't know what their
16:53
Speaker 2: conversation was, so I can't. It's a hard one for me.
17:01
Speaker 2: I had honored it for a very long time, decades.
17:06
Speaker 2: I've hondered that, and there's something to come to a point.
17:11
Speaker 2: You have to stop, you have to let go because
17:13
Speaker 2: you will drive yourself insane.
17:17
Speaker 1: After Stephen left, Belinda got her youngest son ready for bed,
17:20
Speaker 1: Bridgette was away, and Mark was staying at a friend's
17:23
Speaker 1: house for the second night in a row.
17:26
Speaker 4: I wanted to stay another night and asked could I
17:30
Speaker 4: do that? And they had. You know, my mom told
17:33
Speaker 4: me that the we're going to have steak dinner. You know,
17:37
Speaker 4: are you sure you're going to be missing out? We
17:39
Speaker 4: were always into steak. The steak was a very popular meal,
17:43
Speaker 4: and so I elected to miss out on steak dinner
17:47
Speaker 4: and stay with my friend that night. And yeah, of
17:53
Speaker 4: course the story played out as it did. I of
17:57
Speaker 4: course had no idea that was the last time I
17:59
Speaker 4: was going to see him.
18:01
Speaker 1: Belinda says she put her youngest son in bed and
18:04
Speaker 1: then fell asleep on the couch.
18:06
Speaker 2: The next thing I remember was I woke up and
18:10
Speaker 2: went to bed.
18:11
Speaker 1: On her way to the bedroom, she noticed Steven still
18:14
Speaker 1: wasn't home. Then she got into bed and fell asleep
18:17
Speaker 1: again until her alarm went off.
18:19
Speaker 2: I hait snoos my first thing with the Hits news.
18:26
Speaker 1: Sometime around four point thirty am, her alarm went off again,
18:30
Speaker 1: and Belinda realized Stephen still wasn't in bed, so she
18:34
Speaker 1: got up, thinking maybe he'd passed out in the living room.
18:39
Speaker 2: I was just thinking I was going to go out
18:41
Speaker 2: and find him on the couch to tell him to
18:44
Speaker 2: get up, and I found him in our doorway, not
18:49
Speaker 2: on the couch.
18:50
Speaker 1: She found Stephen by the front door, bludgeoned and bloody.
18:55
Speaker 2: My first reaction with a lot of hysteria, screaming and
19:05
Speaker 2: running for the phone.
19:06
Speaker 1: She called first responders.
19:09
Speaker 2: I was, I was, I was so freaked, so out
19:19
Speaker 2: of control. This is not something that I would normally be,
19:23
Speaker 2: but I mean leaning out of control of my emotions.
19:25
Speaker 2: I was crying and scared and screaming, and my son's
19:28
Speaker 2: in here and I'm trying to, you know. And there
19:32
Speaker 2: was no rhyme or reason. There was just panic. It
19:35
Speaker 2: was just panic, and that's all I could say. I
19:41
Speaker 2: was shocked. I was total I was a.
19:43
Speaker 1: Shock, and that state of shock would almost immediately be
19:48
Speaker 1: used against her. Here's Jane Puture, senior staff attorney at
19:52
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project.
19:54
Speaker 5: The response from investigators coming to the scene and seeing
20:01
Speaker 5: her and seeing her state of shock, and the fact
20:06
Speaker 5: that she was in a really stunned position, as you know,
20:09
Speaker 5: one I think understandably would be. They're just sort of
20:13
Speaker 5: were assumptions and arrest to judgment that it had to
20:16
Speaker 5: be her, that she somehow had to be involved.
20:19
Speaker 1: Jane says, the police described her behavior as suspicious.
20:23
Speaker 5: And you know, that initial taint, that sort of initial
20:26
Speaker 5: focus kind of clouded everything out from there on out.
20:33
Speaker 3: When did you realize you were a suspect?
20:36
Speaker 2: By that afternoon was pretty clear that I was a suspect,
20:39
Speaker 2: because they were, you know, I mean it went on
20:41
Speaker 2: for hours and hours hours, you know, I went down
20:43
Speaker 2: to the police station, questioning and all those things, and
20:47
Speaker 2: it just, you know, it became really clear, you know,
20:51
Speaker 2: because they were just relentless, relentless, and I just confess,
20:56
Speaker 2: you confess, And they weren't looking were facts and then
21:01
Speaker 2: building a case. They were trying to find anything they
21:04
Speaker 2: could mold around and create a scenario to fit what
21:07
Speaker 2: they had decided was the case.
21:10
Speaker 1: Police were also quick to focus on another sign they
21:13
Speaker 1: thought pointed to Belinda.
21:15
Speaker 5: Because her husband's body was leaned up against the front door.
21:21
Speaker 5: It would have been quote unquote impossible for a person
21:26
Speaker 5: to have killed him, left his body inside and gotten
21:30
Speaker 5: out because of how his body was positioned.
21:34
Speaker 1: They didn't think someone could have gotten out of the
21:36
Speaker 1: apartment because Stephen's body was allegedly blocking the door from opening,
21:42
Speaker 1: so the killer had to still be inside and the
21:45
Speaker 1: only people inside were Belinda and her three year old son.
21:57
Speaker 1: Belinda was released after questioning a police station that day,
22:01
Speaker 1: and Mark remembers when she picked him up from his sleepover.
22:05
Speaker 4: She came to pick me up early, and it was
22:08
Speaker 4: with a friend who was driving. It wasn't our car,
22:13
Speaker 4: and I got in the back seat and my mom
22:16
Speaker 4: was bawling in the front seat, and I knew something
22:19
Speaker 4: was wrong.
22:20
Speaker 1: They rode in the car in total silence.
22:23
Speaker 4: I think she had to collect herself, as I can't
22:26
Speaker 4: even imagine as a parent, trying to explain something like
22:29
Speaker 4: that to your kids.
22:30
Speaker 1: Mark says. When they got to Belinda's friend's house, Belinda
22:34
Speaker 1: let him know.
22:35
Speaker 4: She said Dad's in heaven, and I, yeah, processing that
22:44
Speaker 4: was impossible. She let me know that he had been
22:51
Speaker 4: hurt by other people. He was killed by other people.
22:54
Speaker 4: I had remembered that. You know, my dad was in
22:57
Speaker 4: a martial arts and in a karate I remember thinking like, well,
23:00
Speaker 4: that can't be because he would he would totally be
23:05
Speaker 4: able to whoop whoever came at him. You know, like
23:08
Speaker 4: there was the thoughts as a kid I was having.
23:12
Speaker 4: I remember them, and uh it, I can't even I
23:20
Speaker 4: can't tell you how I processed it. I can't tell
23:22
Speaker 4: you what it really did. I think it was just
23:25
Speaker 4: a nuclear explosion that I've probably been catching up with since.
23:33
Speaker 1: Over the next year, police built their case against Belinda.
23:38
Speaker 3: So what was that year like?
23:39
Speaker 2: It was a very difficult bit or sweet year, because
23:45
Speaker 2: I believe that justice would be prevail if you would
23:48
Speaker 2: so I really was so formor and lost with what
23:52
Speaker 2: I was dealing with because I was so nice.
23:59
Speaker 4: The feeling with the friends and family at the time
24:02
Speaker 4: was that, Okay, well this makes no sense, but there
24:07
Speaker 4: was this trust in evidence and truth and the system.
24:12
Speaker 4: And I think that most people in general have this
24:18
Speaker 4: bias that says that the system is going to do
24:20
Speaker 4: the job that it is supposed to do.
24:22
Speaker 1: But in May nineteen ninety five, nearly a year after
24:26
Speaker 1: her husband was found dead in their home, Blinda Goff
24:29
Speaker 1: was arrested and charged with first degree murder. She went
24:33
Speaker 1: to trial the following year, and right before it was
24:36
Speaker 1: to begin, she was offered a plea.
24:39
Speaker 5: A ten year sentence that would have gotten her out,
24:41
Speaker 5: you know, in fewer than ten years, and she turned
24:43
Speaker 5: it down because she is innocent and she's always known
24:46
Speaker 5: that she did not do this and could not admit
24:50
Speaker 5: that she did anything she didn't do.
24:53
Speaker 1: In his opening, Deputy prosecutor Kenneth Elser told jurors, quote,
24:58
Speaker 1: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Remember Mark
25:05
Speaker 1: said no marriage is perfect, and Belinda's was no exception.
25:11
Speaker 1: That's because Stephen had been unfaithful. She'd even kicked him
25:15
Speaker 1: out at one point, and Elser told the jury the
25:18
Speaker 1: cheating drove Belinda to murder. The prosecution found out that
25:23
Speaker 1: Stephen had affairs with at least two women in the past.
25:28
Speaker 1: They surmised maybe it was happening again, So when Stephen
25:32
Speaker 1: came home that night, they said, Belinda attacked him in
25:35
Speaker 1: a jealous rage. A friend of Belinda's named Anita Belfoy
25:41
Speaker 1: testified for the prosecution that about one year before Stephen
25:45
Speaker 1: was killed, Belinda said, next time Stephen was unfaithful, she
25:50
Speaker 1: would quote bash his head in.
25:53
Speaker 5: You know, women scorned and what a woman might do
25:56
Speaker 5: if she suspected something of her husband when there was
26:00
Speaker 5: it's just no record, no evidence to support that. Often
26:05
Speaker 5: in women's trials, particularly for violent crimes, stereotypes and tropes
26:11
Speaker 5: about what women are supposed to do and how they're
26:14
Speaker 5: supposed to act play an outsize role in the state's
26:19
Speaker 5: evidence presents it against them. I mean, sometimes it's the
26:21
Speaker 5: whole case, and frankly, in this case, it was most
26:24
Speaker 5: of the state's case against.
26:26
Speaker 1: Them, Jane says. The police also relied heavily on how
26:32
Speaker 1: Belinda acted when they arrived at her home.
26:35
Speaker 5: According to investigators who were first at the scene, Belinda
26:38
Speaker 5: was sitting stunt, she was in shock, and that fact
26:44
Speaker 5: that instead of just throwing herself over his body and
26:48
Speaker 5: sobbing hysterically, that that wasn't the immediate response became a
26:52
Speaker 5: huge part of the state's argument, you know, to show culpability,
26:55
Speaker 5: that you know that she had to have done something
26:57
Speaker 5: wrong because she wasn't in hysterics, and that is an
27:02
Speaker 5: extremely stereotypical, biasing view of how women are supposed to act.
27:09
Speaker 5: It's really troubling to see that that would become so
27:13
Speaker 5: much of the case, a lot of grasping its straws
27:16
Speaker 5: and an attempt to sort of pull a case together
27:18
Speaker 5: where there wasn't one.
27:20
Speaker 1: There was no physical evidence linking Belinda to the crime,
27:24
Speaker 1: no murder weapon, no bloody clothes.
27:27
Speaker 5: The majority of the state's case came from the lead investigator.
27:30
Speaker 5: He sort of developed this version of events that, as
27:37
Speaker 5: we talked about before, you know, the person who killed
27:41
Speaker 5: mister Golf had to have been inside the home.
27:44
Speaker 1: But Belinda's defense attorneys, Charles Davis and Stephen Vell said
27:48
Speaker 1: that just wasn't true.
27:50
Speaker 5: Ems you know, responders, particularly one of the responders who
27:54
Speaker 5: who testified at the trial, you know, about coming to
27:57
Speaker 5: the house, opening the front door, gaining act says he
28:01
Speaker 5: was able to get in and out with no problem
28:03
Speaker 5: and he was no disrespect him. But he was a
28:05
Speaker 5: very large man, and there was actually testimony about that
28:07
Speaker 5: a trial about how he was very tall and heavy
28:10
Speaker 5: set and had no issue getting in and out of
28:12
Speaker 5: the home. So the idea that this could not have
28:15
Speaker 5: happened because it would have had to have been committed
28:18
Speaker 5: by someone inside the home is just ludicrous.
28:21
Speaker 1: The defense team also presented the jury with the fact
28:24
Speaker 1: that Belinda was recovering from a hysterectomy.
28:28
Speaker 5: She was still very limited in her mobility. She wasn't
28:31
Speaker 5: supposed to lift any kind of heavy weights. She was
28:33
Speaker 5: moving slowly at the time, very much in recovery.
28:37
Speaker 1: In fact, the defense said she slept through the bludgeoning.
28:41
Speaker 5: She was still on painkillers and sleep aids to help
28:44
Speaker 5: her deal with the pain after that surgery.
28:47
Speaker 1: Belinda testified to this. At trial. She was able to
28:50
Speaker 1: tell the jury about the hysterectomy and Stephen's strange phone
28:54
Speaker 1: call and him abruptly leaving their dinner, but it wasn't
28:58
Speaker 1: enough to convince the jury that Belinda hadn't killed Stephen,
29:03
Speaker 1: and so on August fifth, nineteen ninety six, Belinda was
29:06
Speaker 1: convicted of first degree murder and later sentenced to life
29:11
Speaker 1: without parole. When you heard that, what was your reaction?
29:18
Speaker 2: I was broken differently, It just did. It broke me.
29:30
Speaker 2: Everything I believed in about our country was shattered and
29:34
Speaker 2: laying my food in pieces. Everything I believed spiritually was
29:39
Speaker 2: shattered and laying in my foot. And I was just
29:44
Speaker 2: a very broken person at that point. You know, I
29:48
Speaker 2: hear my children wailing crying behind me, not just crying.
29:53
Speaker 2: They were repeat There's a difference. There are certain big,
30:10
Speaker 2: certain songs she will never forget and it will never
30:18
Speaker 2: forget those.
30:24
Speaker 1: By the time she was convicted, Belinda's oldest child, Bridget,
30:28
Speaker 1: was off to college.
30:30
Speaker 2: I only daughters growing up the university.
30:32
Speaker 1: Yelow and Mark and his brother were raised by their Grandma,
30:36
Speaker 1: Belinda's mom.
30:38
Speaker 4: There was such a loss of identity. You know, I
30:41
Speaker 4: had all of your identity as a kid is kind
30:46
Speaker 4: of wrapped up into your mom and your dad and
30:47
Speaker 4: your family, and that's where you developed that sense of it.
30:52
Speaker 4: And I just felt like all of that was stripped
30:55
Speaker 4: and I was just lost.
30:57
Speaker 1: But Belinda says she did the best she could.
31:01
Speaker 2: The phone company made a ton of money off of
31:04
Speaker 2: my family during those years because I was on the
31:07
Speaker 2: phone just about every day raising my children. On the phone.
31:11
Speaker 2: They knew if I called, like it might be six
31:15
Speaker 2: thirty in the morning or something, and they's supposed to
31:16
Speaker 2: be a good ready for school, and they knew it
31:19
Speaker 2: was me saying good morning.
31:20
Speaker 4: She always wanted to know what was going on. She
31:22
Speaker 4: wanted to be involved. She had questions, didn't matter whether
31:26
Speaker 4: it was me dating or sports or school. And she
31:30
Speaker 4: also wasn't afraid to reach through the phone and say,
31:34
Speaker 4: you know, get your crap together, you know your grades
31:37
Speaker 4: aren't what they should be, or you know. So she
31:41
Speaker 4: was a mom, She was absolutely a mom.
31:45
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the same as being together, and that
31:48
Speaker 1: distance took a toll on Belinda.
31:52
Speaker 2: There was a point early on in my wrong phonecarceration
31:56
Speaker 2: that I had to make a conscious choice as far
31:58
Speaker 2: as going to live and die, and that was because
32:03
Speaker 2: of the pain of the laws from their children. And
32:09
Speaker 2: I really did have to make a conscious choice of
32:11
Speaker 2: over I at that time, I remember very well. And
32:15
Speaker 2: then I just decided that outside of being your mom,
32:25
Speaker 2: when they grew up someday, well, kind of human beings
32:30
Speaker 2: were they going to see. Are they going to see
32:33
Speaker 2: one that gives up textailed accepts it. Are they going
32:42
Speaker 2: to see somebody who fought with everything with them or
32:49
Speaker 2: they get back to them and to stand up in
32:53
Speaker 2: their face of adversity against justice. So that's what I
33:01
Speaker 2: chose to do. I chose to live and show them
33:06
Speaker 2: with their global was beata.
33:13
Speaker 1: She wrote every organization she could find that might be
33:17
Speaker 1: able to help her.
33:18
Speaker 2: I just wrote letter after letter after letter to them,
33:21
Speaker 2: trying to get them to help me.
33:23
Speaker 1: She would include pictures of her children and would say.
33:27
Speaker 2: This is why I need to go home, this is
33:30
Speaker 2: what was taken from me.
33:33
Speaker 1: And then in twenty thirteen, the Innocence Project took her case.
33:38
Speaker 5: When we started to work on the case, you know,
33:40
Speaker 5: we kept peeling back the onion layers thinking, are we
33:42
Speaker 5: going to discover more? Was there anything else connecting her?
33:45
Speaker 5: And there just wasn't.
33:50
Speaker 1: Off the bat. Jane says they were surprised at how
33:52
Speaker 1: little evidence there was connecting Belinda to Stephen's death.
33:56
Speaker 5: But the way this investigation was handled set things off
34:00
Speaker 5: in a complete misdirection from the very beginning meant that
34:04
Speaker 5: there wasn't real investigation into who actually committed this crime?
34:07
Speaker 1: So who did? When they started investigating, the team learned
34:12
Speaker 1: that Anita Belfoy's statement had been fabricated. Then the Innocence
34:16
Speaker 1: Project discovered people who were never called to testify, like
34:21
Speaker 1: neighbors who had heard knocking on the door and commotion
34:24
Speaker 1: at the Goth's apartment around two am. Another neighbor said
34:29
Speaker 1: she'd seen two strange men with a baseball bat in
34:32
Speaker 1: front of the Goths the day before Stephen was killed.
34:35
Speaker 1: They appeared to be casing the apartment. So Jane and
34:40
Speaker 1: her team started thinking.
34:42
Speaker 5: Who actually would have had a motive to hurt this person?
34:44
Speaker 5: Who would have had the means and the physical ability
34:47
Speaker 5: to hurt this person.
34:49
Speaker 1: Jane says that there actually were people who had motive.
34:53
Speaker 1: Stephen was allegedly involved in some criminal activity it appeared.
34:57
Speaker 5: That mister Gough owed someone a lot of money an
35:00
Speaker 5: arson for higher scheme that had gone awry.
35:03
Speaker 1: There were some things that really should have been looked into.
35:05
Speaker 5: There were.
35:07
Speaker 1: At a post conviction hearing, Belinda's brother testified that he'd
35:10
Speaker 1: gotten calls from Stephen.
35:12
Speaker 5: Saying that he was in trouble and that he owed
35:14
Speaker 5: people money, and that he had been receiving death threats,
35:17
Speaker 5: and that of course lines up with the neighbors seeing
35:20
Speaker 5: people casing their home and threatening him from outside.
35:25
Speaker 1: Belinda's brother also testified that he'd received an anonymous phone
35:29
Speaker 1: call threatening him, saying that if he said anything, he
35:33
Speaker 1: would find himself quote laying right next to Steve. Jane
35:40
Speaker 1: thinks this is the direction the police should have gone
35:42
Speaker 1: in their investigation.
35:43
Speaker 5: Instead of doing real investigation and following leads into who
35:47
Speaker 5: committed this crime, the state focused on this poor woman
35:52
Speaker 5: based on stereotypes and tropes. I mean, the fact that
35:57
Speaker 5: that is the version that the state went with is
36:01
Speaker 5: frankly offensive. It's very disturbing to read the record and
36:07
Speaker 5: to look at what was used, because it really begs
36:09
Speaker 5: the question over and over again, why didn't anyone stop
36:13
Speaker 5: and say, does this really make sense. Is this really
36:17
Speaker 5: doing justice? Is this really the person that we should
36:20
Speaker 5: be focusing on.
36:22
Speaker 2: A jury thinks that they are sitting down in a
36:25
Speaker 2: trial and they're going to hear one of the facts
36:30
Speaker 2: of the case, and that is so not true. Juries
36:34
Speaker 2: are forced to hear a case in a vacuum and
36:38
Speaker 2: they don't even realize it.
36:40
Speaker 1: Belinda and Jane believe that if these neighbors had testified
36:44
Speaker 1: at her trial, the outcome may have been different.
36:48
Speaker 5: Like there was clear evidence of the motive and third
36:52
Speaker 5: party culpability that wasn't presented.
36:55
Speaker 1: Jane and her team also did several rounds of DNA testing.
36:59
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, a lot of the evidence that was, you know,
37:01
Speaker 5: that we had most hoped to test, had been lost
37:04
Speaker 5: or destroyed by the state before we ever got involved.
37:07
Speaker 1: Including fingernail clippings and a hair.
37:10
Speaker 5: But everything that we did do testing on from the home,
37:13
Speaker 5: we did not find her DNA on anything that potentially
37:18
Speaker 5: could have been touched by the assailant that existed.
37:20
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, Jane and the Innocence Project were finally
37:25
Speaker 1: able to bring all this evidence or lack thereof, to court.
37:29
Speaker 5: The fact that Belinda had no blood on her had
37:34
Speaker 5: no injuries, had no evidence on her body that she
37:37
Speaker 5: had struggled with anybody, that she had been in any
37:40
Speaker 5: kind of altercation. You know. Putting aside the fact that
37:43
Speaker 5: she also again was recovering from this massive surgery and
37:46
Speaker 5: not able to cause anybody harm, was all strong evidence
37:49
Speaker 5: that she wasn't involved in this, and.
37:51
Speaker 1: A judge agreed. According to court records, Carol County Circuit
37:55
Speaker 1: Judge Scott Jackson said that if Belinda were tried today,
38:00
Speaker 1: she would be acquitted.
38:01
Speaker 5: By the time we had this hearing in twenty nineteen,
38:04
Speaker 5: she had served twenty two years and seven months of
38:06
Speaker 5: her life sentence. You know, in some instances, in some
38:10
Speaker 5: states and even in Arkansas, the remedy could have been
38:13
Speaker 5: to vacate her conviction, to overturn her conviction, and then
38:17
Speaker 5: let the state decide if they're going to retry her
38:20
Speaker 5: or not. I mean, the standard of what should have
38:23
Speaker 5: been put forward to have her conviction be overturned was
38:27
Speaker 5: met here, but the remedy was resentencing.
38:31
Speaker 1: Judge Scott Jackson re sentenced Belinda to time served, and
38:35
Speaker 1: Belinda Goff walked out of prison in June twenty nineteen.
38:40
Speaker 4: I absolutely remember the first embrace as a free woman.
38:51
Speaker 3: Man, what did that feel like?
38:54
Speaker 2: You know?
38:54
Speaker 4: I just I really just felt. I just felt joy
38:58
Speaker 4: for her. I felt like the kid that wanted her
39:03
Speaker 4: free as mom wasn't there anymore, but as a man,
39:12
Speaker 4: I wanted it for her, and I just it was
39:18
Speaker 4: a sense of relief, a sense of excitement, a sense
39:22
Speaker 4: of hope the war is over type of thing.
39:26
Speaker 1: Today, Belinda is still catching up on over two decades
39:30
Speaker 1: in prison, like figuring out the first gift she received
39:33
Speaker 1: when she got out.
39:35
Speaker 2: So I opened the box and I had no idea
39:37
Speaker 2: of what I was holding except I recognized the word phone,
39:41
Speaker 2: which was iPhone. It was an iPhone, and I, wow,
39:46
Speaker 2: what do I do with this? Wow? What less than
39:49
Speaker 2: my first ding iPhone?
39:51
Speaker 1: And just as much as she and Mark talked on
39:53
Speaker 1: the payphone in prison, she talks on her iPhone today.
39:57
Speaker 1: But their calls are no longer timed.
40:00
Speaker 4: And we're so used to that automatic clickoff. There's no
40:04
Speaker 4: saying goodbyes, there's no it's just you wait until the
40:07
Speaker 4: phone call's done. And I remember talking to her for
40:12
Speaker 4: probably two hours on the phone, going is this not cool?
40:16
Speaker 4: Is this not awesome? That here we are and the
40:19
Speaker 4: only way this phone call ends as if we agree,
40:21
Speaker 4: it ends something that simple.
40:26
Speaker 1: Belinda also relishes in the joy of her grandkids.
40:30
Speaker 2: I FaceTime my grandchildren. You know. I have a little
40:31
Speaker 2: two year old Granda. She's figured out how to call
40:35
Speaker 2: Grandma and I just willdre it.
40:40
Speaker 1: Mark got married while Belinda was in prison and saved
40:43
Speaker 1: her a seat. He had a son, now ten years old,
40:47
Speaker 1: and he reflects on all the momentous occasions he's missed
40:51
Speaker 1: with his parents.
40:52
Speaker 4: And I think that's one of the tough things is
40:54
Speaker 4: that with the wrongful incarceration, it's almost as if there
41:01
Speaker 4: really isn't a time where you get to just mourn
41:05
Speaker 4: the family member that was killed. The victim in it
41:08
Speaker 4: was my dad. But with the judicial system and the
41:13
Speaker 4: messed up process and the messed up people in it,
41:18
Speaker 4: you kind of lose that ability to just mourn the
41:21
Speaker 4: actual the loss of my dad. And that hasn't escaped me.
41:27
Speaker 4: You know, I've my entire life. I've had all these
41:32
Speaker 4: moments and things that I hope he's looking down. I
41:34
Speaker 4: hope he can see.
41:37
Speaker 1: Although Belinda is out, she's not exonerated. She accepted time served,
41:42
Speaker 1: so she still lives with a felony conviction looming over
41:46
Speaker 1: her head.
41:47
Speaker 3: Do you feel like you never fully got justice since
41:53
Speaker 3: you're still a convicted felon I.
41:56
Speaker 2: Do feel it way.
41:59
Speaker 5: This is a woman who should have been exonerated. You know,
42:02
Speaker 5: we have like the evidence clearly was sufficient to overturn
42:06
Speaker 5: her conviction, and it is it is really unfair that
42:13
Speaker 5: she continues to walk around with these convictions when she
42:18
Speaker 5: never should have been even questioned as a suspect in
42:21
Speaker 5: the first place, let alone convicted and meant to live
42:24
Speaker 5: with this hanging over her head.
42:25
Speaker 1: But Belinda keeps moving forward.
42:27
Speaker 2: Sometimes, you know, when you get to be my age,
42:30
Speaker 2: can learn to look back at different phases of who
42:32
Speaker 2: you are or who you were and need at previous
42:35
Speaker 2: times in your life. Sometimes you might remember a little
42:38
Speaker 2: five year ago you were, or you might remember the teenager,
42:44
Speaker 2: and I remember myself at that time, and I feel
42:46
Speaker 2: sadness for that movement. But at the same time, I'm
42:51
Speaker 2: proud of her.
42:54
Speaker 1: Belinda is proud she made that choice to live and
42:57
Speaker 1: fight to get out. Now you can finally enjoy the
43:01
Speaker 1: simple life like she always wanted.
43:03
Speaker 2: It's nice to just go to work and work and
43:08
Speaker 2: come home and just and make a little money, So
43:12
Speaker 2: I'd just like to appreciate. I like to reappreciate the being,
43:16
Speaker 2: the creation. You know, for so long I couldn't see
43:20
Speaker 2: a star, so, you know, or hear the birds sing,
43:25
Speaker 2: or feel a breeze on my face or my hair.
43:28
Speaker 2: So it gives me an extra gratitude to be able
43:34
Speaker 2: to participate in that now.
43:38
Speaker 1: Two of those grandkids, Belinda Facetimes, by the way, are
43:42
Speaker 1: Bridget's daughters. One is named Belle after Belinda, and the
43:47
Speaker 1: other is named Liberty in honor of her grandmother's struggle.
44:00
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
44:03
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
44:07
Speaker 1: links in the episode description to see how you can help.
44:10
Speaker 1: This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
44:14
Speaker 1: editing and sound designed by senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our
44:18
Speaker 1: producer is Kathleen Fink. Our researcher is Hallie Dolce. Our
44:22
Speaker 1: mixer is Josh Allen. Our executive producers are Jason Flam,
44:26
Speaker 1: Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wordis, with additional production help by
44:29
Speaker 1: Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music is by three
44:33
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Make sure to follow
44:37
Speaker 1: us on all social media platforms at Lava for Good
44:40
Speaker 1: and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on
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Speaker 1: all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling
44:47
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association
44:50
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one