As the state of Missouri prepares to carry out its record 10th execution of the year, Debbie Decker is primed to watch it happen.
Decker will travel to the prison in Bonne Terre today with other relatives, wearing the only purple shirt she owns, a nod to her mother鈥檚 favorite color. She will cradle the only photo she has of her mother, Joan Crotts. Then, as midnight approaches, Decker will take a seat in the family viewing box to see the prisoner die a few feet from her, behind a glass.
Decker, of Bel-Ridge, has played this out in her mind many times. She is nervous. She is still debating whether to blurt out something to Paul Goodwin, who fatally beat her mother with a hammer. Something like: 鈥淚 hope you rot in hell!鈥 Either way, when it鈥檚 done, she says, she expects relief after such a long wait.
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鈥淚t will be 16 years, nine months, 10 days,鈥 Decker says. 鈥淚鈥檝e been sitting back waiting for this to happen. I鈥檓 hoping all these bad memories will go away.鈥
Goodwin, 48, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. His attorneys are busy with appeals, arguing that he is mentally disabled and shouldn鈥檛 be executed. 聽
Goodwin had once lived next door to Crotts, and returned to the neighborhood in north St. 亚洲无码 County more than a year after being evicted. He sexually assaulted Crotts in her home, then shoved her down the basement stairs and hit her in the head three times with a hammer on March 1, 1998.
Decker found her mother. Crotts was bloodied but still alive. She had a broken hip, eight fractured ribs and massive head trauma. From her hospital bed, Crotts, 63, was able to tell some of what happened to her. She died while undergoing brain surgery that night.
Police traced a hearing aid they found in Crotts鈥 backyard to Goodwin. His fingerprints were at the scene. And Crotts鈥 blood was on his clothes. He confessed.
The murder weapon was a ball-peen hammer, said Nancy Cadenhead, the lead investigator on the case for the St. 亚洲无码 County police.
鈥淲hat happened was horrific,鈥 Cadenhead said. 鈥淚t changed two families forever.鈥
Cadenhead remembers Goodwin as a massive man. At 6 feet 7 inches and about 340 pounds, Goodwin towered over male detectives. His victim was only about 4-foot-9.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 imagine that poor woman seeing him in her home,鈥 Cadenhead said.
鈥榊OU ARE NEXT鈥
Crotts, a widow, lived alone in a brick home on Lyndhurst Avenue, near North Hanley and St. Charles Rock roads, and not far from Normandie Golf Club. Next door was a white frame boardinghouse, where Goodwin once lived.
Goodwin had run-ins with Crotts and Decker when he lived there. The women once yelled at him for throwing beer cans and chicken bones into Crotts鈥 yard in 1996. Goodwin cursed Crotts for walking across the lawn of the boardinghouse. When he was evicted later that day, he blamed Crotts and Decker.
Prosecutors suggested revenge as the motive for Crotts鈥 death. Goodwin, then of the 3000 block of Lambdin Lane, walked to Crotts鈥 home after a night of drinking with a friend. He broke into her home, hid in the basement overnight and attacked her the next morning. He then scrawled three words on a scrap of paper and left it on the kitchen table: 鈥淵ou are next.鈥
Decker believes that note was intended for her.
At Goodwin鈥檚 murder trial, his attorney used an insanity defense, with a psychologist testifying that Goodwin suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, a prosecution psychiatrist said Goodwin knew what he was doing and was not mentally ill. A third mental health expert testified in the trial鈥檚 punishment phase that Goodwin鈥檚 mental state was impaired when he killed Crotts. Goodwin鈥檚 trial attorney also stressed that his client had mental disabilities with a low intelligence level.
The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in 2006, saying he was intelligent enough to die for his crime.
Goodwin鈥檚 current attorneys, Jennifer Herndon and Michael Gorla, continue to challenge his conviction by arguing he is intellectually disabled. Herndon said Missouri should have granted Goodwin a new trial.
Even with Goodwin locked up all these years, Decker made it a habit to barricade herself in her tiny Bel-Ridge home when her husband was at work. She kept a rifle hidden in her living room. She had a 150-pound Rottweiler. She put a spoon handle in the latch bolt of the basement door, a homemade attempt to help keep the killer out.
鈥淚鈥檝e had a fear since he鈥檚 been locked up, as big as he is he could break out if he wanted to,鈥 Decker said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 always a way to break out of prison. I never trusted the fact that he couldn鈥檛. I need to make sure in my own mind that that man is dead.鈥
鈥業 WANT HIM TO SEE鈥
Decker, 57, said a Missouri Department of Corrections staffer briefed the family on what to expect at the execution: Goodwin will be covered by a sheet with only his head exposed; only 12 people can fit into the witness room for the victim鈥檚 family; there is a one-way window, so they鈥檙e not visible to Goodwin.
Decker said she wished Goodwin could see out.
鈥淚 want him to see my mother鈥檚 picture and remember her face,鈥 Decker said.
Bob Decker, 61, the oldest of Joan Crotts鈥 four children, spent more than three decades as a St. 亚洲无码 police officer before retiring in 2008. He said his mother鈥檚 murder affected every part of his family and his life, including his police work.
鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to go to a crime scene when your mother was just in a crime scene,鈥 Bob Decker said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e mad at the whole world.鈥
Now a resident of southwestern Missouri, he plans to be among at least a half-dozen relatives making the trek to Bonne Terre.
鈥淚 just want to see the finality, that鈥檚 all,鈥 Bob Decker said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing he could say that would bring my mother back or to make us feel better. There is nothing he could say to his family and all the pain he brought them.鈥
Goodwin did not respond to three letters from the Post-Dispatch over a few weeks, requesting an interview. His mother and a sister, who both testified at his trial in 1999, did not return a message last week seeking comment.
But in a message to supporters, Goodwin鈥檚 family describes him as a 鈥渂ig overgrown kid with an easygoing manner and kind heart.鈥 They say he was upset over a breakup with his girlfriend and lost control during a confrontation with Crotts.
Goodwin鈥檚 sister, Mary Goodwin Mifflin, said in an affidavit as part of a clemency petition to Gov. Jay Nixon that her brother is so mentally disabled that he doesn鈥檛 realize what is happening to him. It says she called him in prison and he complained about not getting ice cream in his commissary order. She tried to talk to him about his clemency efforts, but his attention drifted to a television show.
鈥淚t is just too much for him to comprehend,鈥 Mifflin wrote.