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