The Martin Firm - selected case information

LEDGER-ENQUIRER

LOCAL

Sunday, August 13, 2000
This article is an update to previous news story

Woman's charges remain dropped

Court upholds ruling to not prosecute Glenda Hope Goodwin for arson

By Eileen Zaffiro Staff Writer

The Georgia Court of Appeals has upheld a Columbus judge who decided that charges should be dropped against a woman who was charged and indicted for arson after the statute of limitations had expired.

Officials immediately suspected arson in the 1992 fire that destroyed Glenda Hope Goodwin's home, but Goodwin wasn't arrested until December 1998 more than two years after the statute of limitations passed.

Goodwin's attorney, Frank Martin, said Friday the appellate court's ruling "clearly supports what we tried to show all along .... I'm glad it's over and hopefully everyone will go their own way now."

OFFICIALS IMMEDIATELY suspected arson in the 1992 fire that destroyed Glenda Hope Goodwin's home, but Goodwin wasn't arrested until December 1998

Chief Assistant District Attorney Mel Hyde, who pursued Goodwin's prosecution, could not be reached Friday for comment. Hyde could appeal the case to the Georgia Supreme Court.

Hyde never disagreed that Georgia's four-year statute of limitations for arson expired in March 1996 on the Lynch Road home fire. But Hyde pursued the case under a provision in state law that overrides the statute of limitations when suspects purposely disappear and hamper investigations.

About six years ago, Goodwin, 44, moved to Florida and changed her name a few weeks after investigators wanted to question her. Goodwin has remained in Florida, and recently was living in

Wewahitchka under the name Jordan Abbey Miles.

During a hearing in November before Muscogee Superior Court Judge John Allen to decide the statute of limitations question, Hyde pointed out that Goodwin rarely gave out her street addresses Goodwin Florida and usually communicated through post office boxes and cell phone numbers.

Investigators would have put their case together faster if Goodwin hadn't fled, Hyde argued.

But during that hearing, Martin produced a string of evidence showing that after Goodwin moved to Florida, she frequently came to Columbus for legal, dental and hair appointments, signed checks and legal documents under Glenda Goodwin and sometimes listed her new name as well..

The murder of Goodwin's husband also explains her desire to move away, Martin maintained. Grady Morris Goodwin was shot to death in 1992 outside Gabby's restaurant on Veterans Parkway. Some of Goodwin's former inlaws believe he was shot

because of an appointment he had to discuss the fire under oath with insurance officials, scheduled for the morning after he died.

Howard Dwight, Woodham, Goodwin's boyfriend at the time of the shooting, was convicted of the murder and is now serving a life sentence.

Goodwin's stated fear of her former in-laws offered a "reasonable hypothesis" why she moved, Allen said. Goodwin lived too openly in the years after the murder to conclude she was hiding and prosecutors failed to show an exception should be made in prosecuting her for the arson, Allen said in his November ruling.

The appeals court agreed, saying "the evidence adduced by the state failed to show that Goodwin absconded from Georgia or otherwise concealed herself so that she could not be arrested."