TALLADEGA — A Talladega County jury of nine women and five men heard the taped statement of accused capital murderer Ricky Charles Goodwin for the first time Tuesday, and heard testimony from state forensic examiners during the third day of Goodwin’s trial Wednesday.Goodwin, 45, is accused of shooting his stepfather, brother and mother on April 16, 2002, in the home all four shared on Stemley Bridge Road. He has entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of severe mental disease or defect.
The taped statement played to the jury Wednesday was made April 17, after a brother who lived in a mobile home next door to the main house discovered the bodies. District Attorney’s Office Investigator Mike McBurnett and Talladega Police Captain of Investigations Ronny Jones took the statement after Goodwin waived his Miranda rights.
On the tape, Goodwin said he was in his room watching television and worrying that his stepfather, Carl Frisbie, would blame him for breaking his bedroom door frame while wrestling with his 16-year-old cousin. He then said he heard voices telling him to kill Frisbie.
Goodwin went on to say that he took a .22-caliber revolver from Frisbie’s room and a 12-gauge shotgun from a gun cabinet in his mother’s room. He put six bullets in the revolver and four shells in the shotgun, according to the statement.
He then waited until Carl Frisbie had taken out his dentures and was getting ready to go to bed. According to the tape, he aimed the shotgun at Frisbie’s head, but shot him in the neck instead.
At this point, Jerry Goodwin, the defendant’s brother, came in and Goodwin shot him in the neck, then shot him in the head with the revolver “so he would not suffer.”
He then shot his mother, Melba Frisbie, in the chest with the shotgun, and also shot her with a .22-caliber bullet to the head.
He said he then drove to Logan Martin Dam and threw the murder weapons in the river, then went home. He got up about 8:30 the following morning, felt all three bodies and found them all cold.
At some point, he also said on the tape that he had taken an anti-psychotic drug called Seraquil and watched television in his room.
After his brother came to the house to check on his parents, Goodwin said he went to visit a friend in Eastaboga in Carl Frisbie’s car. At this point, the brother had called the police and the bodies had been discovered.
Goodwin was arrested in the driveway at the crime scene. He had blood on his hands, shoes and jeans, and there was cocaine and a handgun, which he said he intended to use on himself, when he pulled up.
Goodwin said he had attempted suicide three times before.
The medical evidence, presented Wednesday by Dr. Joseph Embry, painted a somewhat different picture of the killings than what Goodwin portrayed on the tape.
Carl Frisbie was actually killed by a single shotgun blast, but was shot at close range just below his left ear. There were exit wounds under the right ear.
Jerry Goodwin was also shot at close range with the shotgun, but in the back, not in the neck. He was also shot once in the chest with the .22-caliber revolver, and a total of four times in the head.
Although four bullets were recovered from Jerry Goodwin’s skull, Embry testified there were only two entrance wounds, one in his forehead and one in his temple. Embry could not say whether Goodwin had fired two shots in rapid succession or if a bullet had gotten stuck in the barrel and “piggy-backed” on the one behind it.
The bullets fired into the forehead did not penetrate deep into the brain, possibly due to old or poorly maintained ammunition, and would not have been fatal by themselves. The two bullets fired into the temple did go all the way through, and would have certainly been fatal. The shotgun blast to the back would have been survivable only if the victim had received immediate medical treatment, Embry said.
Melba Frisbie was shot with the shotgun in her lower abdomen as she was trying to get up off a hospital bed where she was recovering from foot surgery. Her gallbladder was “obliterated,” according to Embry, her stomach and both lobes of her liver were damaged, and her large intestine was perforated. This wound alone would have also been fatal.
Several buckshot pellets exited through Melba Frisbie’s back and re-entered her arm.
Melba Frisbie was then shot in the lower chest with the revolver, although the bullet did not penetrate the abdominal wall but lodged in the left breast instead. The final .22-caliber shot to the head would also have been fatal by itself, according to Embry.
A shotgun, three .22-caliber handguns and a .22-caliber rifle were in evidence. Ed Moran of the firearm and tool marks division of the state Department of Forensic Sciences testified the rifle and one of the handguns could be excluded as the weapons that fired the bullets recovered by Embry. Tests on the other two handguns were inconclusive, as was the test on the shotgun.
A dive team searched the portion of the Coosa River where Goodwin said he had thrown away the guns, but came up empty. Much of the rest of Wednesday was spent on chain of custody evidence for the well over 100 pieces of physical evidence that had been introduced.
The defense team of Jon Adams and Mark Nelson made much of the fact that Goodwin had not undergone a toxin screening when he was arrested, and that McBurnett and Jones had not asked many questions regarding the voices Goodwin alluded to on the tape.
They also questioned Embry regarding a laundry list of prescription medications Goodwin may have been taking, including Serequil; Thorazine, another anti-psychotic that is no longer widely used; Valium, an anti-anxiety medication; Diprexan, used to treat “emotional problems;” Zoloft, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor to treat depression; Haldol, another anti-depressant; Cogentin, a medication used to treat tremors and other symptoms of Parkinson’s disease; and Loxipine, yet another anti-psychotic.
Embry stopped this line of questioning at this point, saying he was not a psychiatrist and was not familiar enough with these drugs to address them comfortably.
Although Goodwin is charged with a capital offense, he is not facing the death penalty because his IQ is below 70. If convicted, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Testimony resumes today at 8:30 a.m. before Circuit Judge Julian King.
