The Christmas Eve slaying of former professional baseball pitcher John David Barfield was self-defense, the lawyer for the Pine Bluff man charged with first-degree murder told a Pulaski County jury on Tuesday.
William Lee Goodman Jr., 57, is innocent because he was forced to use his "God-given right" to protect himself when the bigger, stronger and younger ex-pro athlete set upon him, attorney Matt McKay said.
Goodman, a former Marine, regularly carried a gun to protect himself, and Barfield, 52, gave him no option but to use it, McKay said in his opening statement.
"Bill Goodman did shoot and kill John Barfield," McKay said. "This is a he-had-to-shoot case. Otherwise John Barfield was going to kill him."
[HOMICIDE MAP: Interactive map of killings in Little Rock in 2016]
The only witness to the shooting is Goodman's teenage son, who said he saw his father shoot Barfield twice as the men scuffled on the raised deck behind Barfield's Little Rock home.
Immediately after the shooting, the elder Goodman fell over the deck railing while Barfield fell down the stairs. Shot in the chest and stomach, Barfield died later that day in the hospital.
McKay told jurors what the boy saw was the moment when Goodman was forced to go for his gun as he was being overpowered by Barfield, who had already slashed Goodman's hand with something sharp.
He told jurors he'll show them "pretty solid" evidence that Goodman was justified in shooting Barfield. The attorney did not say whether Goodman will testify when the defense begins its case today. Proceedings before Circuit Judge Leon Johnson resume at 9:30 a.m. today.
Deputy prosecutor Lauren Eldridge told jurors that Goodman deliberately killed Barfield and had even threatened his life less than an hour before the slaying.
Father and son were at Barfield's North Sherman Street home to pick up Christmas gifts and a child support payment from Goodman's estranged wife, who had moved in with Barfield, she said.
Things were already tense between the men, and they had exchanged "extremely heated" text messages the day before, after Barfield refused to watch Goodman's dog over the holidays, she said.
Goodman complained about Barfield in a series of texts he sent about an hour before the slaying, Eldridge told jurors.
One of those messages stated, "if he moves, I'll kill him," she said.
Nobody saw what led up to the shooting, the prosecutor said.
Goodman ran up to the victim's door while his son was parking the car and while his wife was inside the house, Eldridge told jurors.
"We don't know what happened between these two men in the minutes or seconds it took [his estranged wife] to put on her shoes and walk outside or the minutes or seconds it took [his son] to park the car," she said.
But the prosecutor asked jurors to think about what Goodman did after the shooting. He and his son drove back to his fiancee's Sherwood home instead of waiting for police, Eldridge said.
And he never told anyone else he was protecting himself, she said. Goodman passed up opportunities to explain what happened -- to his son, to his fiancee, to her father who owned the car, and to the police who met him at the hospital where he was treated for a cut to his hand, Eldridge said.
Metro on 08/09/2017