A document riddled with factual errors about Belynda Goff's first-degree murder conviction mysteriously found its way into her permanent file maintained by prison and parole officials.
I believe the undated, unsigned two-page message was placed by someone whose intent was to damage Belynda for years to come, to continue planting material inaccuracies about the woman imprisoned for 22 years.
Maintaining she did not murder her husband, Belynda refused to accept a 10-year sentence she was offered to plead guilty to manslaughter in her husband Stephen's predawn bludgeoning death on June 12, 1994, in their Green Forest apartment.
Had she taken the plea deal, she would have been freed by 2006. Her 1996 conviction was properly overturned on appeal due to ineffective counsel. A new trial was ordered, but the state Supreme Court reversed the appeals court ruling.
The single-spaced document has only "Carroll County Circuit Court" in the header as a possible source. Belynda wrote Carroll County Circuit Clerk Ramona Wilson in 2016, seeking its origin. "... [A]t least three quarters of this document are in fact false," she wrote. "Please tell me where this document came from, who authored it and why. ... For example, where in public record does it reflect in your files that I made the comment about [Stephen] drinking and womanizing?"
Wilson responded, "I would assume the document you enclosed in your correspondence was prepared by law enforcement. It was not generated by this office. ... It does not contain my file stamp."
Nonetheless, the document apparently originated with someone with enough animosity toward Goff to prepare and include it as an unsolicited part of her official file.
How and why was it allowed into her file after 22 years? I believe Wilson is correct when she assumes it came from law enforcement. My money is on the same person calling himself or herself "Identification" in comments regarding my columns on the Goff case.
The comments cited in this document as purported facts in many instances don't describe the facts in transcripts of Belynda's case.
For instance, Goff's grown daughter, Bridgette Jones of Virginia, says the document specifically claims: "The shape of the markings on the door trim [at the Goffs' apartment] are of a characteristic pattern consistent with the claw markings of the hammers."
"Yet nowhere in the Arkansas State Crime Lab report does it make such a statement," Jones said. "The report states the claw hammer found in the apartment had a rounded head, much different than the penetrations left on paper scrapes and sheetrock surrounding Stephen. The wooden-handled hammer had an octagonal head with symmetrical edges and its angles were considerably smaller than the penetration markings."
Jones said the lab's analyst couldn't determine with any scientific certainty that either hammer produced the marking on the paper or sheetrock. Neither contained blood. Further, the blood splatter patterns did not present sufficient substance to even reconstruct or reenact the crime scene.
Also, Jones told me, "The autopsy opinion rendered by Medical Examiner Dr. Kokes says nowhere does it state 'consistent with a hammer.' In fact, he says blunt object. He states he is not testifying that the hammers caused Stephen Goff's death."
"And about that forged document--let's call it what it is--this was intentionally made to look like it came from somewhere official when it did not," Jones added. "It also states Belynda said Stephen promised to quit 'womanizing,' and they were having marital difficulties because of that. The document claims she messed up their anniversary date and that Stephen made fun and hurt her feelings.
"Never did mother tell police her feelings were hurt or that their marriage was in jeopardy because of womanizing. So why are there transcripts saying she said those things? As for the tapes of those purported comments--of course--they were all 'accidentally' deleted."
Also missing is potential DNA evidence recovered from the crime lab by a Carroll County deputy, then strangely "lost."
Jones said she found it remarkable that the affidavit filed by then-lead investigator Lt. Archie Rousey of the sheriff's office uses the term "officers," as in officers noting this and that about the case when these supposed "observations" were solely his.
For instance, she said, Rousey wrote, "Officers discovered in Goff's bedroom approximately 14 wet towels that had been buried." However, on the crime scene video you can clearly hear another officer saying, "They don't feel wet at all."
She remains equally mystified by the second page of Rousey's affidavit for Belynda's arrest warrant where he states: "[T]he autopsy indicated that the victim had died from multiple blows to the head consistent with a hammer."
"It's interesting how this hammer phrase kept coming up," she said. At Belynda's 1996 trial, Prosecutor Brad Butler in the transcript tells the court two years after the murder: "That's it until Dr. Kokes, your honor. We haven't recovered a weapon ..."
And after 24 years, they still haven't, which tells me the bloodied murder weapon left the Goffs' apartment with the murderer that night.
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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 03/03/2019