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A native of Hyattsville, Maryland, Arthur Goode was a victim of borderline retardation who still wore his hair in Little Lord Fauntleroy bangs at age 22. In his teens, Goode began making sexual advances to younger boys, quickly becoming notorious in his own neighborhood. Arrested three times for indecent assaults upon minors, he was freed each time when his parents posted bail. In March 1975, Goode was arrested on five charges of sexual assault, stemming from his abuse of a 9-year-old boy. His parents raised $25,000 to spring him from jail, but Arthur wasn't finished yet. While out on bail, he molested an 11-year-old, escaping with five years probation on the condition that he undergo voluntary psychiatric treatment at Spring Grove State Hospital. The key word was "voluntary," and no one could stop him when Goode checked out of the hospital fifteen weeks later, catching a bus for his parents' new home in St. James City, Florida. Despite warnings and the issuance of a bench warrant for his arrest, no one bothered to go after Goode and bring him back. On March 5, 1976, Goode lured 9-year-old Jason VerDow away from a school bus stop in Fort Myers, asking the child to help him "find something" in the woods nearby. "I told him he was going to die," Goode later confessed , "and described how I would kill him. I asked him if he had any last words, and he said, 'I love you,' and then I strangled him." Police soon recovered the body, nude but for stockings, and Goode was twice questioned as a suspect in the case. Growing nervous, he bused back to Spring Grove and dropped in at the state hospital, spending five minutes there before fleeing, convinced that a receptionist was calling the police. (In fact, the staff professed to have no knowledge of the outstanding arrest warrants.) Later that day, Goode picked up 10-year-old Billy Arthe, persuading the boy to join him in Washington, D.C., where they spent the next ten days touring the capital and sleeping in motels. Arthe was still with Goode, unharmed, on March 20, when they met Kenny Dawson, 11, and Goode talked the boy into joining them for a bus ride to Tysons Corner, Virginia. There, while hiking in the woods near town, Goode forced Dawson to undress, afterward strangling him with a belt while Billy Arthe looked on, horrified. Days later, a Falls Church housewife recognized Billy Arthe from newspaper photographs and summoned police. As he was handcuffed, Goode complained, "You can't do nothing to me. I'm sick." A Maryland jury disagreed, finding him sane and guilty of murder, whereupon the court imposed a life sentence. Packed off to Florida after his trial, Goode was there convicted on a second murder count and sentenced to die in the electric chair . He was electrocuted at Florida State Prison on April 5, 1984. |
