Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Ex bludgeoned dead with golf club in home of little old lady and daughters

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

A mother and two adult daughters startled by a concrete paver thrown through a window. One of the daughter's ex-boyfriend breaks in and assaults his ex-girlfriend. The mom and other daughter jump in to help as he chokes the woman. They use a golf club and knife to rescue their loved one. The attacker is dead on the scene.Joining Nancy Grace today: Kathleen Murphy - North Carolina, Family Attorney, www.ncdomesticlaw.com  Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta Ga www.angelaarnoldmd.com     Rob Slattery - Licensed Private Detective - former Brooklyn Ohio police Officer, Swat Team Officer (RET), Private investigator at JAB Investigative Services,    Dr. Kendall Crowns - Deputy Medical Examiner Travis County, Texas (Austin)   Levi Page CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Cops respond to a home to find a dead body with an elderly mom and her two adult daughters inside. How did that happen? 111. First of all, take a listen to this. Around 10 o'clock Pacific time, Saturday morning, police in South Pasadena, California, respond to a home on Five Oaks Drive after receiving a call about a domestic violence incident. As officers pull up to the property, they can hear screaming coming from inside the home and can see that a front window

has been shattered. They enter the home to find a 40-year-old man beaten and suffering from stab wounds. What happened? Again, thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Let me introduce to you an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. Hopefully make some sense of it all. First of all, Kathleen Murphy, family lawyer, as it is euphemistically called, joining us out of North Carolina. You can find her at ncdomesticlaw.com. Renowned psychiatrist joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, Dr. Angela Arnold at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Rob Slattery, former Brooklyn, Ohio cop, SWAT team, now private investigator at JAB Investigative Services. That was a mouthful.

Deputy medical examiner from Travis County, Texas. That's Austin, the renowned Dr. Kendall Crowns. But first, to Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Let me take this all in. Now, it's in South Pasadena, California. Tell me about that, first of all. I understand this is in a suburban area, tree-lined streets, the works. Yes, you're correct, Nancy. this is in a suburban area tree-lined streets the works yes you're correct nancy this is in south pasadena california it's about 10 miles north of los angeles 10 miles north of los angeles okay for any of you that have lived in la as we did briefly that can be uh light years away a whole different way of life. When you think of LA, you think of Hollywood,

the mansions, the stars, the walk of fame, all of that. But other Californians outside of LA are very quickly, are very quickly tell you, well, we live in Northern California. They differentiate themselves from L.A. for a reason. Outside of L.A., it's like the suburbs. Tell me some more about South Pasadena, Levi. It's 10 miles out quiet, safe neighborhood. And this occurred at 10 a.m. on November 28th. You know, just a couple of days after Thanksgiving, you would think people would be, you know, happy and in a peaceful mood, but apparently not. 10 a.m. Now, right there, I find that very interesting to Rob Slattery, licensed PI, private detective from Brooklyn. You know, Rob, first of all, thank you for being with us. But if you look at crime stats, it's very rare that you see homicides first thing in the morning. And I remember, let me just throw out maybe, there was this triple homicide case I was working and this is where I first became aware

of this phenomena. It involved drugs, of course, and drug turf, three dead bodies that we knew of. So I was in a very high drug and crime area. I could not find a single witness. Well, they didn't want to be found, but here's what I learned. None of the dopers would get up before at least one or two o'clock. It was like a ghost town. So there was no crime, no heavy crime in early mornings. Rob, have you ever noticed that you don't get a lot of homicide calls at eight o'clock in the morning? is very uncharacteristic that is correct it definitely is um depending on which i mean like you stated with the drug world um that is a late night game and you just oh yeah what what you know i mean rob when i'm getting up which is typically around five o'clock in the morning, they're just going to sleep.

Really. Exactly. I remember walking into that apartment complex, and it was huge, several thousand apartments in that complex. There was nobody out and about, not even a dog walking across the playground. I mean, nobody. So to get a homicide call or a dead body call first thing in the morning is very, very unusual. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, the deputy medical examiner in Travis County, Texas, which is Austin, Dr. Crowns, I'm sure getting to the top where you are now in your field, you've had to do a lot of late night and morning shifts at the morgue.

How often did you see dead bodies rolled in at 10 o'clock in the morning? So it's funny the way our schedule works. The bodies will come in, but we only work in the morgue ourselves, the doctors, from 8 a.m. to whenever the work is done. But I know bodies roll in at all times of the day to the medical examiner's office. They come in anywhere 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all times of the day. So 24-7, 365 for you. That's correct. What is the busiest time for the morgue?

I guess you guys get bodies that are discovered in the morning that have been laying there overnight. You get the leftovers from the night's homicidal activity. What's the busiest time at the morgue? Just curious. It's neither here nor there in this story, but I want to know. Busiest time in the morning i i would say it's probably uh late afternoon when the bodies start getting found the most because uh you know the morning because the dopers aren't awake yet the dopers aren't up yeah that's true too is the drug abuser's got to get in

their sleep so uh the people don't start looking for loved ones until about 12 o'clock and then they start making calls and they start getting concerned and then that's when't start looking for loved ones until about 12 o'clock, and then they start making calls and they start getting concerned, and then that's when they start looking for people. It's usually in the afternoon is when we start getting more bodies more often than not. With me is Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical in Sanford, Travis County, Austin, Texas. Again, I've never really thought about when a morgue's busy hours are, you know, like Blackiday after thursday for morgues what's your busiest day of the week i'm just curious busiest day of the week saturday or

sunday no you know saturdays the weekends can always be busy but it's often people don't find the bodies that have been murdered on saturday and sunday until monday or Tuesday. So I'd say we start seeing the bodies pick up around Tuesday. So busiest day of the week, probably midweek when bodies start getting found. I bet nobody's ever asked you that, have they, Dr. Kendall Crowns? What's your busy time? Actually, it's never occurred to me till right now because I find it so out of the ordinary for a dead body to be found in these ladies' home at 10 o'clock in the morning. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Guys, we haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg here. Cops get a call and they respond to a dead body in the home of an elderly mom and her two adult daughters. But when they pull up, they hear screaming from the inside. Take a listen again to our friend John Limley at CrimeOnline.com. Investigators soon learn the man's name. He's Justin Goss, and he's in the home of his 37-year-old ex-girlfriend. After paramedics begin examining him, they discover Goss has been beaten with a golf club and severely wounded with a kitchen knife. It soon emerges that the assailants are his ex-girlfriend's mother and sister.

But the big question of the moment is, why would the girlfriend's family attack Goss? Okay, let me try to get a visual here. Back to you, Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. So the cops arrive. They get to this suburban home, as you described it, a tree-lined street in suburbia, California, and they hear screaming from the inside.

They get in. They find a man's dead body. Explain to me what they observe when they get in, Levi. Well, Nancy, when they first get there, they see that a window has been shattered with a concrete block. And then when they get in, they find the body of 40-year-old Justin Goss, who is from Glendale. And he is dead. He is pronounced dead at the scene. He had been stabbed and beaten.

You know, it's very interesting. Back to you, Dr. Kendall Crowns. I don't know if you recall the Jodi Arias case where Jodi Arias, a woman scorned, angry because her lover, Travis Alexander, had broken up with her and was taking another woman on a trip to Cancun. She sneaks on a five-hour odyssey drive to his home. They have a marathon sex session all day long. Then when he still refuses to change the Cancun date, she stabs him, we believe 29 time and caps it off with a gunshot wound to the head. Medical examiners have told me you can't be sure how many stab wounds there are because there's so many. They start overlapping each other in the frenzy of the stabbing.

This guy, Justin Goss, just 40 years old, has been beaten to a pulp with a golf club and stabbed multiple times. Doctor, how can you even tell what the COD was? Well, I mean, the COD is going to be a combination of the blunt force trauma and the stab wounds. That's not too hard to figure out. I mean, you know, they were stabbed, they were beaten. So you can combine those two together. And with the beating, if there's no blood associated with any of the blunt force injury wounds, then you know

they probably occurred after death. But you can still figure out the cause of death. But as far as the wounds, yeah, sometimes when there's multiple, multiple wounds overlapping, commingled, it can be difficult to sort them all out and get a good exact number of how many stabs there were, how many blunt force trauma injuries there were. And joining me now, psychiatrist, Dr. Angela Arnold from the Atlanta jurisdiction. Dr. Angie, I recall a specific case where a beautiful young woman and her father, who was a former FBI agent, murdered her husband. And the dad, the FBI agent dad, as I recall, beat him with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat.

Now, I'm just a JD. You're the MD. You're the psychiatrist. I think there's special significance when a person is murdered by swinging a bat or swinging a golf club at them. I completely agree with you. I can't put my finger on it, but I bet you know. There's so much.

It's every bit of anger and hatred is coming out through that baseball bat. Everything they felt towards that person is coming out, the fear, the rage. And once you get started, it's like you can't stop. So everything that's been building up inside of that person is coming out through swinging that bat, and you're seeing the extreme, the level of hatred or fear or whatever that they feel towards that person is coming out through that, Nancy. It's not a mental disorder it's just

severe rage and hatred getting beat out of that person you know I'm trying to remember the name of a movie Dr. Angela Arnold it's in black and white and oh it's arsenic and old lace it just hit me have you seen that jacket okay where it's a little old lady i mean little old lady and she i think it was with tea wasn't she killing people with tea and arsenic and she just put them wherever uh yes can you imagine when the police get there and they see a little old lady and her two adult daughters just standing there and a dead body bludgeoned with a golf club and stabbed dead i mean it's just if the eye is tricking the mind because that doesn't go together little old lady a dead bludgeoned body well i think what does go together is nancy something is behind that rage that they felt towards this person.

OK, yeah, I think I would agree with that. I was expecting a little more because you are, in fact, an M.D., pretty well-known M.D. and a shrink. But I'll circle back to that in a moment. For right now, take a listen to Mark Mester at KTLA 5. Now to a domestic dispute that turned deadly in South Pasadena. Investigators say it all started when an ex-boyfriend used a brick to break into the home on Five Oaks Drive this morning and attack an estranged girlfriend. But when her mom and sister heard that commotion, they jumped in, beating a man with a golf club and then stabbing him. Responding deputies say they could still hear the fight as they were arriving. The suspect, though, died at the scene. Based on the circumstances, you know, the guy comes in with a brick,

breaks the front window to the house, comes in, he's attacking, he's choking and punching the victim on top of her. Well, that man has only been identified by deputies as a white man in his 40s. Now, the woman who was attacked was hospitalized, had to be treated for some facial injuries, but has since been released. Exactly what led up to the attack, though, that's still being investigated. To Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina family lawyer, and I always marvel at that, Kathleen, that it's called family lawyer, because that makes me think like a Christmas card or a happy family together around the dinner table kathleen and nc

domestic law.com it is down and dirty that's what family law is how many times have you seen domestic issues end up in a homicide so i am fortunate i've only seen about three or four but i know. That's a pretty good number, Kathleen. I mean, I don't know what world you're living in, but most people have not seen four dead bodies outside of a visit to the funeral home. OK, so that's just something we can think about. I'm going to tell you what those people's fear was. Their fear was the court system. So they beat the heck out of this guy because they didn't want to have to deal with the crazy court system that a lot of domestic violence victims have to be a part of.

I don't know, Kathleen. I don't know that they were afraid of a judge, a frail old judge up on the bench, some political hack appointee. I think they were more afraid of the fact that they heard the window breaking in in the early morning hours. Take a listen to Kathy Vera, KNBC, and Mark Costarobles. Police say Justin Goss of Glendale assaulted the woman after breaking into his ex-girlfriend's South Pasadena home yesterday, winds up stabbed to death. That woman's mother and sister then tried to stop the attack with a golf club,

beat him, and then he was stabbed during the struggle. Goss was pronounced dead at the scene. The victim is recovering for facial injuries. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We're talking about a 40-year-old man that definitely should have known better. And think this through. Kathleen Murphy, they're not even married. It's not like they've got to divide children and property. They just have to break up and stop calling each other.

Oh, if it was that simple. Yeah, if it was only that simple but but here all this over a romance they're just boyfriend girlfriend i i i see it all the time they just cannot control themselves and this guy clearly has a mental health disability he clearly was probably under the influence of drugs or alcohol that's absolutely not true because i've been in court a million times let's see 100 new cases a week times four that's 400 a month times 12 that's blah blah, times 10 years. Oh, no. Domestic violence does not depend on the perp being drunk or high. Dr. Angela Arnold, it is very rare that I dare to take on Kathleen Murphy. But having worked at the Battered Women's Center for nine years at night,

plus prosecuting all day long, the perp doesn't have to be drunk or high to be a domestic abuser. They also don't have to be mentally ill because there are people, I believe that that gives mentally ill people a bad name. There are people that are just evil. There are books written about how people are just at their core evil, Nancy. So these people had, this guy breaks into the house. He does such, it's such a drastic act, breaks into a house, ex-girlfriend, you know, he's coming to do her harm. The whole thing is,

the whole thing is just fraught with,. Everybody has so much rage towards each other. I'm telling you, Nancy, this man was just pure evil. The reality is of all the cases I prosecuted, all the women I spoke with on the domestic, the battered women's hotline, very rarely is anybody high or mentally ill at the perp. Sometimes they've been drinking, but drugs and alcohol is no excuse. It is a syndrome, the battered women syndrome. And what that is, is the abuser, typically the male, but can be a woman, wants power over the victim. And they will beat them, intimidate them. I had a woman with a PhD that every morning when her husband left for work, he'd yank out, take the phones with him in the car trunk and beat her if she

left the house. She had a PhD, educated, could have done anything in the world. She had three children with him. So she wanted them to have a home life. That was some home life, right? So what I'm saying is it is a calculated and controlled cycle where you beat and attack. Then you try to make up with the victim. That's called the honeymoon phase where you're nice. You might bring flowers. You might bring home dinner. You behave for a couple of weeks, and the tension starts building, building, building,

and bam, another attack. And then it goes over and over and over and over. Well, I'll tell you what. I would not want to see this grandma come down the hall at me with a golf club. I know that much. Take a listen to John Limley, Crime Online. Paramedics soon determined that 40-year-old Justin Goss is dead from injuries received when his ex-girlfriend's mother and sister attacked him with a kitchen knife and a golf club.

The two women explained to police that they and the ex-girlfriend had been startled by the sound of a large concrete paver smashing through a front window of the house. Moments later, Goss breaks into the house and begins attacking his ex-girlfriend, choking and punching her in the face. That's when the ex's mother and sister step in to save their loved one. They try pulling Goss off of the 37-year-old victim, but that didn't work. He was simply too strong for them. The two women hit Goss over the head with a golf club and then stabbed him several times. Can you imagine that? The scene, Rob Slattery, licensed PI, former Brooklyn police officer, now at JAB Investigative Services. These three ladies are asleep, one being an old grandma.

They're asleep in the home, two adult women, and they hear a cement paver, a big hunk of concrete, smashing through a front window of the house. Right there, Rob, that tells me a lot. This guy was not afraid, not worried who saw him, not worried who heard him at the front of the house. He was so arrogant and so hell bent on getting to his ex-girlfriend. That's all he cared about. No sneaking in, no climbing through the window. He went in like a bull in a china shop. He didn't care who saw or heard him, Rob. That's correct.

And I actually did a Google Earth search of this street, Five Oaks. There's a total of 12 houses on this street. They're all right on top of each other. Most of them have main windows right in the front of the home. I see why he chose that as a point of entrance. But he was there to do harm and enforce his will on his ex-girlfriend. And he didn't care. He didn't care about being caught. He didn't care about anything. I mean, he had one goal, and it was to just terrorize her. And he paid the ultimate price for attempting this. You mean like a big picture window? You know that style where there's a big window in the front? Okay. Correct. Most of the homes do.

I could see that. Take a listen again to John Limley. Justin Goss is dead after being hit over the head with a golf club and stabbed with a kitchen knife. He's lying on the floor of his ex-girlfriend's house after being subdued by the ex's mom and adult sister, who stepped in to stop Goss' attack on their loved one. The mother and sibling emerge unscathed, but Goss' ex has been hurt. She's rushed to a nearby hospital with injuries to the face and is soon released. To protect the ex and her family, along with the integrity of the investigation, police are not releasing the names of the three women involved. You know, I'm just thinking about the seemingly superhuman power this guy had,

that two adults were trying to pull him off the victim, the domestic violence victim, the sister, and they couldn't. Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas. That's Austin. Dr. Crowns, have you ever heard those stories about, for instance, a mom picking up a car off of her child or similar stories for seemingly superhuman strength occurs at a critical moment. What is that? Yeah, I have heard those stories. I believe it's like an adrenaline response. The individual is so full of the adrenaline that they can perform an action that they normally couldn't perform but i don't know specifically the exact science on it but i believe it is

i'm so happy i finally stumped you i've never asked you a question you didn't have an answer to i've heard the adrenaline technically i did have an answer you did have an answer okay i didn't know that a medical examiner would use technicalities. I leave that to my legal brethren. But yes, the adrenaline rush, no matter how hard these two adult women tried to pull him off the victim, they couldn't, hence the beating and the stabbing. crime stories with nancy grace guys a domestic violence case turns deadly when police arrive to find a man beaten with a golf club and stabbed dead ostensibly by a little old lady and her daughter. Take a listen to this. South Pasadena police are still investigating what led to the incident on Five Oaks Drive

that resulted in the death of 40-year-old Justin Goss. Detectives know that Goss was attacked with a golf club and kitchen knife after he broke into the home of his ex-girlfriend. Police say that if not for the swift thinking and action of the ex's mother and adult sister, the story could have had a completely different outcome. As authorities continue looking into the case, they ask anyone with information to call them at 323-890-5500.

That's 323-890-5500. You can also reach them by calling 911 from anywhere in the country. You know, that's concerning to me because you hear South Pasadena police are still investigating. Does that mean that this little old grandma and her adult daughter could be charged in the death of 40-year-old Justin Goss after he breaks in and begins attacking the daughter, the sister? Well, it's happened before. Take a listen to our new cut number five. This is ABC News. A frantic father called 911 after finding a farmhand, Flores allegedly sexually assaulting his little girl the Lavaca County District Attorney's Office released the dramatic

call the 911 audio is just part of the evidence presented to a Lavaca County grand jury who chose not to indict the father. District Attorney Heather McMinn tells us why. And under the law in the state of Texas, deadly force is authorized and justified in order to stop an aggravated sexual assault or a sexual assault. All the evidence that was presented by the Sheriff's Department and by the Texas Rangers indicated that that was in fact what was occurring when the victim's father arrived at the scene. Thank God in that case, the dad was not indicted. But if you listen carefully, you hear that he was actually taken to a grand jury. A grand jury heard the case with a possible indictment after the father finds the perp raping his little girl in the act and kills him.

And that is by far not the only example. Take a listen to our new cut number seven. This is by far not the only example. Take a listen to our new cut, number seven. This is from My El Hom Court TV. Doucette, a karate instructor, had abducted 11-year-old Jody Ploche several weeks earlier and taken him to California. When Jody was rescued and returned to his family, his father, Gary, was coping with reports that Doucette had sexually assaulted his son we didn't know what to do you just feel helpless ten days later when the police flew to set back to face trial Gary Ploche was waiting with a gun as the suspect came through the airport I readied my camera and raced it up to get a close-up shot of him.

As I got a close-up shot and as he got parallel to me, Gary Ploche shoots. And that's right. Gary Ploche shoots dead his son's alleged molester. That is a case that sticks in everyone's mind. And then the dad faces charges straight out to our guests on that case. Do you remember that case, Kathleen Murphy? I remember it very well.

I remember it very well, too. And there but by the grace of God, go I. In that case,ary plushay lay in wait and to you again kathleen murphy the fact that he laid in wait waiting for the karate instructor to get off of the plane i believe is why he was investigated in the murder of jeff duches and as he should be because we don't do vigilante justice. Well, I mean, it would be argued. And there's a difference between the vigilante justice

and in our present case, the self-defense and protection of a victim in an immediate set of circumstances. In that case, Gary Plouchet, just 39 years old, was indicted by a grand jury and actually goes to trial because she shot the karate instructor. In this case, we know that the investigation is ongoing. Straight out to Dr. Kendall Crowns. I'm trying to determine how the forensic evidence would play into the investigation because I don't want these women charged.

What would you look for, not only on the victim's body, the dead guy's body, but on the other women to determine if there was any defensive wounds, explain. So usually a medical examiner doesn't evaluate the living, but you can usually, defensive wounds are typically in individuals where they're trying to protect their body. So you're seeing them on the hands, on the forearms, even on the legs and feet. What you would look for on the individual that's killed is he's going to have defensive wounds where he's trying to block the golf club, per se, or the knife. But still, in that situation, I'm not 100% sure if there would be much of a discussion of what were his defensive wounds or not. I was really thinking about the women, because we know the female victim had so many injuries to her face that she was taken to the hospital. Yeah, so if she did not

pass away, the medical examiners wouldn't necessarily evaluate that individual. That would be something more for the investigative agencies like the police department. We wouldn't take care of the living. To Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. Dr. Angela, one of your specialties is treating women. What are your thoughts on the case? My thought, Nancy, is that this woman, the ex-girlfriend, had most likely been so terrorized by this man and had let her family know about it. And there was never anything they could do about it.

That is what my thought is. And then here he comes, like you said, it builds up in him. Here he comes again, and this time he's going to kill her. But they were ready for it. They were all, and not in a bad way. I mean, Nancy, this family has had to hear this poor woman talk about what he has done to her. And I'll tell you something else, too. Nancy, it took her a long time to talk about it.

People don't just start talking about how awful a person treats them because first, these people pull you in, like you said. And I'm sorry that I always use this personality diagnosis, but it all stems from narcissistic personality disorder. It always does. Narcissistic personality disorder, first of all, that is not a mental illness. It is a personality disorder. And when you're dealing with a narcissist, narcissists have very low self-esteem. But they come at you as if they're the greatest person on the face of the earth. They're very grandiose in their presentation. And when they first pick out their

prey, they're wonderful to the woman. It's love at first sight. She's never met anybody like this. And oh, how quickly it changes, Dr. Angela Arnold. But the victim still believes

there is a chance that it could go back to the way it was before. So they endure the abuse, hoping things will turn around, which they rarely do. Domestic abuse hotline, 800-799-SAFE, 800-799-7233. And announcement. We recently covered the case of a young girl who went missing in 2001, Alyssa Turney. When we covered the case, Alyssa's sister, Sarah, did not speak with us. We used her prior statement she made on her own podcast, Voices for Justice, hosted and produced by her,

Sarah Turney. The case is coming to trial. I want to make it very clear. In no way did Alyssa's sister Sarah speak with us prior to trial or provide us with a sound clip. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.