Execution Report: David Goff

David Lee Goff, 32, was executed by lethal injection on 25 April in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a drug abuse counselor.

In September 1990, Michael N. McGuire, 34, was kidnapped from the drug rehabilitation center in Fort Worth where he worked. He was shot after being handcuffed and drugged. His decomposing body was found a few days later by children playing in the woods.

Police arrested Goff, then 21, and Craig Edward Ford, 19. Prosecutors charged both of them with capital murder. After the suspects underwent polygraph tests, prosecutors decided to offer immunity to Ford in exchange for his testimony against Goff.

Craig Ford testified that on the night of the murder, he was waiting for a ride to his mother's house in the apartment shared by David Goff and Mary Johnson. Goff entered the apartment and told Ford his ride was there. Ford said he and Goff got into a van driven by McGuire, whom he had never met. On the way to Ford's mother's house, Goff made McGuire stop the van, put a small gun to his head, threw him into the back of the van, and handcuffed him. Goff instructed Ford to drive to a dark street. Ford said he heard a single gunshot from the rear of the van. He helped Goff remove the body from the rear of the van, than ran back towards the freeway while Goff dragged McGuire's body into the woods. Goff got back to the van, caught up with Ford, and ordered him back into the van at gunpoint. Ford said they drove back and abandoned the van near the apartment. Goff changed clothes in the apartment and asked Mary Johnson's daughter, Angela, to dispose of them.

Angela Johnson testified seeing Goff enter the apartment, covered in blood. A friend of the Johnson family testified that Goff tried to get him to burn the van.

In 1984, Goff, then 15, was convicted of two counts of attempted capital murder with a deadly weapon and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He served less than five years of this sentence before being paroled in 1989. (At the time, early release was common in Texas due to strict prison population caps imposed by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice.)

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