A 14-year-old girl has told in horrifying detail of the moment she
secretly delivered her baby with a pair of scissors in the family bathroom
before throttling the newborn and hiding the body in a shoe box. Cassidy
Goodison, 14, has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder after
police learned how she killed her child following months of disguising the
pregnancy from her parents.
In a video reconstruction, using a Santa Claus doll as a model for the
baby, Goodison sat in the bathroom of her Florida home to show investigators
what she did. The new evidence was released last week as part of the capital
murder case against her. Police had the
teenager reconstruct how she had allegedly killed her child, using a Santa
Claus doll as the baby.
Graphic: Cassidy Goodison, 14, shows how she killed her baby by demonstrating on a Santa Claus doll at her Florida home
On the ABC
clip, she said: 'Its eyes weren’t open but I felt to see if it was
breathing or not, and (it was breathing) so I put my hands around its throat to
make it stop breathing.' Goodison went into labor in her home in Greenbrier
Village, Florida on September 19 and instead of calling for help, disguised her
screams of pain by running the tap and gripping a towel between her teeth as
she sat on the toilet.
Horrifying: Goodison renacted the moment she choked her baby to death in September at her home
After prising the 9.5lb boy from her body with a pair of scissors,
she felt for a pulse and then strangled the boy to death and hid his corpse in
a shoebox with dirty laundry. When asked by police how hard she squeezed, the
girl said: 'Enough for it to stop breathing.' Three days later, as Teresa
Goodson cleaned her daughter's room, a foul odor drew her attention to a pile
of soiled, wet clothes in which she found the deceased infant hidden in a box. An
autopsy performed determined the victim was a full term infant and that he was alive
and breathing prior to death. He died as a result of asphyxia from
strangulation and blunt force trauma.
Secrets: Goodison told police she was frightened of telling her parents she was pregnant
Miss Goodson had gone to great lengths to hide the transformation of her
5ft 3in 100lb body during pregnancy, according to Polk County officials. Throughout
the summer, as she walked around in baggy sweat pant and loose-fitting
T-shirts. Members of her family grew suspicious of her appearance and attempted
to discuss the possibility she was pregnant with the teen's mother. But Mrs
Goodson denied the suggestions, said the report, claiming that she had made her
daughter do two home tests, albeit in the privacy of her bathroom, which both
came out negative. Husband Timothy Goodson agreed meanwhile that he had
noticed Miss Goodson's weight gain and that she had been walking around at home
wrapped in a blanket.
Facing life in prison:The 14-year-old has been charged with first-degree murder in Florida
An interview with the teenager on September 22 revealed that after the
14-year-old had delivered the 9.5lb, 20.4in boy into the toilet, she had felt
for a pulse and then strangled him to death. Confirming he was dead by once
again checking his pulse, she then cleaned herself and the baby and tucked the
evidence out of sight. Shortly after, however, Mrs Goodson noticed blood in the
toilet she knew had been recently used by her daughter so took her to Lakeland
Regional Medical Center. There medical staff treating the high school student
told Mrs Goodson that she had suffered a miscarriage and showed four to five
lacerations on her vaginal wall.
Though these injuries were in reality self-inflicted when the teenager
had pried the baby out of her with a pair of scissors, she falsely confessed to
her mother that she had indeed had a miscarriage at home and flushed the fetus
down the toilet by mistake. Polk County Sheriff's Office deputies, along with
members of the Department of Children and Families responded to a call from the
hospital reporting the case and details were retained by the PCSO Bureau of
Criminal Investigations for follow up investigations.
Hidden: The teenager hid the dead baby in a shoebox which was found by her mother when she was cleaning
According to the Sheriff's Office affidavit, on the evening of September
22, at approximately 7.30pm, Mrs Goodson removed a bag of smelly, wet clothing
from a storage stool in her daughter's bedroom. While sorting through the clothing she found the body of the baby
concealed in the shoebox. In a panic, Mrs Goodson called her sisters who in
turn alerted the police. Miss Goodson told detectives she was motivated to hide
her pregnancy and choke the baby 'to stop him from breathing,' by the fear that
her relationship with her parents would change if they found out the truth.
Life-changing: The teenager could be sentenced to life after the death of her baby
Miss Goodson was arrested and transported first to the Juvenile
Assessment Center and then to the Polk County Juvenile Detention Facility. She
is charged with premeditated first-degree murder, a capital felony and
aggravated child abuse, a first-degree felony. Polk County Public Information
officer, Donna Wood, told MailOnline: 'This is the most perplexing, confusing,
disheartening case I've ever seen in my 18 years on this job. Everyone has been
touched by it.'
Source: Daily Mail UK
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