A 33-year-old Long Island, New York man faces the prospect of a life sentence following his November 14, 2023 conviction for the murder of his 29-year-old six-month pregnant girlfriend.
Goey Charles, then 29 years old and a resident of Uniondale, New York, was captured on video surveillance footage committing the heinous act. The footage showed that, at around 2:50 a.m. on October 23, 2020, Charles stopped a white Dodge Challenger registered to Vanessa Pierre, a nurse practitioner, on the Horace Harding Expressway.
Roughly 40 minutes later, he moved from the driver’s seat to the backseat, where Pierre was seated. Video shows her moving at the time, but after a while her body was lying rigid across the backseat and Charles sat with her body for approximately an hour.
At around 4:36 a.m., Charles emerged from the car, dragging Pierre’s body with him. He callously left her on the sidewalk before driving away in her vehicle.
At about 6:00 a.m., an MTA bus driver discovered Pierre’s body, unresponsive with gray sweatpants wrapped around her neck, and alerted the authorities. Emergency responders pronounced her dead at the scene.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz labeled the crime as a tragic case of domestic violence.
On Tuesday, Goey Charles was convicted of second-degree murder in the Queens Supreme Court. His conviction came after a thorough investigation and the compelling evidence presented in the video footage.
Charles’ sentencing is scheduled for November 29. He faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison for his crime.
“We achieved justice for Vanessa. The verdict does not bring her back, but it holds her killer accountable,” District Attorney Katz stated following the conviction. She emphasized that the prosecution would be seeking a lengthy prison sentence for Charles.
Domestic violence remains a significant issue in the United States, where roughly one in four women and one in seven men are subjected to serious physical abuse by a partner with whom they are intimate. The National Domestic Violence Hotline highlights that, on average, about 20 individuals per minute are victims of physical aggression by an intimate partner, cumulating in over 10 million women and men affected each year.