Arrest Thwarted a Killing, Police Say

An Indiana ex-convict, accused of leading two others in a cross-country murder spree that left at least four of his prison pen pals dead, planned to kill another correspondent--a college professor he was staying with in Laguna Beach, police said Tuesday.

Keith Eugene Goodman, 30, and two alleged accomplices from Goodman’s hometown of Anderson, Ind., were arrested Sunday in connection with the slayings of three homosexual men in Mississippi and another in New York. All of the victims corresponded with Goodman while he was imprisoned in Indiana for burglary and sexual assault on an 80-year-old woman.

Goodman, Christopher Mead, 22, and Tracy Lynn Holland, 21, were seized in two separate SWAT-team raids after Orange County law enforcement agencies were alerted by authorities in the East that the suspects were believed headed to San Clemente.

In addition to the Mississippi and New York murders, Tennessee authorities believe that they have strong evidence linking the suspects to the murder of a biology professor there in October.

The slain men in Mississippi and New York were among an estimated 20 to 25 pen pals with whom Goodman corresponded while in prison in Indiana. Goodman and his accused accomplices, were staying in the South Laguna home of another pen pal, Carnegie-Mellon University professor Peter G. Jones, who is on sabbatical leave.

“If we had not arrested Goodman,” said San Clemente Police Sgt. Richard E. Downing, “I do believe the man (Jones) would have been the next victim.” Downing added that Jones said he had been unaware of Goodman’s alleged involvement in the murder spree.

“It’s very frightening,” Jones said, in an interview at his two-story house tucked away in the hills of affluent South Laguna. “I see myself as very lucky because the police told me I was (the) next victim.”

As authorities from New York and Mississippi arrived in Orange County Tuesday to sort out the trio’s alleged crimes and work out details of extradition, investigators began piecing together the extensive criminal record of Goodman, whom they described as the ringleader of the group.

According to Indiana state parole records, Goodman was released from a state penitentiary on December, 1988, after serving 10 years of a 23-year sentence for burglary, sexual assault and other crimes committed during a break-in and an attack on an 80-year-old woman. It was during that time in prison that Goodman began writing to pen pals across the nation, many but not all of whom were homosexuals.

“Goodman was a con artist,” said Itawamba County (Miss.) Sheriff’s Deputy Terry Jones. “He operated through gay men. He would become their pen pal and he would try to get them to send him money and gifts. He was using them.”

Senior Investigator Richard J. Kadien of the New York State Police, who was in Orange County along with four colleagues seeking Goodman’s extradition, said Goodman used a common inmate scam by seeking sympathy--and subsequently, money--from people who advertised for pen pals.

“The story I heard was certainly that he had been very deprived,” said college professor Jones, recalling his letters from Goodman. “He said the other night, in fact, that the only person who had ever loved him was his grandmother, and she died about a year ago. I don’t even know if that was true. “

Times staff writers James Gomez, David Reyes, Tammerlin Drummond and Wendy Paulson contributed to this report.