NORTH HAVERHILL — After roughly four and a half hours of deliberation on Friday, a Grafton County jury found a 40-year-old Lyme man guilty of second-degree murder for the shooting death of his cousin four and a half years ago.
Judge Lawrence MacLeod ordered Lance Goodrich held without bail pending sentencing, which was not scheduled as of Friday. Goodrich has been held in Grafton County jail since his arrest following the murder of Brooke Goodrich, 25, on Nov. 20, 2021.
In closing arguments on Friday, prosecutors argued that the chief reason Lance Goodrich shot his cousin in the head was to stand up for his wife, Melina Goodrich, who was leaving him.
Bethany Durand, assistant attorney general, read to the jury one of numerous text messages Goodrich sent admitting to shooting his cousin, in which he wrote: “someone ran their mouth. It pissed Melina off, and she told me she was all done with me because of it, because I don’t have a backbone to stand up to anybody in my family.”
Durand also argued that following Brooke Goodrich’s murder, Lance “acted as a murderer,” fleeing the scene, evading law enforcement for hours, barricading himself inside his grandmother’s house in Newport before his arrest and confessing to the murder multiple times.
“Melina spent 25 minutes on 911 begging people to find the defendant so he couldn’t hurt himself,” Durand said. “Melina also spent almost an hour on the phone with the defendant in the moments while he was barricaded in that house in Newport.”
Goodrich didn’t take the blame for his estranged wife in the murder of his cousin, the state said. He blamed his cousin for the failure of his marriage, so he killed her.
“We ask you at the end of this case to do what the defendant could not do,” Durand said. “To look him in the eyes and to find him guilty.”
The trial, which was postponed twice as nine attorneys withdrew, had begun over a week earlier with the defense arguing that Lance Goodrich did not murder his cousin, Brooke Goodrich, who was 25 years old at the time of her death, despite Goodrich making multiple alleged admissions to shooting her because she was “running her mouth” about him and his wife, Melina.
In closing arguments on Friday, defense attorney Mark Sisti maintained that Goodrich, took the blame to protect his wife.
During his closing argument on Friday, Sisti asked the jury to recall evidence of Facebook messages between Goodrich’s wife, Melina, and Brooke on the morning before her death on Nov. 20, 2021.
“You have done nothing but run your mouth,” Melina’s message to Brooke read. “This is the one warning I’m going to give you.”
Lance Goodrich had no animosity towards his cousin, Sisti said.
“Motive for Melina,” he said. “Straight hate.”
Sisti spoke for about an hour, ultimately arguing that “the state has failed in a huge way.”
Sisti asserted that crucial holes in the state’s case included a lack of forensic evidence to prove or eliminate either Goodrich or his wife as the murderer, the trajectory of the shell casing which was found inside Brooke’s home despite Goodrich telling police he fired the gun from outside and a “garbage” statement from Goodrich to police while in custody in which he was uncertain on numerous details when questioned about the shooting.
He also questioned a witness’ testimony that Goodrich’s car was “coming in hot” along Route 10 on his way to Brooke’s home in Orford where the shooting occurred.
“What’s the rush for Lance if he’s premeditated … planned a murder of Brooke Goodrich?” he asked the jury. “One reason that he would be ‘coming in hot’ was because he was scared that Melina was going to do something with that firearm that he noticed was gone.”
In Sisti’s opening argument, he stated that his client only went racing towards his cousin’s home once he noticed that his handgun was missing. Two weeks prior to Brooke’s murder, Lance and Melina had separated, he told police.
After Melina left Lance, Sisti reminded the jury on Friday that Brooke Goodrich came to his support, “helping him with his (four) kids, with cleaning, with taking care of business” up to the day before she was murdered, when she came over to “help deliver puppies.”
“You know, if this was a case that you could make sense of, who would the target be?” Sisti asked the jury on Friday. “If Lance was going to kill somebody, and they’re in marital discord, and his life’s being torn apart by Melina, where do you think the target would be?”
Melina Goodrich was not called to the stand during the trial.
“You didn’t see her walk up to the witness stand. You didn’t get to see her raise her right hand. You didn’t get to see her under cross-examination because the state didn’t call her,” Sisti said, going on to remind the jury that the burden of proof rests solely on the prosecution and so the defense is not required to call witnesses to the stand.
“That alone, ladies and gentlemen, that alone can acquit Lance Goodrich because … the first element that the defense has to prove in this case is that … the defendant caused the death of another,” Sisti said.
On Thursday, Macleod granted a “missing witness” motion by the defense to be included in the jury instruction before deliberation.
The missing witness instruction to the jury states, in part, that if “the absence of that witness has not been satisfactorily explained, then you may conclude that the testimony of that witness would have been unfavorable to the side which failed to call the witness.”
The state pointed out during their closing argument, which lasted about as long as Sisti’s, that the defense did not fully recite the missing witness instruction, which goes on to say: “however, if the missing witness’ testimony would merely have been the same as another witness that did testify, you should not conclude that the missing witness’ testimony would have been unfavorable to the side which failed to call her.”
The explanation for not calling Melina to the stand, Durand said, was to avoid having the defense “accuse her of murder and accuse her of being a liar.”
“I find it interesting that the one thing defense counsel never talked about during his closing (argument) was his own client’s testimony,” she said. “That is because he knows that it’s up to (the jury) to judge his client’s credibility just as you would any other witness, and what the defendant did on the witness stand was not credible.”
Durand recalled how when Lance Goodrich took the stand, Sisti asked him to look at the jury and tell them who murdered Brooke Goodrich.
“He looked down at the witness stand,” Durand said. “With his eyes looking down, he told you it wasn’t him. With his eyes looking down, he said that Melina shot and killed Brooke Goodrich, and then he gave you absolutely no reason.”
Durand went on to counter the defense’s arguments regarding forensic evidence, asking the jury to recall multiple expert witnesses who stated that gunshot residue tests can be unreliable and how DNA testing is a “chance collection.”
Durand also reminded the jury that all three Goodriches, Lance, Melina and Brooke, owned and handled their own firearms, raising questions as to why Melina would have had to use Lance’s handgun to shoot Brooke dead, as the defense claims, and why Brooke’s gun was found holstered at the murder scene when she would have clearly been able to see who was coming through the large window of the door.
“As Brooke opened the door … and stepped back to let her cousin in, the defendant stepped up and shot her,” she said. “(Brooke) thought that the person who she opened the door for was a friend and not a threat.”
The state argued that Lance Goodrich’s murder of his cousin was premeditated because of suicide notes and money he left behind for Melina and his four children.
During opening arguments, a dozen members of the Goodrich family attended, sitting on separate sides of the courtroom, supporting either Lance or Brooke.
On Friday afternoon, only five were waiting for the jury to return a verdict.
“Stay strong. Stay strong,” Lance Goodrich’s grandmother repeated to his mother on the side of the courtroom that was nearest to the defense table where he was sitting.
On the other side, behind the prosecution, Brooke Goodrich’s mother Becky Springer leaned forward with her elbows on her knees as she waited for the jury.
Just before 4 p.m., the jury returned. When the jury forewoman read “not guilty” to the most serious charge, first-degree murder, which carries a sentence of life without parole, a Brooke supporter flinched in her seat.
To the charge of second-degree murder, which still carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, the jury found Lance Goodrich guilty.
“Very pleased he was found not guilty of first-degree murder,” Mark Sisti, Goodrich’s attorney said in an interview in the courtroom following the verdict. “We look forward to the sentencing and eventual appeal.”
Members supporting both Lance and Brooke Goodrich declined to comment.
Goodrich’s mother stood and watched as her son was taken back to jail in handcuffs before leaving herself.
