NORTH HAVERHILL — Who murdered Brooke Goodrich? Not the man who prosecutors allege admitted multiple times to pulling the trigger, according to his defense attorney.
In his opening argument in Grafton Superior Court on Tuesday, Defense Attorney Mark Sisti contended it was not his client, Lance Goodrich, now 40, who knocked on the door and shot his cousin, Brooke Goodrich, 25, in the head, killing her.
Instead, Sisti said, it was Lance Goodrich’s wife, Melina, who committed the crime that day nearly five years ago .
“Melina Goodrich shot Brooke,” Sisti said. “Melina Goodrich shot Brooke.”
Since pleading not guilty to first- and second-degree murder in the killing of his cousin at her home in Orford on Nov. 20, 2021, Goodrich has been held in Grafton County Jail awaiting trial. It was originally scheduled to begin in 2023, but was postponed and moved to 2025, when it was again postponed. The case also saw nine attorneys withdraw over the years.
“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said Sisti.
During the state’s opening statement in court on Tuesday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Chong Yen said Goodrich “killed Brooke because she was ‘running her mouth,’ ” which echoes the police affidavit in the case.
Goodrich allegedly told police that he shot his cousin in the head because she was “telling other people lies about him and his wife,” according to the affidavit. The affidavit states that he told police he and his wife had separated a couple weeks before the shooting.
The facts in the case, Chong Yen went on, are “simple” and Goodrich’s guilt will be proven by witness testimony, digital evidence and forensic evidence, in addition to Goodrich’s admissions.
“The defendant’s actions were targeted,” he said. “He did exactly what he chose to do. And after permanently punishing Brooke for the disrespect he showed (Goodrich’s wife) Melina, the defendant fled the scene, leading law enforcement on a near four-hour manhunt as he fled to Hanover, to Lebanon … then to Newport, New Hampshire, where the defendant barricaded himself before surrendering to police.”
Prosecutors objected multiple times during Sisti’s opening statement. One of the objections led the judge to stop the defense attorney from unfolding a piece of paper he summoned from his inner blazer pocket.
After a five-minute sidebar between Judge Lawrence MacLeod and attorneys, Sisti returned to the podium and picked up where he left off, describing a warning communicated to Brooke Goodrich on the morning of her murder by “none other than Melina.”
Chong Yen also objected when Sisti told the jury, “You’ll hear evidence that she was proficient with a firearm.” After another short sidebar with the judge and the state, Sisti told the court that Melina Goodrich was “no stranger” to the 9-mm handgun that killed Brooke.
Sisti challenged the state’s forensic evidence related to the gun and the bullet that killed Brooke. He claimed it wouldn’t eliminate Melina from having pulled the trigger, adding that when investigators dusted the gun, “they didn’t get any prints” from either Lance or Melina.
He said that state police “didn’t do one gunshot residue examination” on Lance Goodrich’s hands when he was in custody.
Sisti told the jury that Lance Goodrich did in fact drive to Brooke’s house on Route 10 the day she was killed, but when he got there, “he heard a gunshot.”
“I’ll take care of this,” Sisti said Goodrich told his wife afterward.
“(Goodrich) protected her and protected her for a long time,” he said. “But enough is enough.”
At the time of her death, Brooke Goodrich worked as a finisher at furniture maker Pompanoosuc Mills in East Thetford, where her twin brothers and late father had also worked.
Born in Lebanon, she had spent much of her teenage and young adult years in Florida near her mother. But in 2020, she returned to the Upper Valley, where her family has longtime ties, to live closer to her brothers. Her father, who died when Brooke was 9 years old, is buried here.
About a dozen friends and members of the Goodrich family were present on the first day of the trial. But they sat on different sides of the courtroom.
Supporters of Lance Goodrich were seated on the defense side, while Brooke Goodrich’s mother, Becky Springer, and her husband, Rick, sat on the other. Members of the family declined to comment.
According to the prosecution’s witness list included in the case file last week, Melina Goodrich was among the nearly 100 witnesses who could be called to testify.
After the first day of the trial, Sisti said he does not expect prosecutors will put her on the stand: “They’re not calling her.”
Assistant Attorney General Bethany Durand declined to comment on whether Melina Goodrich would be called to testify.
The trial is scheduled to last two to three weeks.
