Ernesto Reyes's defense paints picture of drug-craving young woman.
July 8, 2009— -- To a casual observer, the evidence was overwhelming and damning: Surveillance cameras at multiple locations showed Ernesto Reyes as he stalked his victim, Melanie Goodwin, and then coldly went about the grisly work of disposing of her body. But for the defense, the 90 minutes that Reyes was not on tape provided critical room for reasonable doubt.
Fearing a blistering cross examination, Reyes' attorneys did not allow him to testify in front of the jury. Instead, they relied on a Spanish-language TV interview that was shown in court that in effect let Reyes tell his tale without a prosecutor to challenge him directly.
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Reyes' defense was a standard case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He claimed that his friend, Donovan Young, was the actual killer.
"I never wanted to be a killer. I was just there in the wrong place, hanging with the wrong people," he said in the interview.
A key witness at the trial, Young admitted that Reyes came to his apartment about 3 a.m. on the night of Melanie Goodwin's murder. Shockingly, Young also testified that Reyes led him to the parking lot and showed him Goodwin's body, her underwear slightly pulled down, in the back seat of the red Saturn.
"I seen her eyes were open. When I looked in the back seat. He said he killed someone. It looked like a dead person," he told the jury.
Unfazed at the site of Goodwin's lifeless body, Young did not stop to call the police or get assistance. Instead, he helped Reyes cover up the gruesome crime, lending him money and a gas can before returning to sleep in his apartment. "He said he needed some gas, he said he needed a few dollars," Young told the jury.
Young's cold-hearted testimony left an opening for Reyes and his attorneys, who saw this unsympathetic character as their scapegoat.
Click HERE for a slide show of Melanie Goodwin's life.
