A University of North Texas sophomore was raped before she was strangled and set on fire by a stranger she had tried to help by giving him a ride, a Dallas County prosecutor revealed Monday.
Prosecutor Andrea Handley told jurors during opening statements in the capital murder trial of Ernesto Reyes that after he raped 19-year-old Melanie Goodwin, he put his knee on her chest and strangled her before burning her body. Reyes faces an automatic life sentence if convicted of the Sept. 25, 2007, slaying.
"Melanie Goodwin never had an enemy in her life until she came into contact with the defendant in this case," Handley said.
But defense attorney Danny Clancy said in his opening statement that the state cannot prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
"We're in disagreement as to who is responsible for the death of Melanie Goodwin," he told jurors. "There is a hole in the state's case."
He argued that Goodwin had consensual sex and was not raped. He noted that while DNA shows sexual intercourse, no genetic material was found under her fingernails to suggest she fought back.
Clancy said a friend of Reyes, Donovan Young, is the true killer. Young, who is expected to testify for the state, is charged with tampering with physical evidence for helping Reyes the night Goodwin was slain.
"This man is a piece of work," Clancy said of Young.
Goodwin was killed after she gave Reyes a ride from a Denton convenience store, prosecutors say. She had worked her part-time job until nearly 1 a.m. handing out free Red Bull at a late-night video game release at Dallas GameStops. She stopped at the store to buy chocolate milk and Cheetos on the way to her boyfriend's apartment.
She did not know Reyes, who was unemployed and did not have a place to live after his girlfriend had ended their relationship, authorities said.
Surveillance video, prosecutors say, shows Goodwin and Reyes in the store. A store clerk testified Monday that Goodwin reluctantly agreed to give him a ride.
A short time after Reyes and Goodwin left the convenience store, Reyes showed up at Young's apartment, according to records. He told Young he had killed someone but didn't mean to. He asked for help disposing of the body.
Young told police he saw Goodwin's body in the back seat of her two-door red Saturn. He said he gave Reyes money to buy gasoline and a gas can.
Reyes said later that he punched Goodwin in the face and she stopped breathing, according to prosecutors and testimony from a prosecution witness Monday. Medical evidence scheduled to be presented later in the trial is expected to show Goodwin's injuries were far more severe.
Video recorded about 4 a.m. at a Carrollton office building the morning Goodwin was killed shows a stocky man dragging a body from a car and setting it on fire. Later, Reyes returned to Young's apartment and said he had burned the body a few blocks away, records show. The men then went to sleep.
Reyes, who emigrated legally from Mexico, fled to his home country. Authorities arrested him there in October 2007 after he called his former girlfriend in Texas.
Testimony is expected to continue today.
