SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Bruce Dallas Goodman spent 19 years in prison for the rape and murder of Sherry Ann Fales Williams, a crime he maintained he did not commit.

Decades later, newly tested DNA evidence led to his conviction being overturned, but not everyone was convinced of his innocence.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Bruce is innocent,” said Jennifer Springer, managing attorney at the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center. “He did not commit this crime, and the evidence shows it.”

But Beaver County Attorney Von Christiansen, who had to decide whether to retry the case after Goodman’s conviction was vacated, saw it differently.

“Because of the unique circumstances and because of the lost evidence, it didn’t necessarily solve the mystery,” he said.

Brutal Murder

On November 30, 1984, a Utah Department of Transportation road crew made a gruesome discovery along an I-15 off-ramp in Beaver County, Utah.

The body of 21-year-old Sherry Ann Fales Williams was found partially nude, her hands and feet bound by rope.

“What happened to Sherry Ann was awful,” Springer said. “Absolutely one of the worst crimes that I’ve worked on.”

Her injuries were extensive.

"There were defensive marks on her hands,” Christiansen said. “In fact, the tip of her middle finger on her left hand had been severed. It was a brutal, horrific crime.”

With no known witnesses and little physical evidence, investigators quickly zeroed in on 32-year-old Bruce Goodman, Williams' ex-boyfriend as the suspect.

At the time, Goodman was described in local news reports as a Texas drifter with no permanent address. He was arrested in San Antonio, Texas and waived extradition, telling investigators he was willing to return to Utah to help find the real killer.

Case Built on Circumstance

In 1986, Goodman stood trial for Williams’ murder and rape. He waived a jury, placing his fate in the hands of a judge.

There was no murder weapon presented in court and no eyewitness to the crime.

The case rested on blood-typing and witness statements from the night before the murder.

One key witness, who claims to have seen Williams and Goodman arguing at the Peppermill Casino in Mesquite, Nevada, picked him out of a police lineup. But that lineup was later criticized by Goodman's attorney for being suggestive with half of the photos being of Goodman.

“You simply cannot provide a six-pack photo lineup with three of the photos being the suspect,” Springer said. “That’s inappropriate.”

Investigators also pointed to a cigarette butt found at the crime scene that had the serology of a type-A secretor.

“The fluid that was found inside of her [the victim] had the same serology” Christiansen said.

That blood type matches 32% of men in the United States.

Goodman admitted at trial to stealing his employers truck and said he drove it to California. However, detectives said it was found at a truck stop in Las Vegas the night before the murder.

"They had been seen quarreling arguing together and then a few hours later she and Goodman, this person that was identified by witnesses were also spotted in Mesquite at some sort of a western village casino and truck stop there again arguing. (00) so she and the suspect who had been identified with the victim had been traveling together north along I-15 and just hours before" Christiansen said.

Goodman’s defense pointed to a different timeline of events.

Multiple witnesses said he was in Stockton, California,700 miles away, the night of the murder.

The rope used to tie Williams did not match materials from his former job. Hair samples found at the scene were not his.

“This is a fantastic case,” Springer said. “Had some of this evidence been tested in 1984, Bruce would have been excluded as a suspect very early on.”

Goodman was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to five years to life in prison.

Overturning a Conviction

Nearly 19 years after the conviction, new DNA testing changed everything. It started when Goodman wrote a letter to the Roky Mountain Innocence Center claiming he was innocent.

They petitioned the court to order DNA be retested using the latest technology.

The results came back showing Goodman's DNA was not inside the victim or on any of the original evidence.

“Once the DNA evidence was tested, it excluded Bruce as a contributor,” Springer said. “It identified another individual in those samples.”

That evidence was enough for a judge to overturn Goodman’s conviction. Still, some remained unconvinced.

“The fact that the conviction was reversed and that he was exonerated doesn’t necessarily mean innocence,” Christiansen said. “But what it does mean is reasonable doubt.”

With the case in his hands, Christiansen was given five days to decide whether to retry Goodman.

“Five days wasn’t nearly enough time after 19 years,” he said.

Even if he had more time, a key piece of evidence, the cigarette butt, had gone missing.

“They insisted they gave the sheriff everything, but the sheriff said we never got the cigarette butts,” Christiansen said. “Somehow, somewhere, that cigarette butt was lost and never tested.”

Without it, he said he couldn’t proceed.

“I didn’t refile the charges because at that point, there was reasonable doubt,” he said.

Life After Prison

Goodman walked out of prison a free man in 2004 but faced an uncertain future.

“I’m not going to try to live the rest of my life in a couple of weeks,” Goodman said in an interview after his release. “Just take it a step at a time and go from here.”

But his steps led nowhere.

At the time of his release Utah had no law on the books to compensate the wrongfully imprisoned. With no compensation from the state and few resources, he became homeless.

A decade later, in 2014, Utah had since passed a law compensating the wrongfully convicted and Springer was tasked with finding Goodman to help petition for his factual innocence and financial restitution.

“I very clearly remember when I found Bruce,” she said. “He was hanging out under a tree in a park, just laying there.”

Goodman, who had been living in California at the time, returned to Utah and stayed in a hotel while attorneys worked on his case. Before they could finalize the process, he died of a heart attack.

“Bruce was a great guy, and he had a tragic, absolutely tragic life,” Springer said. “He didn’t deserve this.”

The year after his death, a judge issued a formal declaration of innocence. Goodman never lived to see a cent of restitution, but his three surviving children eventually received $100,000 to split between them.

“No amount of money is going to give Bruce back 18 years of incarceration,” Springer said.

Justice Still Unserved

Even with Goodman cleared and a DNA profile, no one else has ever been identified as a suspect in Williams’ murder.

“What happened to Sherry Ann was awful,” Springer said. “She didn’t get justice.”

For Christiansen, the case remains unsettled.

When asked if he believed Goodman was the real killer, Christiansen paused before adding “Well, my problem is, I don’t know, and if the prosecutor doesn’t know, then how can the case move forward?”

Springer, who worked much more closely with Goodman, sees this entire case as tragic, but doesn't believe Goodman had resentment for the justice system.

"He was dealt a really tough hand and I think he did the best that he could with the tools that he was given and the experience he had gone through" Springer said.

For Goodman, his focus was to clear his name.

"Even though he didn't get to see it we were able to get that posthumous declaration of innocence and I think that that would have been really important to Bruce" Springer said.

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