Press Release
LONG ISLAND MAN CONVICTED OF MURDERING PREGNANT GIRLFRIEND
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Goey Charles was convicted of murder in the October 2020 death of his pregnant girlfriend, 29-year-old Vanessa Pierre. He dumped her body on the side of the Horace Harding Expressway in Bayside and drove away.
District Attorney Katz said: “We achieved justice for Vanessa. The verdict does not bring her back, but it holds her killer accountable. We will be asking the court to send the defendant to prison for a very long time for the brutality and callousness he showed in murdering and abandoning the lifeless body of his girlfriend, the woman who was to be the mother of his child.”
Charles, 33, of Rochelle Court in Uniondale, was convicted yesterday of murder in the second degree. He faces 25 years to life in prison. Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder set sentencing for November 29th.
According to the charges and video surveillance footage:
- On October 23, 2020, at about 2:50 a.m., Charles pulled a white Dodge Challenger registered to his girlfriend over at 216-07 Horace Harding Expressway.
- At approximately 3:30 a.m., he exited from the driver’s seat of the car and went into the backseat, where his girlfriend was sitting. When a light in the vehicle illuminated, the victim, who was pregnant, could be seen moving.
- At approximately 4:36 a.m., Charles exited the vehicle, dragged Pierre out of the car and left her on the sidewalk. He got back in the car and drove away.
- At around 6:00 a.m., an MTA bus driver saw Pierre on the ground, unresponsive, a pair of gray sweatpants wrapped around her neck. Emergency responders arrived on the scene and pronounced her dead.
Senior Assistant District Attorney John Esposito of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys John Kosinski, Bureau Chief, Peter J. McCormack III, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief, and Karen Ross, Deputy Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Shawn Clark.