An Ohio man convicted of killing his girlfriend with a hammer and dumping her body in an abandoned Mother Goose-themed park was sentenced to 29 years to life in prison.
On Friday, Nov. 8, Sean Goe, 27, of Plain Township, was found guilty of murder, felonious assault, gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence in the murder of Raychel Sheridan, 24, court records show.
On Monday, Goe appeared in the Stark County Courthouse in Canton where Stark County Common Pleas Court Judge Frank Forchione handed down the sentence along with some harsh words regarding the crime.
“Mr. Goe, you sold your soul to the devil,” Judge Forchione said, News 5 Cleveland reports. “I have ordered you to receive the maximum sentence on every count because you deserve the maximum sentence.”
Forchione added that it is “without a doubt, the most brutal murder that I’ve seen.”
Goe sat in silence as the judge called him “morally bankrupt” with “no fiber of decency,” WKYC reported.
“Displaying the lowest level for human life, you then wrapped the body in a sheet and dumped it in a park near Mother Goose Land,” Forchione said. This is the person that at one point you claimed that you were in love with. Instead, you threw her in the trash like a piece of garbage.”
Prosecutors said she was beaten with the blunt end of a hammer that was recovered inside the apartment Sheridan shared with Goe, The Canton Repository reports.
Sheridan suffered at least 10 blows to the head, Dennis E. Barr, chief of the criminal division of the Stark County Prosecutor’s Office, said in his closing remarks at the trial, according to The Canton Repository .
Prosecutors said she was beaten with the blunt end of a hammer that was recovered inside the apartment Sheridan shared with Goe, The Canton Repository reported.
Her injuries left her unrecognizable by photo, Sgt. Bryan Johnson of the Stark County Sheriff’s Office said, according to The Canton Repository.
The crime came to light on July 3, when a Canton Parks Department employee found Sheridan’s body wrapped in plastic inside a garbage can at Mother Goose Land on Schroyer Ave. SW, according to a news release from the Stark County Sheriff’s Office.
The day before, Sheridan’s mother called police to perform a welfare check on her at the apartment she shared with Goe when she hadn’t heard from her and reported her missing, according to the news release from the Sheriff’s Office.
When Stark County Sheriff deputies arrived at the apartment, the door was open, but no one was inside. However, what they saw inside looked suspicious, police said, per 19 News.
Deputies then requested a search warrant, but while they waited for it, they saw what they believed to be Sheridan’s maroon Jeep Liberty driving down the street with Goe behind the wheel, the release said.
When deputies stopped him, he ran into a nearby, wooded area and was arrested the next morning initially on active warrants for burglary, grand theft of a firearm and domestic violence involving Sheridan.
“As a result of the search warrant executed at the apartment of Raychel Sheridan and Sean Goe, evidence was recovered indicating foul play,” the release noted, adding, “Detectives have determined that Sheridan was murdered inside the apartment.”
In August, Goe was indicted on two counts of murder and single counts of felonious assault, burglary, tampering with evidence, grand theft of a firearm or dangerous ordnance and gross abuse of a corpse, according to online court records. He was held on a $1 million bond and pleaded not guilty.
At the sentencing hearing, Sheridan’s mother, Lisa Sheridan, spoke, saying, “You have murdered our baby girl!” WKYC reported.
