Email was to rile wife, suspect in Little Rock killing of former pro baseball player says

Not threat, he testifies in athlete’s death

Bill Goodman
Bill Goodman

A threat to kill John David Barfield sent a few minutes before the former pro baseballer was fatally shot was aimed at riling up the estranged wife of the Pine Bluff man now on trial in the death, the man testified Wednesday.

"Keep John away," William Lee Goodman Jr. texted about 30 minutes before the slaying. "If he moves, I'll kill him. Remember John threatened me."

Goodman said he had no real intentions of harming Barfield, telling Pulaski County jurors that he was just trying to goad his estranged wife as she had been doing to him while they argued by text message.

"Heat of the moment ... I was trying to frustrate her the way she was frustrating me," Goodman told jurors. "I didn't mean them."

[HOMICIDE MAP: Interactive map of killings in Little Rock in 2016]

Goodman is charged with first-degree murder over allegations he deliberately shot and killed the 52-year-old former Texas Ranger during a Christmas Eve altercation at Barfield's back door.

Goodman told jurors he had to shoot Barfield in self-defense and he regrets having to do so.

Jury deliberations begin at 9:30 a.m. today in the case before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson.

Goodman's wife had been living with Barfield for months after she left Goodman.

Goodman and his son had driven from Pine Bluff on Dec. 24 to the Barfield home in Little Rock to pick up Christmas gifts and a child-support payment from the woman, Mystic Goodman.

Testifying for 76 minutes, William Goodman told jurors on Wednesday that he had to shoot to save himself after Barfield ambushed him on the raised landing behind the victim's apartment. He said he didn't see Barfield before the man started beating him.

Goodman said that Barfield, likely because he was high on methamphetamine, shrugged off the first gunshot, so he had to shoot again.

He told jurors that he and Barfield were so close together that he had the gun pressed against his stomach and had to pull the trigger with his thumb.

"It was him or me," Goodman told the six women and six men of the jury.

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He said he then fell 15 feet from the landing. On the ground, he couldn't tell where Barfield was, so he hurriedly got his son and left the property, he testified, saying he feared Barfield would attack him again or go after the teen. He was gone before police arrived.

"I wanted to get my son out of the danger area," he said.

Goodman told jurors he was actually fond of Barfield, calling him "kind of childlike," even though Barfield regularly threatened his life and had tried to attack him before.

Mystic Goodman deliberately pitted Barfield against him, William Goodman said.

"I honestly liked John," he testified, "She run her mouth to him, stirring him up. He was being played like a fiddle."

But Goodman also said he was weary of threats from Barfield that came weekly, sometimes daily.

Police never found the gun Goodman used. Questioned by deputy prosecutor Tonia Acker, Goodman said he does not remember what happened to the weapon.

Questioned about the "keep John away" text, Goodman said he didn't want a confrontation with Barfield when he arrived at the man's home, which led the prosecutor to ask why he still went to Barfield's door.

Goodman said he just did what he always did when he got to the residence, saying he didn't expect to be attacked.

The prosecutor also pressed Goodman on why he never told anyone else he had shot Barfield and didn't call police himself to report what had happened.

Goodman said he was in so much pain after fighting with Barfield, then falling from the deck that he wasn't thinking clearly.

"The only thing I was thinking about was getting to the hospital," he said. "I was in shock. I didn't know what was happening."

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Metro on 08/10/2017

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