Tennis official arrested on murder charges
Lois Ann Goodman is a professional tennis official and a mother of three, but is she also an adulteress and a murderer? Still wearing her track suit and court shoes, Goodman was escorted out of her New York hotel where she was preparing for the US Open.
70 year old Lois Ann Goodman, who has officiated at both the US and Australian Opens for years, has been a referee since the 1970`s. She has judged matches for some of the most well-known players including John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova. In an interview with the L.A. Times back in 1994, Goodman said, “It’s exciting. This is my favorite sport and I’m out there rubbing shoulders with the best players. There’s no real way to describe it.”
But on Tuesday, August 21st, 2012, Lois Ann Goodman went from being one of the top tennis umpires to a murder suspect.
Neighbor Michael Rudchenko recalls that Goodman “didn’t seem at all upset,” on April 17th, the day she supposedly found her husband dead. Other neighbors stated that Alan Goodman`s death came after weeks of arguing in the home. Groundskeeper, Alfonso Rosas mentioned that police had come to the home several times for disturbances.
Lois Ann Goodman told police that when she returned home from a tennis match she found her husband dead on their bed along with a broken coffee mug covered in blood. She told them that she suspected he had a heart attack and fell down the stairs then crawled back into bed where he died.
Detective Jeffrey Briscoe of the Los Angeles PD wrote in a warrant request that “Lois’ emotional reaction to what she had seen and the loss of her husband was not typical of a grieving spouse.”
According to the Daily Mail, “Before he could be cremated, investigators intercepted the body and found multiple lacerations on the right side of his head, three cuts on his right ear and a blunt force trauma not consistent with a fall.”
The Daily News reported that there was also a large blood stain by the stairs that suggests Alan Goodman suffered an injury and laid there for a while. There was also blood found in the kitchen, linen closet, next to the garage and mug fragments in his scalp.
There is also an affidavit stating that Lois Ann Goodman was speaking to another man via the internet and although police would not reveal the details of the messages, they did say that they found a handwritten love letter to Lois as well.
Briscoe also stated in the search warrant request that “The content of [an] email suggests that Lois was terminating a relationship and that alternate sleeping arrangements should be made in Los Angeles.”
On Thursday, August 23, 2012 she was seen leaving a Manhattan court still wearing her uniform and court shoes. Lois Goodman has now been extradited back to Los Angeles where she will await trail. If convicted, she could face life in prison.
