The third day of testimony in the trial of Willie Cory Goldbolt, accused of gunning down eight people including a sheriff’s deputy over the 2017 Memorial Day weekend, provided jurors with an eyewitness account of the shooting inside a mobile home on Lee Drive in Bogue Chitto.
Godbolt’s child testified Monday about alleged family mistreatment, which defense attorney’s say is why Godbolt “snapped.”
Godbolt is accused of killing seven of his ex-wife’s relatives at houses throughout Lincoln County, as well as sheriff’s deputy William Durr, the first lawman to respond to a domestic disturbance between Godbolt and his in-laws at 2871 Lee Drive in Bogue Chitto on May 27, 2017.
Durr responded to the call and became the first victim when Godbolt shot him in the face point-blank, prosecutors said, before then shooting in-laws Barbara Mitchell, Brenda May and Toccara May. He allegedly shot at Deputy Timothy Kees outside the house before fleeing.
He later made his way to 1658 Cooperstown Road, the home of Shawn and Tiffany Blackwell, a friend of his estranged wife Sheena, where prosecutors say he shot his way in and killed Jordan Blackwell, 18, and Austin Edwards, 11, and forced Xavier Lilly to help him leave the scene.
He allegedly stole two cars before going to the site of the final killings, 312 East Lincoln Road, Brookhaven, where he was shot in a gunfight with Ferrell Burage before killing Burage and his wife Sheila.
On Monday, the defense argued his concerns about the child essentially caused the shooting. Godbolt hung his head.
Tamayra May, the cousin of Godbolt’s ex-wife Sheena, was at the trailer when the shooting started.
May said she witnessed much of the shooting from outside the trailer, where she stood next to a car in which she eventually took cover.
May said she called 911 after hearing gunshots inside the trailer, around 11:30 p.m. after Godbolt arrived on the property. She said she saw Godbolt exit the trailer through a back door, drop an empty pistol magazine, reload the firearm and enter the trailer again. She heard more gunshots, and saw Godbolt exit the trailer and retrieve a long gun from the back of his station wagon, also parked in the driveway.
May testified she heard Godbolt exchange gunfire with another deputy before taking off on foot toward the back of the property. She said she didn’t see where he went.
The defense then called Lincoln County investigator Andrew Montgomery, who serves on a special unit similar to a SWAT team and was one of the first responders on the scene of the Lee Drive shooting.
Montgomery said he arrived at the scene of the shooting at about midnight. He said he was treating the scene as an “armed, barricaded subject” based on reports from other law enforcement officials.
Ex-wife testifies on Day 2
In the second day of the trial, jurors heard testimony Goldbolt’s ex-wife Sheena May, who painted a picture of a long history of domestic abuse and mental and emotional control over their family on the part of Cory Godbolt.
His defense attorneys said Godbolt has lived a life marked by violence and dysfunction, describing the moments leading up to the shootings.
Godbolt listened intently as state prosecutor Brendan Adams questioned May regarding her 17-year relationship with Godbolt. May testified they’d been separated a number of times throughout the course of their relationship.
Defense attorneys attempted to invoke the spousal privilege rule, which would have rendered May ineligible to testify as a witness, and argued May was only witness to the scene of the first two shootings and not the others. Prosecutors argued that because the case is being tried as “one continuous transaction,” and the case involved a minor child of the witness, May should have the right to testify.
Circuit Judge David Strong ruled in favor of prosecutors, allowing May to take the witness stand.
May revealed she had finalized divorce proceedings with Willie Cory Godbolt just last week, and requested the court not to refer to her as Sheena Godbolt. May testified she and Godbolt had been separated for about two months before the shootings occurred.
“I chose my life over my marriage,” she said. “He was abusive to me.”
Godbolt was apparently angered after an alleged incident involving his daughter that took place a year before the shootings. May testified that Godbolt had urged her to press charges against her mother and stepfather for failing their responsibility in watching over his daughter. May refused to do so, which she said upset Godbolt.
May said she told Godbolt’s brother, Chris Godbolt, about the situation and asked him to speak with Cory Godbolt about it. She said that Cory Godbolt physically assaulted her in response to her refusal to press charges.
May said that on Memorial Day weekend in May 2017, she’d been staying at her mother’s trailer. She said she went to Cory’s trailer after getting off of work to pick up her children, who had been at a barbecue. She took her children back to her mother’s house.
May said Godbolt came to the trailer to pick up their kids between 7 and 7:30 p.m. Godbolt dropped the children back off at their grandmother’s around 9 p.m. to shoot fireworks and didn’t return to the property until 11, just before the shooting.
Under cross-examination, it was revealed that Godbolt and May traded messages in the hours leading up to the shooting, with Godbolt telling her his only priority was to keep their family together. But he also said he did not want law enforcement involved, not believing an officer would treat him fairly. May said she took that to mean Godbolt would take matters into his own hands.
May said she was in a back room in her mother’s trailer with her children when she received a text on her daughter’s phone from her sister alerting her to Godbolt’s arrival. May testified she immediately called 911 after receiving that message.
Godbolt entered through the kitchen and became confrontational, appealing to May’s parents about his desire to keep his children.
When Durr entered the trailer, Godbolt claimed to be Vincent Mitchell, who is his father-in-law, but Durr determined Goldbolt’s identity and asked him to leave.
May said Godbolt attempted to explain his side of the story and in that moment, somebody entered the trailer through a back-door and Godbolt turned toward the front door, feigning an attempt to exit, before reaching for a pistol and shooting Durr in the face.
“I saw it,” May said. “I saw blood.”
May said Durr fell onto his back and everybody in the house ran in terror. She said she saw Godbolt shoot at her aunt, Brenda May.
Sheena May ran to the back room, where her children were, busted out the bedroom window with her fist, hopped a nearby fence and ran through the woods to the home of family friend Michael Blackwells.
She said she beat on the door until Blackwell opened it. She called police again, left the residence and went to her sister Daphne’s house. From there, she called her friend Tiffany Blackwell, who soon received a call notifying her that one of her sons had been shot.
Under cross-examination, defense attorney Alison Steiner asked May if she ever hit Godbolt in retaliation for the abuse.
“He was 350 pounds, I was scared to hit him or defend myself,” May said. “All I did was run away.”
Trial has emotional beginning
Jurors in the long-awaited trial, expected to go for seven days a week for two to three weeks, got deep into information and emotion on the opening day on Saturday.
The jurors and alternates from DeSoto County — 10 white women, two black women and three white men — as well as the courtroom about half full of friends and family of the shooting victims saw a reporter’s videos of Godbolt being taken into custody and talking about why he went on his killing spree.
Prosecutors also introduced recordings of the 911 calls reporting the first shootings and radio traffic between law enforcement officers.
Much of the day’s testimony lived up to Strong’s warning that what those in the courtroom would hear could be very emotional.
Then-Clarion Ledger reporter Therese Apel, Godbolt’s father-in-law Vincent Mitchell, Lincoln County dispatcher Amy Smith and Lincoln County Sgt. Timothy Kees took the stand on the first day of testimony.
Prosecutors walked the jury through their case, which alleges that Godbolt argued with family members at Mitchell’s home. Someone at the home called 911 to get a deputy to escort Godbolt from the property.
Defense attorney Katherine Poor, in her opening argument, painted a picture of a husband, father and brother who had worshipped his police officer father who was shot dead when Godbolt was 16.
Poor said Godbolt’s marriage was not perfect, and his wife Sheena would retreat to her family home when they had arguments and separations, sometimes taking their children with her.
Notably, though Godbolt has entered a not guilty plea and is standing trial, Poor never attempted to make any case in her opening argument that Godbolt did not commit the acts of which he stands accused.
The district attorney’s office is seeking the death penalty.
Apel, now a reporter for WLBT TV, took the stand first, walking the jury through the videos she took at East Lincoln Road and explaining on cross-examination how she came to be on the scene and how and why she took videos of Godbolt as he was taken into custody.
Prosecutors played Apel’s videos back to back, showing Godbolt in custody face down on the street, then sitting in the street.
The videos showed Godbolt saying, “I just want to love my wife. I just want to love my kids,” “You can’t cause me more pain than I feel now,” and “Only God can judge me.”
Asked by Apel in the video about his motives, he said, “Suicide by cop was my intention ... I’m not fit to live.”
On cross-examination, Apel said she worked in Lincoln County previously and knew many of the responding officers who allowed her access to the crime scenes that other reporters might not have been able to reach. She said she was doing her job as a reporter and not trying to help law enforcement when she began recording.
Poor asked who called Apel to tell her about the shooting spree, but her legal representative, First Amendment attorney Leonard Van Slyke, objected. Apel did not answer the question.
Vincent Mitchell said Godbolt had come to the house three or four times and returned to the house the last time about 10:30 or 10:45 p.m., saying he wanted to take his children home.
A conversation with his wife’s aunt, Brenda May, and cousin, Toccara May, about their relationship and the children ensued, Mitchell said, during which Godbolt was told the children were already asleep and he should return for them in the morning. No voices were raised, he added.
When Durr arrived, Godbolt turned as if to leave before drawing his gun and shooting Durr.
Mitchell said Godbolt then ran toward the kitchen and began firing while he fled for the master bedroom, where his sister-in-law was sleeping,
He saw Godbolt return to the den and shoot his wife Barbara, who had been released from the hospital four days earlier, before he closed and locked the bedroom door and hid in the closet. His sister-in-law was under the bed.
Godbolt banged on the door and shot into it before giving up and leaving, and Mitchell said he and his sister-in-law went to the bathroom and called 911. They heard more gunshots inside and outside the house, he said, before eventually leaving the bathroom by a window.
Mitchell said no one else in the house had a gun drawn, including Durr.
Smith struggled to keep her composure on the stand as prosecutors played recordings of some of the calls to 911 from Lee Drive, including from Godbolt’s wife Sheena, who reported that Durr had been shot; and from Toccara Mays’ children Tamayra and Ty’Kaira, who called from their hiding place in a car outside the Lee Drive home and said they were “very scared.”
Kees testified about arriving at the Lee Drive home after being unable to reach Durr on radio, parking behind Durr’s car and walking between his and Durr’s cars when Godbolt allegedly began firing at him. Kees identified Godbolt as the shooter.
He said he heard pop noises, and “part of me knew it (was shots), and part of me didn’t want to believe it.”
He said Godbolt began firing at him, and he ran to take cover behind another car parked near the driveway before returning fire.
Prosecutors showed pictures of bullet holes in Kees’ county car.
He went back to his own car to get an assalt rifle out of the trunk and took cover behind a tree down the driveway from the house, and on cross-examination by Steiner, he said he lost sight of Godbolt during that time and did not know he had left the house.
Backup arrived within minutes, with deputy Bateman Stilley arriving first, he said.
