A pregnant Oklahoma woman who was shot to death and her fetus cut from her body has been buried
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Doctors fooled by suspect's pregnancy tale
2004-01-01
By Anthony Thornton
The Oklahoman
HOLDENVILLE -- Those who know murder defendant Effie Goodson weren't the only ones fooled by her claim she was pregnant.
Goodson, 37, told the same story to two doctors in a workers' compensation case in the spring. As a result, her treatments and medication for a work-related knee injury were halted but disability payments continued, The Oklahoman learned Wednesday.
Goodson was charged this week with kidnapping and killing a pregnant woman she had befriended.
Investigators allege she lured Carolyn Simpson, 21, into her car with the promise of baby clothes, then shot her in the head and cut out Simpson's unborn baby boy.
Goodson claimed the infant as her own when taken to a Holdenville hospital five hours after Simpson was last seen alive. An exam revealed Goodson had not been pregnant.
The baby was dead on arrival, leading to another first-degree murder count.
Goodson had told several people she was pregnant since the spring, when a baby shower was thrown for her. She made the same claim in March as part of her workers' compensation case stemming from a knee injury suffered in April 2000, Oklahoma City attorney Thad Groom said.
"Neither doctor questioned her veracity," he said.
Groom represents a home health care business that Goodson worked for in April 2000, when she was injured in a fall. Goodson has had three arthroscopic knee operations since her injury, Groom said.
Once Goodson said she was pregnant, doctors halted her treatments and medication, and Groom tried to stop her $74-a-week disability payments.
A judge denied Groom's request, citing case law that states such payments cannot be stopped by an intervening medical condition, Groom said.
"She's been getting benefits (since then) under a ruse," the attorney said.
Goodson made the pregnancy claim 18 months after she said in a deposition that she had a hysterectomy during the 1980s.
Groom said the hysterectomy apparently had been forgotten between the September 2001 deposition and the pregnancy claim. He said he filed a motion Monday to end Goodson's disability payments after learning of the murder case.
"She did not seem like a bizarre lady. We suspected some foul play (in the disability case), but we didn't see her as being a bizarre person," Groom said.
In other developments Wednesday:
Simpson was buried in Chillicothe, Mo. A separate service will be held for her baby.
Wewoka attorney Richard Butner was appointed Wednesday to represent Goodson. Butner said he knows Goodson's husband and his family, calling them "good people," but said he doesn't know her.
The mystery of how Simpson's driver's license and Social Security card ended up in west Tulsa was partially solved. Simpson told her boss on Dec. 21 -- the day before she disappeared -- that her billfold was missing, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation reported Wednesday.
"We do not believe the missing billfold and Simpson's murder are related," OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said.