Lakeland girl, 14, charged in newborn's death

Cassidy Goodson was a 14-year-old with a secret, deputies said.
The Kathleen High School ninth-grader was pregnant and didn't want anyone to find out, deputies said. As she began to show, she wore baggy clothes to conceal her appearance.
And then last week, deputies said, she told deputies she felt increasingly ill, went to the bathroom of her home and did the unthinkable.
Goodson gave birth into a toilet, then strangled her healthy, full-term newborn to death and left the body in a shoebox among dirty laundry, Sheriff Grady Judd said.
It was an "incredibly tragic event that makes you sick to your stomach," Judd said.
Goodson was charged Thursday with premeditated first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

Tampa Bay Online
Daily Mail article

I'm just going to say it. She knew what could happen if she had sex. She had sex anyway. She got pregnant, and then went to great lengths to hide it, even though several people apparently cried BS. Her parents appeared to be in total denial about it, how they couldn't figure out a 5 foot 3 100 pound girl had a noticeable belly to others boggles me. The baby was 9 and a half ponds, and 20 inches long. She's 1 inch shorter than me and half my weight--I would have looked like a beached whale with my slightly smaller children at 100 pounds (more so than I did look, that is)
This is a failure all around. Let's go with the assumption that the girl was scared. Fine, some teenagers do screw up and have a hard time taking responsibility. But what about the adults who suspected? Shouldn't something more have been done? She played softball, couldn't a coach have spoke up to someone else? Couldn't her suspicious aunts have spoken up to someone else? Obviously, her parents had their heads in the sand, so speaking up to them was useless, but no one could have hooked the girl up with pregnancy services?? And the hospital, come on, 5 vaginal lacerations from a miscarriage? Who the frack on staff bought that excuse?

I'm incredibly angry that a baby died because a selfish teenager didn't want to "change the relationship with her family", and because suspicious adults dropped the ball.

In my opinion, she should be sterilized and sent to jail.

reply to post by superman2012


I couldn't agree with you more!

This is seriously sad. I hate hearing these things. There are so many couples out there that can't have children of their own that would take in a healthy baby.

I also know of girls that with the help of family at the age of 14 gave birth and had their own children; raised them and those kids are now responsible adults and parents.

This is a sad story that could have been avoided; but this girl needs to see the consequences of her actions through and learn from them; along with anyone else thinking that it would work for them.

She needs to be charged in my eyes (yes I'm a woman and a mom) to teach her that she was wrong along with anyone else her age that thinks this would work for them.

There are safe havens for a reason in the US.

A_L

Seriously "and left the body in a shoebox among dirty laundry". Now that`s hidden I tell you.

She was 14 and that`s what she came up with? Sad story for all involved but agree do the crime be prepared to do the time. I also feel the parents need charged for child neglect.

Am I the only one who sees that that girl needed seriously psychiatric help? There was something disturbing her so much that she did something awful. If she would have sought professional psychiatric help this might have been avoided.

She was really fearful of something, and she obviously couldn't handle it.

This wasn't one incident. There was a 14 year long cascade of events that led to this. This was just the end result of a 14 year long parade of disfunction surrounding this girl.

Originally posted by EvilSadamClone
Am I the only one who sees that that girl needed seriously psychiatric help? There was something disturbing her so much that she did something awful. If she would have sought professional psychiatric help this might have been avoided.

She was really fearful of something, and she obviously couldn't handle it.

and that's why not only should the girl be charged with first degree murder, but the parents should ALSO be charged appropriately in a case like this. not only that but the school should also be asked how nobody noticed this. heck forget about the belly, but most pregnant ladies i know tend to go a little weird, while pregnant apparently due to hormonal changes. so why didn't the school notice something wrong?

Its sad no matter how you look at it....a dead baby....a child in prison....and idiotic parents.

If you ask me the parents got the ball rolling on these tragic events......I was 103lbs at 5'1" when I got pregnant with my son....I was 20lbs of baby.....its so freakin' obvious......no one was concerned about rapid weight gain?

I find it very hard to understand those who claim that hearing about these things makes them angry. It is certainly saddening and depressing – one more example, if you like, of the tragic misery and futility that often attend our lives – but how could it possibly make you angry? Angry with whom? A foolish, frightened teenager? Her parents? The society in which such things can happen? The powers that be? Barack Obama?

Come on, people. You don't know the first thing about the real circumstances under which this happened. All you have is news reports. You don't know the girl, you don't know her parents, you don't know her social milieu, what her home and school life are like, what handicaps, emotional or economic, she may suffer. You don't know how she felt, what went through her mind. How can you possibly judge her?

Or do you feel none of that matters? She sinned, you say, she committed a crime – murder, no less – and is thus a worthy object of anger, someone who ought to be punished. Really? By what lights are you entitled to judge a situation you know nothing about? Are you so sinless you can afford to cast stones? Could you stand innocent before a judge as strict, and as uncaring of the facts relating to the case, as yourself?

What this girl has done is wrong – no question about it – but it does not make her an evil person. Her crime – infanticide – is one of the oldest and commonest in the world. Usually, the motives for it are rather easy to understand – and forgive. That needn't be the case here, but who are we, strangers who know nothing of the circumstances, to decide the issue? You're just letting your emotions be manipulated by the media.

Personally, I find nothing remarkable, nothing worth discussing, about this incident. It is not at all original. It is not part of a trend. It does not highlight some problem of society that needs to be addressed. It does not give evidence of deteriorating public morality. It is not a harbinger of Judgement Day. It is just another tabloid storm in a teacup.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be talked about, discussed, reported on in the media and made the subject of a thread on ATS. If people think it's worth discussing, then I suppose it is. But let's send the moral high horses back to the stable, shall we? They're designed for heavy haulage, not for something as trivial, and meaningless, as this.

I realized I forgot a third article I had found, the once citing her aunts had known, as well as stating she was on a softball team this summer.

Detectives said the girl, who weighs 100 pounds and is 5-feet-3, had been hiding her pregnancy from her family by wearing baggy clothes, including sweatshirts and jackets, for the past several months.
A Kathleen High School student said the girl had told her she was pregnant.
"Ya, I knew she was pregnant but I didn't tell nobody because it was supposed to be a secret. It's not a secret now,” Jazmyn Curry said.
According to the report, two of the girl's aunts suspected the girl was pregnant and talked to the mother about it, but the mother had denied the girl was pregnant.
According to the arrest affidavit, the mother had given her daughter two pregnancy tests, both of which she took with no parent present, because her mother wanted to protect her daughter's privacy.
The tests came back with no result, with the mother interpreted as a negative result.

Others questioned if girl was pregnant
The girl was a member of a softball team that played at a North Lakeland complex. Her team had even won a championship this summer.
A team official said he and other coaches had confronted the mom about their pregnancy suspicions but the mother said a test showed her daughter wasn't pregnant.

Bay News 9 article

At least one other student knew. Softball coaches and her aunts had suspected. No one did a damn thing to help her. As far as I'm concerned, she deserves the longest possible sentence behind bars, and therapy wouldn't hurt either.
What this looks like to me is a teen that didn't have nearly enough parental involvement/supervision, and lucked out with a pair that she could pull the wool over eyes easily with. I swear, there's no excuse for not noticing YOUR TINY DAUGHTER IS PREGNANT. I believe it was the Daily Mail article stating she'd walked around the house wrapped in a blanket to conceal her belly, I think her dad made that statement. WTF? In this summer climate? Parenting. FAIL.

At 14 her parents need to be held accountable. Period.

reply to post by Astyanax


You are right of course. A little more context would help people understand the situation a little better. I still stand by my original post, unless she did not consent to, or was forced into sex.

reply to post by antar


No other person can ever be held accountable for another person's violence and murder. Ever. Many families have problems, and vastly different cookies in the home. You are responsible for your own action.

If the ministry finds examples of abuse, that stands on its own, then the parents are abusive. But other than that, people are resonsible for their own behavior.

At 14 she is not legally responsible as an adult, and not mature enough to even fathom fully what she did. But she is somewhat able to. And should not be off the hook.

What the homelife is like, would be something that can be studied, but its not something anyone can prejudge. Some very good families turn out some kids who make train wrecks of their lives and others. I've known many growing up, that had a kid turn to drugs, or get into trouble.

Also, the heritage and culture is improtant as well. For example, a teenager in a very patriarchal family, may have done that to save her life, or even on orders of someone.

reply to post by Unity_99

I agree, to a point. The girl thought she was adult enough to have sex. She carried on with her life concealing the pregnancy & participating in her normal activities. Be it in denial, or thinking she could hack it, she still opted not to turn anywhere for help of any kind. In the end, she made the choice to kill as well. This doesn't necessarily strike me as a terrified kid hiding for the duration, this strikes me as a teenager who may have had an over-abundance of confidence and chose a vile way out of taking responsibility when the time came. SHE has to deal with the consequences, because it was not her mother or father who strangled that little boy.

Everyone who had known or suspected she was pregnant gets their own version of karma. They get to go through the rest of their lives wondering, "What if I had--" The knowledge and actions (or rather, lack thereof) cannot be unknown or undone. That's punishment enough weighing on the conscience.

The problem I have with this discussion is we are discussing a minor. I am sorry to say, but there is NO reason the media should be reporting this. It is distasteful, despite how this disturbing the situation is, it is in none of our right to make judgement upon this situation.

It sometimes bothers me, the way that people on this site will just post/discuss stories of this type and pass immediate judgement. Saying things like she needs to be jailed for life, or sterilized. This is still a child we are speaking of, regardless of how adult her decisions/circumstance was, this just shouldn't be reported at all.

Just my opinion.

I wish somebody could explain to me why this girl is being vilified as horrible, murderous person when if she'd done the same thing a couple of months earlier, she'd have been something of a cultural hero, exercising her right to self determination.

And if she had an abortion, she would be hailed as a brave girl for deciding to do what she wanted with her body. This world is so sick and twisted all over the place, it's not even funny.

reply to post by Astyanax


This statement right here>>>>>>>>

I'm not saying it shouldn't be talked about, discussed, reported on in the media and made the subject of a thread on ATS. If people think it's worth discussing, then I suppose it is. But let's send the moral high horses back to the stable, shall we? They're designed for heavy haulage, not for something as trivial, and meaningless, as this.

is what I find saddening and depressing.To be so jaded and cynical about a "child" strangling a baby to death that it can be considered "trivial and meaningless"..........

This speaks volumes about where we are as as a society today, I guess.

Her parents are neglectful, and should have seen what was happening to their child, to help their child through the issues of pregnancy. This could have also been avoided had she been able to have an abortion.

Now, instead of 1 life being lost, 2 lives will be destroyed.