US News: Vanessa Pierre Murder: Goey Charles Receives Maximum 25-Year Sentence

Queens, New York – In a harrowing turn of events, Goey Charles, 33, has been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the gruesome murder of his pregnant girlfriend, 29-year-old Vanessa Pierre, announced Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. The chilling crime took place in October 2020, with Charles callously abandoning Pierre’s lifeless body on the side of the Horace Harding Expressway in Bayside.

District Attorney Katz, expressing the gravity of the situation, stated, “We asked for the maximum sentence because of the brutality of the crime and the defendant’s remorseless discarding of the lifeless body of his girlfriend, the woman who was soon to be the mother of his child. The sentence does not bring Vanessa back, but it achieves justice in her memory.”

Charles was convicted by a jury on November 14 of murder in the second degree and faced sentencing today by Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder.

The horrifying details of the crime, as presented during the trial, paint a chilling picture of the events that unfolded on that fateful night:

On October 23, 2020, at approximately 2:50 a.m., Charles drove Vanessa Pierre’s white Dodge Challenger to a location near 216-07 Horace Harding Expressway. Pierre was in the front passenger seat.

Around 3:30 a.m., Charles exited the car and approached the backseat, where Pierre was now seated.

At 3:38 a.m., as a light inside the vehicle illuminated, Pierre was observed moving around.

By 4:36 a.m., Charles callously dragged Pierre’s lifeless body out of the car, leaving her on the sidewalk before callously driving away.

Around 6:00 a.m., an MTA bus driver discovered Pierre on the ground, unresponsive, with a pair of gray sweatpants wrapped around her neck. Emergency responders pronounced her dead at the scene.

The medical examiner determined that Pierre died from asphyxia due to compression of the neck.

Senior Assistant District Attorney John Esposito of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau skillfully prosecuted the case under the watchful supervision of Assistant District Attorneys John Kosinski, Bureau Chief, Peter J. McCormack III, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief, and Karen Ross, Deputy Chief, all under the overall guidance of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Shawn Clark.