By Chris Fuchs
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown also disclosed his decision to seek the death penalty against the other defendant charged in the massacre, a crime that he described as the most gruesome he had seen in his 28 years of law enforcement.
Craig Godineaux, 30, of Jamaica, who entered the guilty plea, told Justice Stephen Fisher of State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens that John Taylor, 36, of Elmhurst, the other man charged in the murder and robbery, had masterminded the May 24 carnage.
Seven workers were led into the basement freezer, bound and gagged and shot execution-style. The victims were from Flushing, Ridgewood, Jamaica, Springfield Gardens, Ozone Park and New Jersey.
Brown, who has sought the death penalty three times since 1995, said he would pursue a capital case against Taylor but not against Godineaux since Godineaux was found to be mentally retarded. New York state is one of 13 states that do not allow the execution of mentally retarded criminals.
After Godineaux pleaded guilty Monday to the 50-count indictment under which he and Taylor were charged, Assistant District Attorney Robert Masters asked Godineaux a series of questions about how the crime was carried out.
Giving monosyllabic responses, his voice frequently trailing off, Godineaux said Taylor had planned both the robbery and the murders and that he was told “to finish the job.,”
Godineaux's clinical account upset some family members seated in the courtroom who let out wails and quickly left.
“After John shot the manager, did anything happen with any of the other workers?” Masters asked Godineaux.
“He shot a lady,” Godineaux said, referring to Anita Smith, one of the five workers murdered. “Do you know where he shot he?” Masters asked. “No,” said Godineaux, his head hung low.
“After John shot the lady, did there come a time that you got the gun?” Masters asked. “He told me – yes, he told me to finish the job.”
In previous statements made to police at the time of his arrest, Godineaux, a parolee who was employed as a security guard in Jamaica, said he had shot five of the workers, which he again repeated in court Monday. Taylor, an ex-employee of the Wendy's on Main Street, has consistently maintained that he had meant only to carry out the robbery and that he had shot one victim, said Mary de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the district attorney.
Brown would not say whether Godineaux would be called as a witness against Taylor.
At the end of the questioning, the judge asked Godineaux several times whether he understood all the consequences involved in pleading guilty, saying “you will never come out of prison alive” and that he would have to forfeit any right to appeal. He also told Godineaux that he would be sentenced to five consecutive life terms in prison.
Godineaux, his eyes trained on the floor, answered the judge with a barely audible “yes.”
The judge then raised the possibility that Godineaux might be mentally incompetent – unable to appreciate the consequences of his criminal actions – in addition to being mentally retarded. But the DA's office and Godineaux's attorney said they were convinced that he was not.
In November, Godineaux's attorney, Colleen Brady of the Legal Aid Society, first filed notice that her client was mentally retarded and could not be put to death if he were convicted of first-degree murder.
Once a defendant charged with first-degree murder is arraigned on an indictment, the district attorney has 120 days to decide whether to seek the death penalty. With the claim of mental retardation, the DA was granted a 60-day extension to make his decision since New York state does not execute mentally retarded criminals.
The DA's investigators spoke with Godineaux's family, friends and estranged wife as well as with his parole and probation officers who supervised him for past criminal convictions. He was interviewed by psychologists and his educational records were examined.
Two clinical and forensic psychologists – Daniel Martell and Timothy Derning – examined Godineaux and determined that he was mentally retarded as defined by state law.
After the hearing, some family members of the victims expressed displeasure with the law, which excludes the death penalty for mentally retarded convicts unless they murder another prisoner.
“You have to get that mental retardation out of there,” said Benjamin Nazario, the brother of one of the murder victims. “He premeditated it, [Godineaux] got away with it, so I'll give the credit to his lawyers.”
Many of the victims' families quickly left the courthouse after the hearing. Although Brown said he had held a conference with the families of the victims to inform them about his decision before publicly announcing it, he declined to offer specifics about why he chose to pursue the death penalty against Taylor and not Godineaux.
Brown, who is personally opposed to the death penalty, had exercised the capital punishment provision of the state law three times before Taylor's case since it was reinstated in 1995. In all three cases, the defendants received life in prison without the possibility of parole.
