Chapter 61: An Officer's Secret-The Disappearance of Rachel Good

SPEAKER 1: Hi guys. I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa and welcome to the next chapter in the book of the Dead. Brought to you by Dark Casts Network Indie Podcasts with a twist boo.

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SPEAKER 1: Hi guys. Welcome to the next chapter today. We have a case that I think everyone needs to hear, which honestly, I'm sure by now most of you have heard of it because a bigger podcast just covered it, which I didn't realize they were going to do obviously, but that's ok. It's a case that I briefly touched on when I was on WQEE Radio and the 20th anniversary of this case was on Wednesday the 18th.

SPEAKER 1: So I think it is more than appropriate to talk about this case because justice is still waiting to be served. This is the disappearance of Rachel Good. Rachel Good was born on October 6th, 1983 in Harrisonburg, Virginia to Carrie Good and Brenda Brown and a few years later, Carrie and Brenda had a son named Adam.

SPEAKER 1: Carrie wasn't around a lot when Rachel was growing up, he was a truck driver. So he spent a lot of time out on the road with the kids, staying with their mother around 1990 Brenda and Carrie divorced. It was not an amicable divorce and they didn't get along after the fact her mom ended up remarrying.

SPEAKER 1: And according to a blog post by Chris Slater who wrote about this case in 2012, Carrie said that Rachel didn't have the best time with her mom after Brenda remarried. He recalled one time she had called him saying that her stepfather had taken all of her belongings out of her bedroom and that she was left to sleep on the floor.

SPEAKER 1: So it sounds like he was a really strict disciplinarian. Rachel attended Fort Defines high school and loved the outdoors and hanging out with her family and friends. Her father said that as she became a teenager, she started to run with the wrong crowd and was getting herself into trouble at a young age.

SPEAKER 1: She got pregnant and she had three children. By the time she was 22 boys and a girl, she was described as a free spirit and a good mother. Friends said that she had the ability to bring out the best in them. And how much she loved to talk with her friend, Danielle Devel saying she'd have 30 minute conversations with people at the gas station.

SPEAKER 1: And she was great at being a telemarketer, which she did for a little while. She was always down for an adventure and once climbed onto a children's ride at a carnival to encourage her friend's children to be brave enough to go on. So she just seems like kind of like a goofy girl, like little goofy.

SPEAKER 1: She liked to do funny things to get her friend's kids to laugh. And yeah, she had kids at a young age, but you know, that happens sometimes, but it seemed like she was a really dedicated mom, really loved her children, loved her friends. Overall, she seemed like a pretty good person.

SPEAKER 1: It does though seem like she had some run ins with the law in 2002 and 2003. She was arrested for charges of forgery uttering, obtaining a service by fraud, obtaining money by false pretenses and failure to appear. So this suggests to me at least that she may have been writing or attempting to cash false checks.

SPEAKER 1: But I couldn't tell you for certain because I couldn't find that exact information. I could only find the actual charges and for those of you that don't know forgery and are two different things but very similar charges. So, forgery and uttering are both common law offenses.

SPEAKER 1: Forgery is defined as the creation and fabrication of a document with the intent to defraud and uttering is the passing or publication of a forged document that someone else had made with the intent to defraud according to Boston, criminal defense lawyers dot com.

SPEAKER 1: So basically forgery is you yourself creating a false document, writing a false check, writing a false will and uttering is trying to cash a forged check or use a forged will that you yourself did not write you let someone else do it. So basically the same charge, it's just who created that fake document.

SPEAKER 1: In October of 2003. She was 20 years old and 10 weeks pregnant with her fourth child. According to her father, she was attempting to turn her life around. But one night in early October, she had called her father asking to borrow $100 which he said of course, but only if she went to church that Sunday, which was the 12th.

SPEAKER 1: So she showed up and was so excited to tell her father about the man she had been seeing for the last couple of months, a police officer by the name of Adam Williams. So she is so excited. Yes, she's pregnant again.

SPEAKER 1: But, you know, it seems like her life is finally going in the right direction. She's dating a police officer. You know, she seems like she's trying to get it together with her run ins with the law going down the straight and narrow in terms of the forgery thing.

SPEAKER 1: She's trying to make better choices and create a better life for herself and her children. Exactly. So, you know, her father is pretty happy for her, she shows him a picture of Adam and this is my boyfriend. He says that's great. You know, here's the $100 you came to church, you held up your end of the bargain.

SPEAKER 1: You know, that's fine. But that would be the last time Carrie would ever see his daughter on October 18th. So six days later, she was with friends in the Elkton Volunteer Fire Department parking lot at around 6 p.m. which was near the Coin laundry off Spotswood Trail in Elkton, Virginia.

SPEAKER 1: Now, after hanging out with her friends, she was seen driving off in her Dodge Neon on the 19th the next day, her best friend is trying to get in touch with Rachel but can't get a hold of her. So what it seems like is that this friend goes to Rachel's apartment and sees Rachel's car but Rachel is nowhere to be found. So this friend calls Brenda Rachel's mom.

SPEAKER 1: Brenda is obviously concerned when she can't reach Rachel. So Brenda and her son, Adam call the police to report Rachel missing. A police officer shows up to take the report and Brenda says that this officer is shaking so badly as he's taking the report that he can barely hold his pen in his hand. The officer taking the report, you might ask.

SPEAKER 3: Well, no, because I think I already know who that would be.

SPEAKER 1: Adam Williams is there taking the report? Why is he shaking? Well, one could argue that he recognizes Brenda. That's his girlfriend's mom. You know, obviously he knows this is very bad, you know, his girlfriend's missing, she's pregnant. You know, I could understand the nerves a little bit. Ok, we'll go with that.

SPEAKER 3: I don't think so, but we'll go with that. We'll go with your theory.

SPEAKER 1: So for the first four days, due to the very small size of the police department in Elkton, Adam was the lead investigator and during that time, family members claimed that he entered Rachel's home and removed things from the home as evidence. Although no one seems to know what he took.

SPEAKER 3: Wouldn't him being the lead investigator be kind of a conflict of interest?

SPEAKER 1: Well, soon enough, Rachel's parents found letters between Adam and Rachel that revealed this romantic relationship that they had. So it looks like Brenda had no idea who Adam was. And it's very possible that Carrie didn't realize that This Adam Williams was the same Adam Williams that was dating his daughter.

SPEAKER 1: So with this discovery, there was also the discovery that not only was there a major conflict of interest with Adam being involved romantically with the woman who had disappeared, he was also married.

SPEAKER 3: What do you mean? He was married?

SPEAKER 1: Adam had a whole wife.

SPEAKER 3: So he was leading a double life.

SPEAKER 1: He was leading a double life. He was in a fully committed relationship with another woman while he was dating.

SPEAKER 3: Then that is not a fully committed relationship.

SPEAKER 1: It's not a fully committed relationship, not on his part. No. According to family members, I'm assuming in these letters, it's either in the letters or this is the theory that the family came up with was that Rachel had told Adam that she was pregnant and she wanted him to leave his wife. Now, he allegedly said no and wanted her to get an abortion, which he provided her money to pay for.

SPEAKER 1: She allegedly said, no, I'm not getting an abortion. I'm going to have this child. I'm going to have our child, but she kept the money. Not only did she not get the abortion, it's possible that she could threaten to tell his wife and she took the money that he gave her to use for an abortion and spent it on something else.

SPEAKER 3: Probably something for this baby or one of her children.

SPEAKER 1: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. What she spent the money on is irrelevant except for the fact that she didn't use it to pay for the abortion that he wanted her to get. She told him. No, that's very true.

SPEAKER 1: So, Brenda learns about all of this and decided to go around the police and told the then Elkton Mayor Wayne Prince about what had happened.

SPEAKER 1: So she, she said, forget the police department. I'm going straight to the mayor with this one. And Wayne Prince was very upset when he learned about the situation with Adam Williams. And he said he immediately confronted Chief Richard Pullen saying that Adam needed to be taken off the case and then he began working to correct the mishandled investigation. So the mayor handled that very well as well. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER 3: She, her mom went to, to the mayor said, look, I'm, I'm not playing this game. This is what's going on. And obviously the mayor did not know about this and took the reins himself and said that this is not happening. Ok. This, this is an investigation that needs to be done properly. I'm not letting anybody mishandle this any further than it has been mishandled already.

SPEAKER 1: Absolutely. The problem though is that four days had already gone by at this point.

SPEAKER 3: Well, unfortunately, her parents didn't know this.

SPEAKER 1: Oh, absolutely. It's not what I mean.

SPEAKER 3: They didn't know it from the get go. Otherwise this wouldn't have happened or it wouldn't have had that time lapse. It was after they found out that they said, oh, this is, this is not good. You know, we need to get this straightened out and get this done properly.

SPEAKER 1: Now, when brought to his attention, police chief Richard pulling claimed that he had no official knowledge of the affair between the two which Carey has since come out and said he does not believe. And the mayor said he is unsure if that's true or not. But just thinking about it logically, I'm not saying he did know or he didn't know. I have no idea.

SPEAKER 1: But this is a small town police department. You're going to tell me that no one knew that Adam was cheating on his wife.

SPEAKER 3: You can think of this in one of two ways. Either he kept it very close to the vest and didn't share because he was afraid he was going to get back to his wife or whomever he told was trying to protect him. You know, because there's that brotherhood.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I get what you're saying. But I do find it very hard to believe that no one in the department knew. It's possible that they did know and the chief didn't know. But I do find it hard to believe.

SPEAKER 3: It's all speculation.

SPEAKER 1: It is, it's all speculation. It's, I have no idea if he really knew or not. And no one will likely ever know if he really knew whether or not Adam Williams was having an affair with Rachel.

SPEAKER 3: Good. Well, he may not have known and maybe he didn't, you know, maybe the police chief didn't. Do you think that anybody else knew?

SPEAKER 3: There's a very good possibility that somebody else knew, but without actual, you know, hard evidence, you can look at it in a couple of different ways like we did.

SPEAKER 1: Now, 10 days after she disappeared, the Virginia State Police took over the investigation for the Elks and PD due to the conflict of interest involving Adam will.

SPEAKER 1: So at this point, it's gone above Elton, it's gone straight to the State Police Department which again, good because honestly, it's probably a conflict of interest for the entire department.

SPEAKER 3: If they had any knowledge, it would be. So you can't assume that nobody knew. So, yes, I fully understand why the state police got involved and it was probably through the mayor himself that called them.

SPEAKER 1: In, oh, probably a month after her disappearance in November of 2003, Adams submits his resignation to the Elkton Police Department which would be taking effect in January of 2004.

SPEAKER 1: So he resigned. He was subsequently placed on administrative leave that December after a search of his home, it was conducted. I don't know what they found if they found anything but they did search his house.

SPEAKER 3: Well, they were looking for something now or some things. But as you said, you don't have the information. So can only again, speculate on what they were looking for.

SPEAKER 1: Well, at this point, it's because he's essentially a person of interest, he's not necessarily a suspect at this point, but he is a person of interest because he is an officer with experience in investigations, experience and evidence, experience on how to get rid of evidence. So it's very likely that they searched his home, hoping to find something relating to her disappearance.

SPEAKER 3: Well, that, and you know, any of her, you said they've, you know, her parents found letters, maybe he had something to that effect or there could have been, you know, something on the computer. You know, most people have computers in their homes now. So it could very well be messages back and forth on the computer.

SPEAKER 1: Interestingly enough after his resignation, what does Adam Williams do? He moved out of state? This man is a person of interest in the disappearance of a pregnant 20 year old woman and he moves out of state. All I'm saying is that, that makes you look guilty as sin if you moved out of the entire state.

SPEAKER 3: Well, that's what you and I would think. However, you know, maybe he's moving, let's play devil's advocate. Maybe he moved because he didn't want his children to be subject to ridicule at school or anything like that.

SPEAKER 3: Maybe his, his wife continued to be with him and said, you know, I'm embarrassed every time I walk out of the house. So even though I'm still staying with you, I don't wanna live here anymore. Do I think any of that happened? Probably not. However you have to go with the theory, you know, innocent until proven guilty.

SPEAKER 1: 11 months after Rachel went missing. Rockingham County Commonwealth's attorney, Marsha Garst called a special grand jury to hear a special grand jury hearing to present evidence in Rachel's case. She said during a news conference that police were still working on Rachel's case and that they were looking into leads from people that weren't interviewed at the beginning of the investigation.

SPEAKER 1: It was also said at this meeting that senior special agent Joe Ritchie of the Virginia State Police's Bureau Of Criminal Investigations was certain Rachel's case was a homicide.

SPEAKER 1: She also said that the FBI and the US Attorney's office was involved in the investigation. Now, during this meeting, Marshall also said that the police had a person of interest and this person of interest was the same person they were interested in talking to when Rachel first went missing.

SPEAKER 1: This person being Adam Williams. Unfortunately, after the grand jury was convened, no indictments were handed down. So it looks like the evidence that they had, which again, that's never been disclosed as far as I know led to any results. It wasn't concrete enough the.

SPEAKER 3: Person that caused her to disappear. I'll say covered their tracks. If it was a homicide and they never found a body. Correct. Correct. Ok. So without proof that she is no longer alive, you know. No, I'm thinking the person that made her disappear or caused her to disappear covered their tracks very well.

SPEAKER 1: Now, a memorial service was held the year after Rachel's disappearance with her family trying desperately to hold on to hope that she was still alive.

SPEAKER 1: Her sister-in-law Jennifer told the daily newsletter, quote, it's hard to accept the fact that she might not be alive, but the family was comforted by the people who came out to support them. Rachel's grandmother, Lily Berry said the people who turned out here really did a lot for our spirits. We needed this.

SPEAKER 1: In 2010, Rachel is declared legally dead seven years after her disappearance. And in 2012, Carey filed a wrongful death suit against the town of Elkton, former police chief Richard Pullen and Adam Williams seeking $5 million in damages which the attorney representing Elkton, Nathan Miller believed to be dismissed.

SPEAKER 1: In February of 2014, a judge did dismiss the suit but only against the city of Elkton and Richard pollen, not against Adam Williams. And that's most likely because no one could prove whether or not Richard Pullen was actually privy to the relationship. Adam Williams frequently failed to show up for court in this issue, citing medical problems.

SPEAKER 1: So he wasn't even showing up to these court dates on September 16th, 2016, 2 years later, Brenda and Carrie sue Adam for the wrongful death of Rachel seeking $50,000 in damages. Now, this was actually the second attempt at going to trial as in the first, Adam failed to show up for court again.

SPEAKER 1: However, when the case was to go to trial, Brad Pollock, their lawyer filed for a continuance at a later date because the Virginia State Police was not providing cell phone records between Rachel and Adam, which Pollock believed was critical to the case.

SPEAKER 1: Now, the original records were destroyed by the cell phone providers after X amount of time they got rid of them, which I I understand, but the state police were not providing the copies that they had due to her case, technically being considered an active investigation even though I don't believe they were really actively looking. But because her case was not closed, it was considered active.

SPEAKER 3: Because they, they had no hard evidence that she was killed.

SPEAKER 3: Technically, it's still open even though they may have, you know, it may have dried up.

SPEAKER 1: Now, they were given six months to set a new date. But the following month, the suit was dropped over the issue of the cell phone records. I'm assuming the Virginia State Police essentially said it's not happening. Like don't even bother asking. So in March of 2017, a new suit would be filed against Adam Williams. And in 2018, he was allegedly going to show up for the court hearing according to his lawyer Braxton per year.

SPEAKER 1: Now for this lawsuit, Adam is asking for the suit to be thrown out because the statute of limitations on the wrongful death suit was up with it being only two years. You've two years from the announcement of a death to submit a suit for a wrongful death claim.

SPEAKER 1: However, Brad Pollock argued that Adam Williams was too late in filing to dismiss the case because he was served on April 24th and he had 21 days to respond, which would have been the 15th of May. But he responded on the 16th per year argued that there should be an exception to this rule as Adam Williams was living in Louisiana and the mail delayed his response.

SPEAKER 1: But the update I found in regards to the suit was from breaking through news in 2018 and they said that he did appear in court and told the Circuit court judge that he tried to file electronically but he was denied.

SPEAKER 1: So basically to clarify that he allegedly tried to respond via email and that was the issue. That was the issue because the response had to be filed through the certified electronic filing system.

SPEAKER 1: So basically, if he wanted to refuse without sending it through the mail, he would have had to do it or had to send his request for a dismissal, he would have had to essentially file it by like fax so they could file it electronically through the system, doing it through email is not like an official avenue, which is why he was denied.

SPEAKER 1: A hearing date was allegedly going to be set to potentially hold Adam Williams legally responsible for Rachel's death as failing to respond in time, pushed the suit to default, meaning he could be held liable for damages if found guilty though he would not, he was not being looked at as criminally responsible, which frustrated Pollock because he wanted to take Williams to trial, but he would be denied the chance to do so.

SPEAKER 1: So the difference between the two, if someone's being held criminally responsible there, like a crime would have been committed, they have proof that a crime was committed. He could go to jail for that.

SPEAKER 1: They can have a trial being held legally responsible is essentially saying they don't really have evidence to prove that he caused her death, but whatever he did or whatever evidence they have could prove that whatever he did resulted in her death and he could be held liable monetarily.

SPEAKER 3: No, I was just going to ask if any of this produced any sort of, but did her family get justice in that way?

SPEAKER 1: Not as of today. There were no updates on that case, but we all know that court cases take forever. So unfortunately, there is no update as I said on any hearing or resolution to that and Rachel's case is still unsolved and she has never been found. Interestingly enough, Carrie actually stated that he would actually forgive Adam if he was responsible for his daughter's death, if he apologized and asked for forgiveness.

SPEAKER 1: And by asking for forgiveness, he essentially meant if he got down on his knees and begged God for forgiveness, he would forgive him. He said he just wants to find his daughter and his health is failing. He's in his seventies and that at the time of Rachel's disappearance, they were just kids.

SPEAKER 1: He said that he isn't interested in the money either. I don't want nothing. I don't want a penny. I want my grandkids to know what happened to their mother. That's all I want, which I understand like the suits I don't think were ever about money. I think it was just about getting results like getting the truth, getting answers.

SPEAKER 3: That's what those are in essence for is to get answers of what happened to their loved one.

SPEAKER 1: Now, there are a couple of theories and I'll go over them. There have been leads about the location of Rachel's body over the years. One being that her body was in a well in Lake Arrowhead. Now, Kerry said that the police went to the location and did discover a well, but it had been covered up sometime around 2012.

SPEAKER 1: Now the price to dig up the well was easily 10 to $12,000. So they never did anything with that. Kerry did not have the money to fund it himself. And the police being small town didn't have the money to fund it. So nothing ever happened with that.

SPEAKER 1: There was also a house nearby the well, with a basement that had been remodeled around the time that Rachel disappeared. Something that Carrie does not believe to be a coincidence. He said, quote, maybe she was killed in the basement and thrown into the. Well, it is very possible. It's interesting that the basement of this house was remodeled around the same time as to who owns the house.

SPEAKER 1: I don't know. So, I mean, I guess it'd be worth looking into to see who owns the home over the years. If it had any relation to either Adam Williams or anyone that was associated with him or Rachel, I think that would be worth looking into. Now, there's also the theory that Adam, if he did kill Rachel did not do it alone, Carey believed he possibly had help from his father.

SPEAKER 1: According to Carrie, he spoke to Adam's mother. Now his parents lived in Florida and she said that her husband would go up to Virginia every spring to see their son. But in 2003, when Rachel disappeared, he went up in October.

SPEAKER 3: Ok. So it's a different time. Where did he go?

SPEAKER 1: Both times that I don't know. All I know is that he went up in October, which is weird if he's never done that. Now, Carrie believed that it's possible that Adam told his father about the affair and that maybe Rachel was threatening to tell Adam's wife about it and her pregnancy. So he came up to take care of it.

SPEAKER 1: Carrie believes that Adam could have talked Rachel into driving down to Florida and she was killed there, which again is possible that Adam could have driven over and said, hey, you know, I'm going to leave my wife. Let's run away together. We'll go to Florida and he killed her there. There's also the issue of the red truck that Rachel's friend saw outside Rachel's apartment. No one knows who it belonged to.

SPEAKER 3: But she had other children. She wouldn't have just left her children, run off with him.

SPEAKER 1: Exactly. Exactly. So that one, I find a little bit hard to believe that she would have run off to Florida with him or been kind of coerced into going to Florida because she had children. She had three children already.

SPEAKER 1: But there is that issue of the red truck who does the red truck belong to police never figured it out. They don't know who that red truck belonged to that, that was parked in front of Rachel's home that day.

SPEAKER 1: Now, they are interested in talking to the owner of the truck, but no one's ever come forward and they did say that they don't believe that the person is a suspect, but it's possible they saw something but it is possible that that person could have had something to do with it. Well, there's a lot of possibles.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, there's a lot of possibilities. Now, special agent Chris Deploy of the Virginia State Police who is the lead investigator on the Rachel.

SPEAKER 1: Good case said that he couldn't go into many details about the investigation, but the investigation is ongoing and he said that he hopes that technologies have developed or been improved upon over the last 20 years and would be able to help get a breakthrough in the case. Now anyone with information on the Rachel Good case is asked to call agents deploy at 5408297400. It has been 20 years.

SPEAKER 3: Well, somebody knows something and I've said it before. It is way past time to, if you know something to say something, somebody has to know something.

SPEAKER 1: Absolutely. I mean, there are three children, her youngest son was six months old at the time of her disappearance. So he grew up without his mom, he grew up without his mom without ever knowing his mom. You know, he, I don't know about her older, two children, her older son and daughter.

SPEAKER 1: I don't know if they went and stayed with their father, but at least her youngest son went to live with her mom. And Brenda said essentially that he has been what's kept them going, what saved them because you know, they have to go on for him at the very least.

SPEAKER 1: But this was a woman who was pregnant and, I mean, I'm sure there are going to be people that think, well, she had legal troubles but at the end of the day, her legal troubles were in the grand scheme of things minor. They're nothing compared to, like, it wasn't armed robbery. She wrote, I'm thinking some bad checks so I don't think she would have run off because of some bad checks.

SPEAKER 3: She's not going to leave her children. I don't believe that.

SPEAKER 1: For all intents and purposes, it seemed like she was really trying to turn her life around. It's been 20 years and it is way past time that her family knows what happened to her where she is so they can grieve appropriately. Because again, as I said, the police firmly believe that this was a homicide. They don't think she ran off. They don't think she.

SPEAKER 3: I don't think she ran off either again. She has children again and she had for all intents and purposes. A brand new baby at home.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, and a baby on the way. Right.

SPEAKER 3: She, she wasn't going to intentionally leave any of them. I don't believe that.

SPEAKER 1: Thank you so much for listening. The links or the number will be down below for you to call. If you have any information in regards to Rachel Goods case, please rate review, share with your friends all that fun stuff.

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SPEAKER 3: There's much older people that do stupid things too.

SPEAKER 1: That's true. Anyway, thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead and don't forget that you can always connect with us on Instagram. You can connect with us on Twitter and you can absolutely connect with us on Patreon.

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