By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com
09/14/2009
CHELMSFORD -- Nearly two decades of pain and anger flow down the Lowell mother's face as she tearfully recalls the night in 1990 when her 7-year-old son was kidnapped, held captive overnight and repeatedly raped by Ralph W. Goodwin.
"It was horrible,'' said the woman, who asked that her name not be used to protect the identity of her now-27-year-old son. "My son's innocence was ripped away.''
The pain of that night and its aftermath have come back to haunt the mother, as Goodwin, now 47 and a Level 3 sex offender, was recently released from prison, after 19 years in custody, when a jury found he is no longer a sexually dangerous person.
One mental-health expert testified that Goodwin, who is schizophrenic, is not dangerous as long as he stays on his medication.
"I thought he'd be in prison forever,'' the mother said as she sat in a Chelmsford coffee shop.
Goodwin, a Lowell resident, could not be reached directly for comment. The Sun tried to contact him through a family member but received no reply.
The family's painful story began on the night of Feb. 3, 1990.
The woman explained that while she and her husband were at a private, cultural function at a Lowell civic club, their son was playing hide-and-seek with a young girl at the club. Police would later tell the mother that Goodwin had been downstairs at the bar drinking, but somehow got into the private function upstairs.
Goodwin saw the two children, isolated her son by having the girl go hide, and then kidnapped him. As he carried the boy out of the building, Goodwin threatened to kill the child if he cried out, according to published reports. Goodwin was a stranger to the boy.
After giving the boy alcohol and raping him under a bridge, Goodwin dragged the boy, who was not wearing a jacket, through the snow around the city and then to his basement apartment, sneaking him in through a basement window, where he raped him again. After holding the boy captive overnight, Goodwin carried him outside in a cardboard Christmas tree box, deposited him on a street corner, then called a taxi to drive the boy home.
The mother, who was distraught and exhausted over her son's disappearance, recalls being on the telephone with police when a cab pulled up in front of her house and her son got out.
"My son ran down the driveway and I ran to him,'' the mother said, wiping away tears. "I grabbed him and squeezed him. I just wouldn't let him go.''
Later, she would learn from police the horrible sexual abuse her son was forced to endure, though he has never spoken to her about it.
In 1990, Goodwin, then 27, pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated rape and one count of kidnapping. Judge Patti Saris, then a Middlesex Superior Court judge, sentenced him to 10-15 years in state prison for the kidnapping. Goodwin is on probation for the next 10 years with a 30-to-40-year suspended sentence hanging over his head on the rape charges if he should violate his probation.
Goodwin's conditions of probation are that he continue his mental-health treatment, have no contact with the victim, and no contact with children under 16. But the Probation Department's request for Goodwin to wear a Global Positioning System, or GPS, ankle bracelet hit a snag.
A recent state Supreme Judicial Court ruling allows Goodwin to walk the streets without wearing a GPS that would have tracked his whereabouts.
The state's highest court ruled that only sex offenders whose crimes were committed after December 2006 will be required to wear GPS bracelets while on probation. The cut-off date is when the Legislature enacted a statute that all sex offenders wear GPS devices while on probation. But the SJC ruled the statute is "punitive'' and cannot be applied retroactively.
The state Probation Department estimates that about 250 sex offenders were affected by the decision, including Goodwin.
At a hearing last month, Lowell Superior Court Judge Kathe Tuttman decided not to buck the SJC. She denied a motion to impose the device on Goodwin by the Middlesex District Attorney's Office, which argued that the SJC gave judges the discretion to order the GPS in some cases.
The DA's office filed a recent motion for Tuttman to reconsider her decision. (See related story.)
"It's wrong,'' the mother said. "Why is it important that the sex offender's rights are protected, but my son's rights were violated in 1990 and no one cares? My son didn't ask for this, but he lives with it.
"I sit and look at young children and remember my son at that age," she added. "(Goodwin) is the reason why parents have to be so protective of their children.''
Chelmsford resident Laurie Myers, president of the victim-rights group Community Voices, said, "The focus is on Goodwin's rights, and nobody cares about the victim.''
The mother said her son, an only child, still has emotional issues and problems forming relationships, even with therapy. He suffered even more emotional trauma when his father died in 2006 after a nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
The mother said she has tried to move on and be positive, living her life "without Goodwin hovering over me.'' But her son still feels like he is in "limbo.''
Even as her son continues to struggle, the mother said that with Goodwin on the street, "I'm not afraid for my son anymore. I'm afraid for other children."
