Mother Indicted for Murdering Daughter with ALS
Marjorie Good, 89, and Second Suspect Charged with Killing Solvang Resident Heidi Good in 2013
The Santa Barbara Grand Jury has indicted two women for the murder of Solvang resident Heidi Good in March 2013, District Attorney Joyce Dudley announced yesterday. Good was suffering from the advanced stages of ALS when she was allegedly killed.
One of the indicted women is Good’s mother, 89-year-old Marjorie, who is being held in County Jail on $1 million bail. The other is Wanda Nelson, who was arrested in New York and will soon be extradited to Santa Barbara.
Dudley said 33 witnesses provided testimony to the Grand Jury. It also received the results of a Sheriff’s investigation. The transcript of the Grand Jury hearing will become public in 20 days unless the court orders that it be sealed. Heidi’s husband and two children also reportedly provided testimony.
Dudley explained that the Grand Jury had a number of choices before it, ranging from declining to indict to filing the most severe charge possible. Good and Nelson are accused of “willful, deliberate, and premeditated first degree murder,” Dudley said. Citing confidentiality requirements around the Grand Jury process, Dudley has declined to offer any additional details on the case.
In an ongoing online blog titled “Good Times,” Good’s husband describes how law enforcement descended on his family’s home the day his wife was allegedly murdered.
In a post written directly to Heidi, he talks about his anger and confusion when Marjorie implicated him in her death, and that he was not able to see Heidi’s body or enter their room immediately after she died. Good’s husband wrote he was at work when he received the news.
As detectives served search warrants and conducted interviews in the following hours, Heidi’s husband goes on, Marjorie remained inconsolable in the family’s backyard and later left the home “with an arm-full of documents wrapped in a towel.” The investigation then shifted “in another direction and away from me,” he wrote.
He concludes the post with: “It is public knowledge that your death certificate documents [say] that you died within minutes of your vent[ilator] being tampered with.”
Marjorie’s arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday in Santa Maria.
