The Bahamas government pretends to vigorously prosecute people who commit heinous murders, at least until the publicity surrounding the case dies down.
When Kofhe Edwardo Goodman (also known as Elvardo Ferguson) was charged with the murder of little Marco Archer back in November, 2011, the police and the Bahamas government did everything they could to make sure the arraignment was front page news.
They wanted the public and, most importantly, potential tourists to think they were tough on criminals, especially the scum who would rape and murder little boys.
But as usual, it was nothing but a publicity stunt.
Yesterday, in stark contrast to all of the publicity surrounding his arraignment, the attorney general quietly dropped a sex case against Goodman. No reason was given for the discontinuance.
Prosecutor Darell Taylor abruptly advised Senior Justice Jon Isaacs that the Crown was no longer proceeding with the prosecution of Mr Goodman on the charge that he had sex with a 12-year-old boy on March 12, 2011.
Goodman, 37, appeared before Justice Isaacs for the start of his case, which was originally scheduled for trial in February, 2012. Then, it was delayed until May, 2012. Other delays occurred until the publicity over Marco Archer’s murder had died down.
Now, quietly, the charges against Goodman start to disappear.
Back in 1993, Goodman was convicted of unnatural sexual intercourse. He did not go to jail however, allegedly because he was a relative of a senior police officer. He was later convicted and sent to jail for the attempted murder of a nine-year-old boy.
He was sent to prison, but later released, probably due to his close homosexual relationship with a senior police officer.
But instead of being rehabilitated during his prison stint, a local paper reported that corrupt prison guards would actually encourage rape. And in some cases, would join in to help gang rape young prisoners, some who were there on remand.
The prison guards would allegedly make Goodman pay them up to $500 to have them transfer young men into the deranged killer’s cell for the sex sessions.
Goodman allegedly got the money for his expensive sex habit from a female relative. The woman allegedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars when a member of her family, another crooked police officer, who was wrapped up in drugs, died in a car accident.
Curiously, no trial date has ever been set for the murder of little Marco Archer, the Columbus Primary School student whose decomposed body was found at Yorkshire Drive behind the apartment complex where Goodman lived.
The grisly discovery was made on September 28, 2011, just five days after Marco vanished, after leaving his family’s Brougham Street home to buy candy from a neighborhood store.
It is no wonder the murder rate in The Bahamas is out-of-control. The government plays games with murder suspects, jockeying for good press rather than actually prosecuting murderers. Perhaps this is the reason for the pathetic conviction rate and the explosive increase in crime.
