Man is jailed for 25 years to life after dumping his six-month pregnant nurse girlfriend’s body off the side of a Queens expressway after strangling her to death
- Goey Charles, 33, was found guilty by a jury on November 14 of first-degree murder in the death of then 29-year-old Vanessa Pierre in October 2020
- Charles drove Pierre onto the freeway in Queens, where he was seen on surveillance footage dumping her body on the side of the road
- He now faces a prison sentence of 25 years to life, the maximum sentence allowed under the law
A Long Island man has been sentenced to 25 years to life after he was convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend while he was caught on video dumping her on the side of the road.
Goey Charles, 33, was found guilty by a jury on November 14 of first-degree murder in the death of then 29-year-old Vanessa Pierre in October 2020.
On the morning of October 23, Charles was driving Pierre’s white Dodge Challenger on the Horace Harding Expressway in Queens.
Pierre, a nurse who was six months pregnant, was in the passenger seat.
He got out of the car at 3:30 a.m., took Pierre out of the backseat and left her there.
Goey Charles (photo left), 33, was found guilty by a jury on November 14 of first-degree murder in the death of then 29-year-old Vanessa Pierre in October 2020 (photo right)
Eight minutes later, Pierre could still be seen in the vehicle, but an hour after that, according to authorities, Charles dragged her lifeless body from the car, left her on the sidewalk and drove away.
According to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, Charles received the maximum sentence that could be imposed for the crime.
“We sought the maximum sentence due to the brutality of the crime and the suspect’s brutal rejection of the lifeless body of his girlfriend, the woman who would soon become the mother of his child,” Katz said in a statement.
“The verdict does not bring Vanessa back, but does justice to her memory.”
Although testimony from officials was cited, much of the evidence against Pierre came from the gruesome video.
In the clip, released by the NYPD in the days after Pierre’s death, the man, identified as Charles, can be seen pulling the body from his car and then running away to get back into his car.
Bruises were found around the woman’s neck, leading investigators to believe she had been strangled.
Neighbors said police had been watching the house where Charles lived all weekend.
The NYPD released footage showing Charles disposing of the nurse’s body
Pierre, who was six months pregnant, was found on the side of the Horace Harding Expressway near Bell Boulevard in Bayside
After dumping the woman’s body, the man in the video jumps into his car and drives away
They also shared that the couple had been dating for a year, but it is unknown if Charles was the child’s father.
“It’s terrible what happened,” said Herlin Pierre, the woman’s father. “She was pregnant too.”
‘She was six months old, that’s what she told me. It seems I’ve lost two people. “I was ready to throw her a baby shower, and that’s the bad news I heard.”
Her sister, Melissa, told the New York Post in 2020 that she knew Charles couldn’t be trusted.
“She loved him and she wanted a family, but I told her this man wasn’t it,” Melissa said.
“I kept saying this guy wasn’t it. Something just wasn’t right about him. He was a pathological liar. They moved very quickly, were together for about a year, less than that. From the looks of it, it looked like he wasn’t really working.”
Charles, a native of Long Island, was arrested just three days after Pierre’s body was found.