Saturday, January 17, 2004

By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

She instigated it by telling a lie.

She helped plan it.

Then she drove her boyfriend to a trailer in Parks Monday where he killed her sister, brother-in-law and 19-month-old niece.

	Heather A. Goedicke

Now, based on those allegations, she's charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit homicide.

Heather A. Goedicke, 23, was taken into custody late Thursday, just hours before her boyfriend, Donald R. Barnhart, shot himself to death as state police tried to pull him over in Westmoreland County. Something inside the vehicle he had stolen from the victims exploded, leaving the 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix a charred shell. Barnhart's body was so badly burned, he had to be identified through dental records.

"You would think you would run," said Armstrong County District Attorney Scott Andreassi when asked why Barnhart didn't flee the area. "You could be a long way from here in 24 hours."

Police identified Barnhart, 31, as a suspect in the triple homicide of David, Rhonda and Destini Walters on Wednesday. They believed he had taken Rhonda Walters' car from the family's trailer after the slayings Monday evening and sent a nationwide bulletin out trying to find it. Early yesterday, troopers got a call about the vehicle in the Apollo area.

As soon as police turned on their lights and hit the siren behind the Grand Prix about 3:05 a.m., they heard two loud pops, and then the car exploded.

Barnhart died on State Route 819 in Bell.

Yesterday, as Rhonda Walters' family prepared to go to the funeral home for the viewing, they also were reeling from the allegations that Rhonda's own sister could have been involved in her death.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette Donald R. Barnhardt, who was sought by authorities investigating the triple homicide, shot himself to death in this vehicle when police tried to pull him over on Thursday in Westmoreland County. The vehicle, which belonged to the victims, then exploded in flames.

Scott Goedicke, a brother to both Rhonda Walters and Heather Goedicke, said he hopes his youngest sister goes to prison for her alleged role in the homicides.

"I want her to sit and get time for this," he said. "Bad time."

According to Heather Goedicke's brother and grandmother, Heather stayed with Rhonda and David Walters about two years ago. They allowed her to live with them for a few months, but eventually kicked her out because she was having parties in their home, they said.

"Once she moved out, she said how she was going to get Rhonda and David back -- even that she would kill them," Scott Goedicke said. "Heather, for two years, had a plot to get rid of them."

When he found out about the Walters' deaths, Scott Goedicke said he suspected his sister and Barnhart right away.

Hanna Kwiatkowski, the Goedicke's grandmother, said she was the first one to call the state police and give them the tip on Barnhart. She wasn't sure Heather Goedicke could have been involved, but now Kwiatkowski says her granddaughter is getting what she deserves.

But Kwiatkowski and Scott Goedicke would like to see more charges brought in the case.

State police have said Barnhart told another woman, who lives in Saltsburg, about his plans.

At first he talked about altering the gas line to their home to blow them up, and then said that he might shoot them, police wrote in the criminal complaint.

"[She] told him not to talk like that and he should not do those things," it read. "She did not take him seriously."

Kwiatkowski said the woman should have called the police.

"He was sitting there, actually planning their deaths. She should have reported it."

According to the criminal complaint, Heather Goedicke started dating Barnhart in October. Her family says she first met his sister in church, and then met Barnhart later. He was released from prison in April after serving a five-year sentence for stabbing a previous girlfriend.

Heather Goedicke told police she knew Barnhart's background. He first told her he cut the woman's wrist, she said, but later said he sliced her throat.

During her interview with state police Thursday, Goedicke showed no remorse or even emotion, Andreassi said. She admitted planning the slayings of her sister's family with Barnhart. The motive, she said, was based on lies she told him about both David and Rhonda Walters.

Goedicke told Barnhart that her brother-in-law had raped her, though that wasn't true, she told police. Instead, she and David Walters had consensual sex on multiple occasions.

She never told Barnhart the truth, and he used the rape allegation as a reason to go after David Walters.

He and Goedicke planned the attack on the family together, she told police.

"She admitted that the plan was to shoot and slice all three of them, and then 'blow up' the trailer," police wrote.

Goedicke told investigators she saw the gun Barnhart got for the slayings, as well as the bomb. Barnhart ordered them off the Internet, according to a sister he'd been staying with in Hyde Park.

She told police Barnhart ordered a replica, .31-caliber cap and ball revolver, which used black powder, from Cabela's, a sporting goods company, two weeks earlier.

That is the same weapon police believe was used to kill the Walters family. The toddler, Destini, also had been stabbed multiple times. Two knives were also found near on the living room floor near the bodies of Rhonda and Destini Walters.

An incendiary device, which included a timer and an electrical cord placed in lighter fluid, with a fuse leading to a powder charge, failed to go off.

Police believe Barnhart may have wanted to burn down the trailer to cover up the crime. He also may have thought the planned fire would kill 9-month-old Jesse Walters, who was found alive and unharmed under a crib in a bedroom of the trailer.

Even though Goedicke is not believed to have even gone inside the home when the Walters were killed, she could still face homicide charges, Andreassi said.

"Everything's on the table right now."

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