A Maine Convicted Killer Admits to 2nd Cold Case Murder from 1987

A man currently doing time for killing a woman in 1988 has now pleaded guilty to a separate murder from a year earlier.

When Did the Cold Case Take Place?

20-year-old Janet Brochu went missing on Christmas Eve in 1987. She had been out at a bar with some friends when she became separated from the group. The last time anyone saw her, she was leaving a Waterville nightclub at midnight with a man. Her unclothed body was found in the Sebasticook River in Pittsfield in March of that year.

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What Were the Details of the Second Murder?

In 1988, just five months after Brochu's body was found, 23-year-old Geraldine Finn disappeared. She was last seen leaving Pete & Larry's Lounge, off upper Main Street in Waterville, with a man. Her body was found five days later, on August 14th, in a shallow grave off U.S. Route 201 in Skowhegan. An autopsy revealed that she had been strangled.

Who Is Responsible for Their Deaths?

What these two women had in common was Gerald Goodale, who was the man accompanying both on the nights they disappeared. Goodale was a suspect in Janet Brochu's murder, but police couldn't gather enough evidence to charge him. They did have enough evidence, however, for a conviction in Geraldine Finn's murder. According to the Morning Sentinel, he was sentenced in June of 1989 and has been incarcerated ever since. In recent years, new evidence led police to look at Goodale again for Janet Brochu's murder, and, this week, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 32.5 years. Those sentences will be served concurrently, but officials say it will keep him in prison for a while longer.

According to the Maine Department of Corrections website, the 61-year-old's earliest possible release date is February of 2034.