Goey Charles sentenced for murder of pregnant girlfriend Vanessa Pierre
Vanessa Pierre of Hempstead was murdered when she was six months pregnant. Credit: Melissa Pierre
A Uniondale man was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years to life in prison for the 2020 death of his pregnant girlfriend, who was found strangled and dumped on the side of the Horace Harding Expressway in Bayside, Queens, prosecutors said.
Goey Charles, 33, of Rochelle Court, was convicted after a jury trial earlier this month of second-degree murder in the death of Vanessa Pierre, 29, in Queens County Court.
“We asked for the maximum sentence because of the brutality of the crime and the defendant’s remorseless discarding of the lifeless body of his girlfriend, the woman who was soon to be the mother of his child," Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. "The sentence does not bring Vanessa back, but it achieves justice in her memory."
Kevin O'Donnell, Charles' Queens-based attorney, did not respond to a request for comment. O'Donnell previously said he would file an appeal.
Video surveillance footage shows on Oct. 23, 2020, shortly before 3 a.m., Charles was behind the wheel of a white Dodge Challenger registered to Pierre and pulled over on the side of the Horace Harding, which parallels the Long Island Expressway, prosecutors said.
More than 30 minutes later, surveillance footage shows Charles exiting the driver's seat and going into the backseat, where his girlfriend was sitting and was alive at the time, prosecutors said.
At 4:36 a.m., Charles can be seen dragging Pierre out of the vehicle and dumping her on the sidewalk before going back into the car and driving away, authorities said.
Later that morning, an MTA bus driver discovered Pierre on the ground, unresponsive, with a pair of gray sweatpants wrapped around her neck, officials said.
Emergency responders arrived on the scene and pronounced her dead, prosecutors said.
Pierre was due to give birth three months after she was killed and had chosen the name Egypt for her daughter, according to her sister, Melissa Pierre.
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.