The Murder of Goldia Massey | Part 1 of 7

In our latest podcast episode, we invite you to journey into the intriguing world of crime investigation, particularly focusing on homicide cases. Our guests, Chris Schoonover and Steve McCowen, share their riveting stories and insights into the law enforcement realm.

Chris Schoonover is a seasoned homicide detective who transitioned from being a special agent in the US Army to cracking homicide cases in Lexington. His years of experience offer unique perspectives on how criminal investigations are conducted, shedding light on the dedication and diligence required in this line of work. His journey exemplifies the adaptability and resilience necessary in the face of challenging and often disturbing cases.

Steve McCowen, an active detective with the Lexington Police Department, shares his unique journey from the Corner’s Office to handling homicide investigations. Steve’s insights provide a fascinating look into the vital role of the Corner’s Office and its collaborations with various professionals. His experiences highlight the importance of medical investigations in determining the causes and manner of death, emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of homicide investigations.

Together, they shed light on the challenging Goldia Massey case that they both worked on. This case, characterized by unexpected twists and turns, offers listeners a front-row seat to a real-world thriller. It is a clear demonstration of the complexity and unpredictability of homicide investigations, emphasizing the need for strategic thinking, patience, and collaboration.

The episode also explores the transition from street patrol to solving homicides, focusing on the importance of rapport-building skills. As Steve McCowan highlights, being able to establish a connection with people is a critical aspect of successful crime investigation. This ability to communicate effectively, empathize, and build trust is often the key to gaining valuable information and insights.

Furthermore, the podcast episode delves into the intricate world of law enforcement and medical investigations, illustrating the importance of these intersecting domains in solving homicide cases. The detailed discussion offers listeners a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes workings of homicide investigations, revealing the meticulous process and teamwork required to bring justice to victims and their families.

As such, this podcast episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in crime investigation or those seeking to understand the intricate processes behind solving homicide cases. The episode presents an honest and insightful look into the challenging, yet rewarding world of homicide detectives, reminding us of the unseen heroes who tirelessly work to ensure justice is served.

The captivating stories of Chris Schoonover and Steve McCowen underscore the dedication, resilience, and strategic thinking necessary in this line of work. They remind us of the real-life heroes in our society, the men and women in law enforcement who tirelessly dedicate their lives to solving cases and protecting our communities.

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Episode Transcript

Steve McCownGuest00:05

is the first time that we went and interviewed him and we were walking out the driveway. I looked at Chris and I’m like that’s, someone’s did it and we’ll get into it. Yeah, and you’re going to know, but it was that feeling you get when you’ve talked to somebody and you’re there and you see what you see and you talk to him and you’re like he did it. Man, we just got to prove it.

Wendy LyonsHost00:30

Morning. The podcast you’re about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the murder police podcast the murder of Goldie Massey, part one. Welcome to the murder police podcast. Today, we’re going to be discussing the murder of Goldie Massey 2014. We have special guest with us today Chris Scoonover, retired homicide detective Been with us on several episodes. Thank you for coming back.

Chris SchoonoverGuest01:21

Thanks for having me back. I enjoy it. Nice to see Dave again.

David LyonsHost01:24

Yep, yeah, good to see you too.

Wendy LyonsHost01:26

And we have also Steve McCallan, detective with Lexington police department currently. Thank you, steve, we’ve never had you on here. We’re so glad to have you and so glad to talk about this case. It’s a very interesting one.

Steve McCownGuest01:38

Thanks for having me, should be interesting.

David LyonsHost01:40

Glad to have you. I mean, we’ve talked a long time by getting you in here, so a lot of good stuff to talk about on this case and how you came to be around too.

Wendy LyonsHost01:47

And then we have my lovely husband here.

David LyonsHost01:50

Yes, very lovely, thank you, thank you. So, looking forward to it. So why don’t you it’s Chris, real quick, kind of like we’ve done maybe tell everybody a little bit about your background, just to freshen them up.

Chris SchoonoverGuest02:00

Sure, I was in the United States Army. I was a criminal investigator, special agent for CID, and when I got out of the military, I joined the Lexington Police Department and was in homicide for approximately 19 years, retired in 19 or in 2017, and have enjoyed my retirement. But these young detectives keep bringing me back and making me refresh my past life. So, and everybody should know, dave Lines was my mentor when I first got hired and we were partners for a little bit, so it’s always good to see him. That’s a polite word for it.

Wendy LyonsHost02:38

I’ve heard you’re a good mentor, yeah a polite word for it.

David LyonsHost02:42

And Steve tell us, go in a little bit of detail. Start with how you got into policing and anything that led you to specifically to do homicide work.

Steve McCownGuest02:50

I’m a little bit interesting case for me. I went to graduate from East Kentucky University with a police administration degree. But I mean, I really didn’t want to be a cop, I really am an outdoorsy type of person. So my whole goal was to sort of get into the Fish and Wildlife be. You know someone that was a Fish and Wildlife officer. But back in 1995, those guys weren’t making any money. I mean, they were making like $16,000, $17,000. And you know, I graduated, wanted to sort of start a career, but at the same time my wife was in. She was in school to become a teacher with a friend and her husband was working at the corner’s office in Fayette County and we got to talking a little bit and he’s like, hey, she come down and try it out. You know, see what it’s all about Me being.

03:41

For me I didn’t know what the corner’s office was. So I mean I was like, okay, give it a shot, see what it is, you know. So went down and talked to a few of the people at the corner’s office and to me it was. It was intriguing. You know, it had a side of not really law enforcement but a side of investigation that most people don’t think about and that’s investigating death. And you know I applied, got hired there. I worked as an assistant where basically I was just going out and helping the deputies that were working at the time. I was just considered an assistant so I would go out, go to scenes with them, you know, help them remove bodies, take the bodies of Frankfurt, you know, for autopsy and things that nature. And then four or five months in I got offered a position, started working as a deputy corner investigating, you know, all kinds of getting into all kinds of death investigations, to include, you know, the corner’s office. They look into everything. Any kind of death that happens in Fayette County that’s not a person that’s not under hospice care or dies at a hospital under medical care, than the corner’s office looks into that. So anything ranging from homicides to suicides to, you know, car collisions where people die, suspicious deaths, everything like that is what we did and I did that close to 10 years. And the part that was so helpful for me in understanding what I wanted to do with the rest of my career was getting to work with people like Dave and Chris.

05:18

You know the corner’s office. You don’t really think about it in as far as investigation, but they, they are the proprietor of the body. So I mean, there’s the investigators from the legal side of it, like the criminal side, but then there’s also the medical, legal side of it, the coroner’s office, who then has to take that body and make a determination of cause, of manner of death. Um, and that can be complicated in some ways, because the coroner’s office goes by different rules. When you’re talking about manners of death, you know, as opposed to when you’re talking about a manner of death from the coroner’s office standpoint, it can be different from the criminal standpoint. So, um, I got to learn a lot. I got to meet a lot of people at the coroner’s office, people like Greg Davis, who I know has been on here before. Um, emily Craig Uh, I don’t know if she’s been on here, but she’s world, world renowned.

06:11

Um and I listened to her coming and I absolutely I mean I could text her right now and I think she would text me back. I mean, she is just a phenomenal person, not just a phenomenal forensic, you know, knowledgeable. What was her title? Uh, she, uh, forensic anthropologist. But she was just an incredible person, um, and and I could talk to her just like I’m talking to you guys, and she never made me feel, you know, inferior or anything like that.

06:43

So what I took from my days at the coroner’s office was a lot of learning, um, and in getting to work with, especially the homicide unit, uh, and working murders and things of that nature, it sort of fueled in me that that’s where I wanted to go. So, worked at the coroner’s officer, maybe 10, right at 10 years, um, applied to the police department, got on, worked the road for five years, which was absolutely horrible. I hated it. Um, I tried, but it wasn’t where my heart was. You know what I mean. I was, I was, I wanted to, I wanted to investigate homicides because I knew, in working with these guys and you know, people like Rob and Dave Richardson and Franz Wolf and Matt brothers and all those guys, that’s who I got to work with and that’s who I got to come up with with the in the coroner’s office James Curlis, paul Williams, all those guys they it’s like they kind of wrapped their arms around me and and you know, because they knew that I was interested in investigation and they always involved me, um, in investigations that have made me feel a part of it, and so, therefore, I wanted to be a part of that, so came to came to police department 2005,. Worked the road for about five years. Uh, worked third shift central um because I had kids and that’s the only time I could see him. I’m not I just I. I just my heart went in it and finally got upstairs with these guys and I worked. I worked murders. I worked in the homicide unit for um right at nine years.

08:17

Transferred out of the homicide unit in 2018. I’m currently in the intelligence unit and I do a lot of stuff with our NAB and investigation with ATF. I’m in the process of um being a task force officer with them. Uh, tim, when and what we’re really geared toward now and and and. For me, I didn’t want to lose the investigative part of being a detective, because I still enjoyed it. There was just things and dynamics that changed for me within the unit that I then left. Uh, when I left the homicide unit, I went down to intelligence and still being part of the investigations of NAB and and gun crime and and our violent criminals and our on our shooters. The election, I think, is still important and it’s a part of me that still likes to investigate that stuff, to be able to make a difference in, you know, in the community. For me personally, what’s NAB?

David LyonsHost09:09

and for the listeners, uh, what’s the acronym and what’s it stand for?

Steve McCownGuest09:13

The acronym is not. Uh, the national integrated ballistics information network is what NAB and stands for Basically what NAB and is. It is a fingerprint on the shell casing, right. So when you think of fingerprints, everyone has a unique fingerprint, right? Um, and no one’s fingerprint is the same. That is the same concept.

09:33

When you’re talking about shell casings shell casings that eject from guns so when I appreciate you bringing in the, when a gun is fired, the gun, the breech face of the gun, strikes the back of the shell casing and it makes a quote, unquote, fingerprint and no two shell casings are the same. So we now have the technology that we can enter those shell casings into a, into a system, and it’s nationwide. We’re split up in in United States into five regions but we can do it nationally and we can compare shell casings in California, if we like, in Maine, if we like, texas, whatever. But we are on a regional, midwest regional area where we focus on mostly Kentucky, ohio, illinois, tennessee, michigan. So we’re on that region and it’s those shell casings are checked when we enter them, they’re checked.

10:26

Within that it goes to the Correlation Center in Alabama. Pretty much what they do is they come up with, just like AFIS, they come up with the 10 best results that could be possibly a match. And then they have people that are actually looking at those shell casings and making a match and then we get them. We get the shell casings back and it’s not foolproof, obviously. I mean there’s, it’s not. It’s not admissible in court, nibin isn’t. But what we do with that is it’s just a lead, just like in a fingerprint. We then take that, those shell casings, to the lab to have a firearms expert look at it and they can confirm that those shell casings actually do match.

David LyonsHost11:12

Is that pretty?

Steve McCownGuest11:12

successful. Yeah, I think it’s. I think we’re at like 99.6%, so it’s, it’s. It is very. If you get a lead, it’s probably going to be what you’re looking for. But we want to make sure you know, by sending that to someone who is a firearms examiner expert to let them look at it and then they’ll give us a definite on whether or not. Yes, you’re looking at.

11:35

And we’ve reigned into a couple of situations where guns have been released and then brought back and things that nature that we have to confirm. But it’s, yeah, it’s if you’re getting an item lead, you’re getting. You’re getting what you need.

David LyonsHost11:47

You think it’s putting any kind of dent in violent gun crime at all? Absolutely.

Steve McCownGuest11:52

And I would say for me personally, last year and the year before I’ve been, I’ve been doing the Niamh stuff. I took over for Bill Brizlin, I think who’s who’s done a, done a podcast here with you all. He kind of started it and then retired and I took over for him to get sort of get this program going and I think last year we were able to adopt 37, 37 or 38 people federally on gun charges and you know as well as I do federal gun crime is much worse than state gun crime because in the federal system you’re talking about 85% off the bat. There is no negotiation, there is no. They look at a formula, they figure out their past criminal history and a person that gets caught with a gun and has a criminal history in the federal system is looking at a much more serious set of circumstances and probably time.

12:48

And I think what that really resonates is within the community when they see and I’ve talked to people and I know firsthand that word passes, word gets around within that circle that you don’t want to get caught with a gun because the ATF’s coming after you. You know what I mean. And when the ATF’s coming after you or the DEA or you’re looking at some serious time and once they know that, I think we’ve actually had we’ve seen a drop in murders this year, and I’m not going to sit here and try to boast or anything, but I think it’s because we have the people that were responsible for doing a lot of the shootings last year in custody and I think you’re seeing a direct result.

David LyonsHost13:28

That is the whole trick to violent crime. We won’t go on a big soapbox today. There are so many people got really weird ideas on how to handle them, but I’m the first one. Incarceration is the fix. You just got to lock up the people that are going to commit it and that’s it. But good work. I mean it’s neat stuff to watch it have that much of an impact.

13:45

And I think, listening to you, what’s neat too is your story that you wanted this kind of work so bad that you put in your time. I mean, for example, there’s a lot of people that believe, well, when I’m ready to be a police officer, I’ll just transfer from Lowe’s or something like that, and I don’t mean to make fun of it, but I don’t think they understand it. Minimum 30 week Academy on probation, for which it feels like an incredible weight. And, like you said, you did your time on the road, because everybody starts on the road and at our police department by contract. You can’t budge into something special without three years and, as much as I know, you didn’t like it. It probably helped you get your own.

Steve McCownGuest14:22

There’s no doubt. I mean, listen, I had. My saving grace is I worked with really good people on the street. You know what I mean. I was in a squad and I had a sergeant that they knew what I wanted to do and you know they took care of me in that aspect too, you know I mean it was there were. There were many nights when I put handcuffs on somebody. I was like holy shit, now what?

David LyonsHost14:43

You know, I mean who do I call?

Steve McCownGuest14:45

What have I done here? But I had good partners. I had good sergeants. I had people that were surrounded. They knew that this wasn’t my niche, but I was always going to be there for my B partners, for everybody that was in my squad, and it was a. You know, it was a return favor on their part. I mean people like the Rick Rises of the world and the Jeff Jackson’s and those guys. I mean they. They took care of me and I’ll be the first to admit, but it was a. It was a.

15:14

Everybody should work patrol. You need to learn how to talk to people and I’ve said that from the beginning and people always ask me how do you become a homicide detective? I said if you can go to the mall and sit down beside of somebody in the food court and have a conversation that’s not about the weather or about you know something, that’s general, then you can do what we do. But you have to be able to talk to people and that’s a lost art. I think in patrol gives you that opportunity to to really get out there and talk to people, have an impact on people, and I think when people understand that you’re just, you’re just a human being like they are they. They really they see that side, that human side of you, and then they’ll actually, you know, want to give you information and, and you know, they understand a little bit more of what’s going on with it.

David LyonsHost16:03

So that’s how you build rapport. And that’s what you got to be able to talk on stuff like that, so excellent stuff. It’s neat to hear again how people come to this, and you probably helped a lot of people that are interested in getting this line of work to understand what what it takes to get into it and to have that heart for it and keep pursuing it. Well, thank you, Steve, for sharing that with us.

Wendy LyonsHost16:23

That’s really a very interesting aspect. As to how you got into homicide from corner, I can see it, but I I you’re the first person I’ve met who’s done that, so thank you for sharing that. Well, this case, goldie Massey, happened in October of 2014. Both of you guys worked it. Before we dig into it, why don’t you tell me what really stood out to each of you on that? I have two things that stood out to me.

Chris SchoonoverGuest16:52

The more comic side was that I received the report but I was trying. I was in cold case at the time, early on, cold case just started and this was the timeframe we got a federal grant. I’m trying to establish that cold case. So I get the report and at the time as we’ve talked before on this program that the homicide unit there’s a rotation of who gets assigned homicides. By the time I get this report, steve’s originally the person next up on the homicide, but by time, by the time anything happens, it goes through everybody in homicide and then it comes back to Steve. Oh, back to Steve. Yeah, and it was. It was weird because when we first got the missing persons report.

Steve McCownGuest17:36

I was up for the next murder right and, like Chris explained, we’re on the same page and where it’s kind of like a ladder, you catch a murder, you go to the bottom rung and you just work your way up. By the time we were ready to charge to charge the suspect in this case I was back up so we had went through the whole rotation, which was interesting about it, and so that aspect I would definitely agree in that and don’t steal my thunder on.

Chris SchoonoverGuest18:08

Oh, I will, I will. And the second thing that sticks out to me is usually during these type of situations, when families involved, you have family dynamics that there’s always somebody in the family that has a vendetta against the victim, right. Well, there’s twist and turns in this case that keep arising that we don’t expect. So we have to follow those turns and we know the end result as we talked about before is the end result is for the conviction, it’s not for just the arrest of the suspect. So we are trying to think ahead of time, steve and I, of, okay, we have to eliminate these people. We can’t just say, okay, now we found a new suspect, we can’t move on until we eliminate somebody else. So there’s many twists in this case that we never expected.

Wendy LyonsHost18:57

So I think that’s what stands out for me the most that’d be the same for you, or do you have another couple of?

Steve McCownGuest19:02

things that really stood out to me, and Chris I’m sure will agree when I say it is the first time that we went and interviewed him. And we were walking out the driveway I looked at Chris. I’m like that’s, someone’s did it and and we’ll get into it. Yeah, and you’re gonna know, but it was that feeling you get when you’ve talked to somebody and you’re there and you see what you see and you talk to him and you’re like he did it. Man.

Wendy LyonsHost19:30

We just got to prove it hey, you know there’s more to the story, so go download the next episode, like the true crime fan that you are the Murder Police podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims, so their names are never forgotten.

David LyonsHost19:48

It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform, as well as at murderpolicepodcastcom, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police podcast swag. We are also on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars in a written review on Apple podcast or wherever you download your podcast. Make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop, and please tell your friends lock it down Judy!