WILLOW GOODEN - 7 yo - (2010) Winchester TN

Winchester TN ---- A deputy has discovered the bodies
of a Nashville woman and her daughter in a burning vehicle atop Sewanee
Mountain, and Franklin County Sheriff Tim Fuller says the case is likely a murder-suicide.

Fuller said state medical examiner's autopsies on 45-year-old
Valorie Gooden and her 7-year-old daughter, Willow, are not final "but that's
what we feel like we are dealing with."

Fuller said a deputy spotted the burning sport-utility
vehicle Saturday afternoon at a picnic area beside State Highway 41 on the
mountain in southeastern Tennessee.

The sheriff said Valorie Gooden's son told investigators she
had told him earlier Saturday that "she intended to do harm to her daughter and
to herself." He said the son is a long-distance trucker and was away on Saturday.

WINCHESTER, Tenn. – Officials have begun investigating a fatal vehicle fire in Franklin County as a possible murder-suicide involving a mother and her 7-year-old daughter.
On Saturday, emergency crews were called to Highway 41-A in the small Franklin County town of Sewanee, about 45 minutes southeast of Tullahoma. A sport utility vehicle was fully engulfed in flames.
When the smoke cleared, emergency crews found the bodies of Valerie Gooden and her daughter, Willow. Officials said the bodies were burned beyond recognition.
Sheriff Tim Fuller said investigators were learning more about Gooden's mental state by Saturday afternoon, and whether she was unstable enough to set fire to her own sport utility vehicle, killing herself and her daughter.
"It's very disturbing. A 7-year-old who's got a future ahead of her, a life that was taken or lost. It's very disturbing," said Fuller.
Autopsy results and dental records should tell investigators exactly how they died.
The sheriff said there were no visible signs of weapons inside the vehicle, even after the fire, leading investigators to believe the Gooden mother-daughter duo was, in fact, alive when the vehicle began to burn.
Sheriff Fuller said the fire caused quite a stir along rural Highway 41-A, just before 1:00 p.m. Saturday. Five 911 calls from passersby who could not save the two people inside, and neither could Sheriff's Deputy Doug Seals, who was getting a pat on the back from the sheriff for his heroic attempts to help.
"I can't say enough good things about his efforts – even though he couldn't go into the fire himself to (help). It was too far gone at the time," Sheriff Fuller said.
Investigators' only link to Valerie Gooden's final moments is her 25-year-old son, Christan Crawl, a truck driver, who spoke with his mother via cell phone moments before the fire. Crawl, according to the sheriff, said his mother was acting recklessly on the phone, even threatening to harm herself and her young passenger.
The scene is Highway 41-A, in the community of Sewanee, just northwest of State Highway 56. The sheriff said Gooden had reportedly just taken her daughter to the Chattanooga aquarium when she pulled just five or six miles from Interstate 24.
The sheriff expects a full report from the State fire marshal's office, but said preliminary evidence suggests Ms. Gooden saturated the vehicle's interior with some type of accelerant.

Franklin County Deaths Ruled Murder-Suicide


Franklin County Deputies Find Car Fully Engulfed In Flames



POSTED: 10:35 pm CDT April 10, 2010
http://www.wsmv.com/news/23114919/detail.html