Henry David Cossette, left inset, was sentenced for the murder of Sara Ann Goodwin, right inset. (Mug shot from Harris County District Attorney; Surveillance video and victim’s photo from KHOU/YouTube)
A Texas man learned his fate this week for murdering an 18-year-old sex worker he had picked up in 2022 by strangling her and disposing of her dismembered remains before feeling guilty, trying to kill himself by lighting a fire in his apartment and confessing to first responders.
Henry David Cossette, 29, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the 2022 murder of Sara Ann Goodwin, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced in a news release.
“This young woman, who had her whole life ahead of her, was brutally murdered for no reason by a man who then tried to cover it all up,” Ogg said. “And then he selfishly put everyone in his apartment complex at risk by starting a fire that could have killed others instead of taking responsibility for his acts.”
The bloodshed happened on Feb. 6, 2022. Cossette picked up Goodwin on Houston’s Bissonnet Track, an area known for prostitution and human trafficking, and took her to his apartment, where he strangled her and dismembered her body in the bathtub. He put body parts in black garbage bags and dumped them in a rural area off Beltway 8, about 13 miles from his home, prosecutors said.
The case came to light after a friend, whom Goodwin had asked to track her phone’s location that night, realized something was wrong when her phone died. The friend called the police, filed a missing-persons report and gave police her last known location — the area of Cossette’s apartment for several hours before it died, officials said. Friends said they managed to get surveillance footage from a car dealership showing Goodwin getting into a car, which they described as a 2015 to 2017 four-door, gray Honda CRV, Law&Crime reported.
Cossette was charged about two weeks after the killing when authorities had been called to his third-floor apartment for a fire on Feb. 19. Cossette set the fire with charcoal, and the smoke prompted neighbors to call 911, authorities said.
Cossette told first responders he was trying to kill himself because he had murdered a woman, prosecutors said. He also told authorities where he dumped the trash bags.
“He tried to burn down his apartment in order to kill himself, and then police and HFD got called out and he told them all he felt guilty about what he did,” Le said. “Guilt or innocence was never the issue in this case.”
Community activist Quanell X understated the brutality of the crime during a news conference demanding no bond for the defendant, local NBC affiliate KPRC reported.
“This was a planned abduction. He kidnapped that woman, killed her, chopped her up, and threw her in a field, and now he’s trying to play crazy,” Quanell X said, the outlet reported. “This man ain’t crazy. He knew exactly what he was doing. Even after he killed [Sara Goodwin], he was still riding around to pick up more women.”
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