Background: The Baxter Heights, Mo. neighborhood where Jeffrey Goedde’s father was found stabbed to death (Google Maps). Inset: Jeffrey Goedde (St. Louis County Justice Center).
A Missouri man was arrested and charged with first-degree murder after he turned himself in to police and told them he accidentally killed his father after stabbing him around 50 times.
Jeffrey Goedde, 41, remains in custody after he drove to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday night and allegedly told police, “I made a mistake. I committed a crime, and I want to turn myself in.”
According to the criminal complaint, he described his alleged actions, saying that his father, Edward Goedde, Jr., 75, was “unconscious in the kitchen” of the house where they both lived and “bleeding from his face and back,” also adding that he “may have used a kitchen knife and other weapons” as well as his own hands, but wasn’t able to remember.
Police responded to the scene for a welfare check and entered the house through the basement window. Once there, there was a “strong presence of bleach in the house.” The body of Edward Goedde, Jr. was found “deceased and face down” in the kitchen. After Jeffrey Goedde was told of the discovery, he acknowledged that he couldn’t leave “because he accidentally killed someone” and told police he wanted an attorney and would answer no further questions, officials alleged.
An autopsy on Edward Goedde, Jr. revealed several traumatic wounds, including “approximately 50 stab wounds, broken bones, strangulation, and blunt force trauma to the head, face, and back.”
A kitchen knife was found five feet from the victim’s body in a kitchen trash can.
Goedde was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. A bond review was set for Friday, and Goedde is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Jan. 16.
