Michael Eugene Goode, a 50-year-old man also known as “Slick,” was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of Rodney Watson in July 2020.
Feeling compassionate, Watson decided to stop and help. His niece and a woman in the front passenger seat of the car recognized Goode, so Watson offered him a ride. Unfortunately, this act of kindness led to a tragic series of events.
Not long after picking Goode up, in the early morning hours of July 8, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office received reports of a fight happening outside a mobile home on Horton Drive in Burton.
When deputies arrived, they saw Goode attacking the woman in the front passenger seat of Watson’s car.
Rodney Watson tried to intervene and stop the attack, but Goode turned on him with a 10-inch serrated machete. He stabbed Watson six times, with one of the strikes severing an artery in Watson’s arm. This caused Watson to bleed to death at the scene. A forensic expert later confirmed that this wound was fatal.
Goode fled the scene after the attack, but law enforcement quickly tracked him down to a nearby house and arrested him just hours later. Despite his claims of innocence, the trial revealed DNA evidence that directly linked him to the murder and the machete used in the attack.
More than four years after the incident, Goode was tried at the Beaufort County Courthouse. After a three-day trial, the jury found him guilty of murdering Rodney Watson.
He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In addition to the life sentence, Goode received five more years in prison for using a deadly weapon during the crime.
This wasn’t Goode’s first time facing the law. Before this horrific crime, he had a long criminal history.
His past convictions included drug dealing, assault, domestic violence, resisting arrest, and providing false information to authorities. Despite this history, Watson’s kind gesture of offering Goode a ride cost him his life.
