Lakeside Man Pleads Guilty and Is Sentenced in His Father's Beating Death

A man pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter in the beating death of his 77-year-old father in the apartment they shared in Lakeside.

Charles Leo Goodwin, 29, was immediately sentenced to 14 years in state prison for the death last year of Robert Goodwin, a military veteran.

Witnesses testified during a preliminary hearing last summer that the defendant attended a party at another home last Jan. 29, drank alcohol, got into an argument and was upset when he left.

Sheriff's investigators said Charles Goodwin called 911 about 6:40 p.m. to say that his father was dead in the apartment on Laurel Street.

Prosecutors said the elder Goodwin died of blunt force trauma and had severely broken ribs and severe bruising on his face. The defendant had blood on his shirt, hands and inner thigh when emergency personnel arrived at his apartment, prosecutors said.

-City News Service