I did a search and found two earlier articles on this crime but was unable to pick up the links, so here is the update to the murder, now set to go to trial.


Trial set to begin in 2007 killing of University of North Texas student


Saturday, February 21, 2009
By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News
jemily@dallasnews.com

Testimony is set to begin Monday in the trial of a man accused of killing University of North Texas sophomore Melanie Goodwin and then setting her body on fire before fleeing to Mexico.

Ernesto Reyes is charged with capital murder and faces an automatic life sentence if a jury convicts him of Goodwin's September 2007 death. Her charred body was found near a Carrollton office building, and an autopsy showed she died of blunt-force injuries.

Goodwin was a journalism major who was active in theater and choir. She graduated in 2006 from Bowie High School in Arlington.

Matthew Bobo, a family friend, said Goodwin's relatives and friends would always treasure her memory.

"Melanie was one of those truly special people the world had," Bobo said. "We're much worse off that she's not with us. She was a kind and happy young woman, who had a very full life ahead of her."

Surveillance cameras captured some of what happened during the early-morning hours of Sept. 25, 2007, when Goodwin was killed.

Footage from a Denton convenience store showed Reyes leaving with Goodwin around 1:40 a.m. Police have said that they met at the store and that Reyes may have asked Goodwin for a ride. Authorities do not believe the two knew each other.

A short time later, according to records, Reyes showed up at the apartment of his friend, Donovan Young. Reyes told Young that he had killed someone but didn't mean to. He asked for help disposing of the body.

Young saw Goodwin's body in the back seat of her two-door, red Saturn, records show, and he gave Reyes money to buy gasoline and a gas can.

Video recorded about 4 a.m. at a Carrollton office building shows a stocky man dragging a body from a car and setting it on fire. Later, Reyes returned to Young's apartment and said that he had burned the body a few blocks away, records show. The men went to sleep.

The next day, the two went to retrieve the Saturn, records show. Reyes stuffed a sock in the gas tank and lit it. But the car did not blow up.

So, Reyes drove the car to Denton, where he burned and abandoned it, records show.

Young was charged with tampering with physical evidence. No trial date has been set.

Reyes, who had legally immigrated to the U.S., was arrested in October 2007 by U.S. marshals and Mexican authorities outside a relative's home in Celaya, Guanajuato, 200 miles north of Mexico City.

He was extradited to the U.S. in May under an agreement that prosecutors would not seek the death penalty.

This is not the first time Reyes has had brushes with the law. But none of his prior offenses were violent.

Denton County records show that he pleaded guilty to burglary in 2006 and was sentenced to three years' probation. He was arrested on marijuana possession charges in February 2007, violating his probation. While in the Denton County Jail, he was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. An ICE spokesman has said Reyes was released because his criminal conviction is not classified as a deportable offense for legal residents.

Dallas County prosecutors declined to comment about the case until the trial ends. Danny Clancy, a defense attorney who represents Reyes, said he did not want to discuss the case out of respect for Goodwin's family.

But Bobo said several of Goodwin's family members and friends will be looking for a different type of respect when they attend the trial – a conviction.

"Nothing anybody could do is going to bring Melanie back," he said. "But this is what the justice system has in place to punish people like Ernesto Reyes."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... a607f.html