Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wayne Couple Pleads Guilty To Killing Grandson's Mom
Rather than stand trial a Waynesboro couple pled 
guilty Wednesday to murdering their son’s fiancé (their grandson’s mother), then burning her body behind their home.
Steven and Sylvia Beersdorf were arrested in January of 2010, days after they reported their son’s fiancé, twenty-one-year-old Rose Goggins, had disappeared while en route to an EMT class in Lawrenceburg.
Goggins and her eleven-month-old son resided with the Beersdorfs at their Beech Creek home. At the time the boy’s father, Steven Beersdorf, Jr., was stationed at Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
After an extensive search remains were located on property belonging to the Beersdorfs in early February. The remains were reportedly scattered about a ten-foot area, situated approximately 250 yards behind a two-story log cabin on the couple’s 1099 Swinging Bridge Road property, between Waynesboro and Clifton.
Teams with the Federal Bureau of Investigation sifted through layers of dirt to recover the flesh and small bone fragments from what they described as a burn circle. Experts with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab utilized DNA from Goggins’ young son to make the identification.
Both Beersdorfs were subsequently indicted on one count each of first degree murder and criminal conspiracy to commit murder. Authorities allege the murder resulted from Goggins telling the couple she intended to move their grandson away from the area.
Trail for Steven Beersdorf had been scheduled for December in Maury County, while Sylvia Beersdorf had been slated to stand trail in Lawrence County in January. Those trials were postponed, however, while attorneys hammered out a plea bargain agreement.
In Wayne County Circuit Court Wednesday, both Beersdorfs entered pleas of guilty. Steven Beersdorf pled guilty to charges of first degree murder and criminal conspiracy to commit first degree murder.
Under the plea bargain agreement reached he received a life sentence. District Attorney General Mike Bottoms reported in a press release, “Mr. Beersdorf will be ninety-nine years old before being eligible for parole.”
Sylvia Beersdorf entered a “best interest” guilty plea to the charge of criminal conspiracy to commit first degree murder. The first degree murder charge against her was dropped because, Bottoms reported Wednesday, “After a thorough review of all the evidence in the case, it appears that the role of Sylvia Beersdorf in this murder was conspiring with her husband to commit the crime, but not actually participating in the killing.
She was therefore allowed to plead to conspiracy, a Class A Felony, and was sentenced within her appropriate range.” Under the agreement reached she is to serve 15 years imprisoned through the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
.
