Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504190045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GREENSBORO, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Sean P. Goble, 28, of Asheboro, N.C., has confessed to two slayings in Tennessee and one in North Carolina. Authorities in other states are comparing unsolved slayings to the Goble case.
``We talked to him today about ... our second case, and he's maintained he wasn't involved,'' said Capt. Roy Forrest of the Guilford County, N.C., Sheriff's Department.
Goble had a brief appearance via closed-circuit television camera in Guilford County District Court. He was appointed two defense lawyers and told he would be held without bond. He said Monday that he would represent himself.
Another hearing is scheduled for May 17 but may be delayed, said Assistant Public Defender Mark Hayes, one of the lawyers appointed to represent Goble. The other attorney is Assistant Public Defender Dave Clark.
The defense lawyers maintained they had been denied access to their client before the hearing. Forrest said Goble never asked for a lawyer during interviews with police that started between 9 and 10 a.m. and ended about 1 p.m., but was advised of his right to have one on three occasions.
The lawyers visited their client immediately after the hearing.
Also Tuesday, Goble was interviewed by police from Greensboro and sheriff's detectives from Orange County, N.C., Forrest said. Goble denied involvement in slayings in each of those localities.
A trucker, Goble was arrested Thursday. He faces two murder charges in Tennessee, and one in North Carolina in the slaying of an unidentified woman whose body was found near Interstate 40 in February.
The Guilford County case involves a woman whom Goble said he strangled before dumping her body, Forrest said. There was evidence of sexual activity but none of sexual assault, he said.
Goble said he picked the woman up near exit 133 on Interstate 95 near Fredericksburg, Va., and killed her in Orange County, N.C., on I-85, Forrest said.
``We're getting as much information as we can into that area of the country to see if anybody knows her,'' he said.
Detectives from 10 or 11 other states have called Guilford County since news got out that Goble was arrested in neighboring Forsyth County on a Tennessee fugitive warrant.
The wide interest means detectives will have to create a time line of Goble's travels, using his trucker's logbook. That project could take weeks and will involve detectives from Virginia and Tennessee, Forrest said.
``We're going to try to coordinate his movements through the country as well as we can,'' he said. ``That'll help us determine if he's a likely suspect in other cases. We have been swamped with information.''
by CNB