THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996 TAG: 9604090346
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTES THOMPSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HILLSBOROUGH LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
A trucker who admitted strangling a woman he picked up on an interstate highway changed his plea to guilty Monday and was sentenced to 14 years for second-degree murder.
The sentence will be added to two life sentences already facing Sean Patrick Goble, 29, for murdering two women he picked up at Tennessee truckstops, ruled Superior Court Judge A.L. Stanback.
Goble's plea means the state and the family of victim Sherry Tew Mansur, 34, will have certain punishment, said District Attorney Carl Fox. The prosecutor said the case against Goble for first-degree murder was weak because the autopsy showed Mansur could have died from cocaine poisoning.
Fox said Goble will serve at least 60 years in Tennessee before he begins his sentence in North Carolina. Goble would be 103 years old before being eligible for parole.
In a statement to police, Goble said he picked up Mansur at a truckstop on Interstate 95. They had sex in the sleeper cab of his truck at another truck stop at Bracey, Va., he said.
He said he stopped the rig when he smelled drugs burning after driving into North Carolina.
``I climbed into the sleeper and saw her with her sleeve rolled up,'' according to the statement read by Guilford County Detective John Jacobs. ``I told her to get rid of it or get out of the truck.''
Mansur refused and they fought, Goble said, and ``the next thing I remember is her looking at me and gasping.''
Goble said he strangled Mansur in the sleeper portion of his truck near the intersection of Interstates 85 and 40, west of here.
``I reached for her throat because I didn't want to do what the drugs wanted to make me do,'' the statement said. by CNB