Stryker accused of faking alibi in woman's death
Published on July 23rd, 2008
WOBURN (AP) - A doctor who was ordered to pay a $15 million civil judgment in the killing of his girlfriend was arrested Monday for allegedly faking an alibi in an effort to get a new trial.
Timothy Stryker, 56, of Winchester, was ordered held on $100,000 cash bail after pleading not guilty to charges of conspiracy and encouraging perjury. Stryker has never been criminally charged in the death of Dr. Linda Goudey, an obstetrician whose body was found in her car in 1993. However, a civil jury in 2006 found there was enough evidence implicating Stryker and ordered him to pay $15 million to her family in their wrongful death lawsuit.
Stryker has maintained his innocence and appealed the judgment. His attorney, Kevin Mahoney, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.
On Monday, prosecutors charged that Stryker and a patient, Richard Chambers, persuaded another man to lie about who he saw with Goudey around the time she was last seen alive. Goudey, 42, was last seen Sept. 30, 1993, at New England Memorial Hospital in Stoneham. Her body was found on Oct. 4, covered in a blanket in her Saab in the hospital's parking lot. She had been strangled.
In a motion for a new trial filed after the civil judgment, Stryker submitted a sworn affidavit from Craig Pizzano, who claimed he saw a woman in the early morning hours of Oct. 1, 1993, in a Saab in the parking lot of the hospital having a sexual encounter with a man who resembled former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, who is tall with light blonde hair. Pizzano said the man did not look like Stryker, a slight man with dark hair.
Pizzano later recanted his story and testified to the grand jury that he lied as part of a scheme that was concocted and orchestrated by Stryker and Chambers. Chambers pleaded not guilty Monday and was ordered held on $50,000 cash bail.
Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone, who investigated Goudey's killing in the 1990s as an assistant district attorney, said Chambers told Pizzano that Stryker would pay each of them $50,000 to $100,000 to help carry out the scheme, if he was successful in overturning the civil judgment.
"I think it's obvious that his primary intention is to get out from under a multi-million-dollar judgment, and two, to get out from under the stigma that attaches to someone who has been found by a jury to have caused the death of Linda Goudey," Leone said in a telephone interview.
In his affidavit, Pizzano said the woman he saw in the parking lot of the hospital started to get out of the car, but the man grabbed her and pulled her back inside. He said he then heard the couple arguing.
"Some days later, I read about the body of a woman doctor being found in the back seat of a Saab in that lot. Not wanting to get involved, I told no one I had been there that night or early morning and what I had seen and heard," Pizzano said in his affidavit.
Pizzano claimed that after reading about the civil judgment against Stryker in June 2006, he saw Stryker's photo and "it was not the man I saw in the Saab that night."
Michael Altman, a lawyer who represented Goudey's mother, Marguerite Rafuse, in the civil case, called Pizzano's claim "an outrageous lie" and said the family was pleased Stryker has been indicted.
"We're hoping, looking forward, that this is one more piece of evidence which will lead to a decision by the district attorney to indict Stryker for first-degree murder," Altman said.
During the civil trial, Goudey's mother testified that the two doctors had been having arguments in the days before Goudey was found dead.
Stryker's lawyer in the civil case, Martin Leppo, said Stryker has always maintained his innocence.
"Everything that they investigated - from every possible angle, from every witness - cleared Stryker," he said.
Tim Stryker was ordered held on $100,000 cash bail which, he will be placed on a GPS bracelet. The Commonwealth asked for $200,000 cash bail.Richard Chambers was ordered held on $50,000 cash bail. The Commonwealth asked for $100,000.
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