| By David Hedges
Publisher Times-Record/Roane County Reporter
FULL STORY www.thetimesrecord.net
Some people in the Tariff area were suspicious of the neighbor they called "Tattoo Vince."
Their suspicions got some official confirmation Monday when a jury in Roane Circuit Court found Alex Vincent Golosow, a.k.a. "Tattoo Vince," guilty of first degree murder.
The five-man, seven-woman jury deliberated eight hours over two days before reaching the decision.
The verdict was "without mercy," which means that, unless it is overturned, the 47-year-old will spend the rest of his life in prison, without a chance for parole.
Golosow has been held without bond since October, first on federal drug charges that were dropped in December when he was charged with the murder of his friend, Judson Reid, 52, of Looneyville.
Reid died in October, about a week before Golosow's arrest. An autopsy said death came from a gunshot wound to the head fired by an assailant. An informant led police to the area in Clay County where Reid's body had been dumped.
The verdict apparently did not come easy for the jury, pulled from a pool of 75 called in for the high-profile case and whittled down after a full day of questioning Tuesday.
Because of illness, one juror had to be replaced by an alternate before testimony began Wednesday morning.
Four days later, shortly after 4 p.m. Saturday, the jury began their deliberations.
A little after 9 p.m., Judge Tom Evans released the jury until Monday morning. They returned at 9 a.m. and resumed deliberations. After 90 minutes they came back to the courtroom and told Evans they could not reach a verdict.
The jury foreman, an elderly gray-haired woman, told Evans one juror wanted to disregard the testimony of all the witnesses.
Evans urged the jury to try to reach a consensus, and they did, returning just before noon with the guilty verdict.
Throughout the case, Roane prosecutor Mark Sergent and Scott Reynolds of the W.Va. Prosecuting Attorneys Institute portrayed Golosow as a heartless killer who shot down a friend behind his house while the victim's wife, daughter, 1-year-old grandchild and the daughter's boyfriend were in the front yard.
Court-appointed defense attorneys Drew Patton and Leah Boggs argued that Reid was a despondent Vietnam veteran who suffered from depression and family problems before committing suicide.
After the verdict was returned, Sergent expressed satisfaction.
"I'm pleased with it. I believe it was supported by overwhelming evidence," he said, offering praise for the efforts of the investigating officers and crime lab technicians.
Sergent said he was prepared to retry the case if the trial ended in a hung jury.
Patton said there would be a motion for an appeal.
"The disturbing thing is the state's theory of what happened didn't hold water," said Patton. "There just wasn't any motive. Nobody really knows from the evidence what happened."
During the four days of testimony, the prosecution called 22 witnesses and presented 42 pieces of evidence, including the .45 caliber single-shot handgun that police said killed Reid.
The defense called four witnesses, two of whom were state witnesses recalled to the stand. The defense also offered seven pieces of evidence. Golosow did not testify.
Three or four months before his death, Reid moved out of his home a few miles away and into Golosow's residence on Maple Run Road, his daughter, Thera Reid, testified.
On Oct. 10, the day before he died, Reid had given Golosow more than $1,000 he received from Thera's boyfriend, Russell Davis, to purchase a pound of marijuana, witnesses said. Instead, Golosow used the money to buy a gun, although not the murder weapon.
The next day Reid's family went to Golosow's house to retrieve Thera's car he had borrowed.
Reid was sitting in the car and said the keys were inside the house. He tried to get Golosow to let him in to get the keys, but after Reid climbed a ladder to knock on his bedroom window, Thera said they heard Golosow shouting out the window, "You're scaring the s--- out of my female friend" before they heard a gunshot that went through the trees.
Reid came down the ladder, his daughter said, and went to the rear of the house to knock on the back door while the others stayed in front. Then there was a second gunshot.
She said Golosow came out to the front of the house when she told him she only wanted to get her car and her father.
"He said neither one of them is going anywhere," she testified.
Davis said he went to the back of the house after the second gunshot and saw a fresh pool of blood being lapped up by a mother dog and her puppies. He never saw Reid alive again after he got off the roof.
The gunshots at Golosow's home were fired on Friday morning. Thera Reid said she called State Police and the sheriff's department, but she could not get anyone to investigate until the following week.
Richard Cummings and his girlfriend, Sandra Kahlaf, testified that Golosow asked them to come to his house to help with a deer he had killed.
When they got there they saw Reid's body in the downstairs bathroom.
Golosow told Kahlaf to clean up the mess, while he and Cummings went to dump the body, which was placed in the trunk of Thera's car.
Kahlaf said she did what she was told.
"I was scared," she said. "I just seen a dead body and I was afraid I was gonna be the next one."
Cummings said he got sick and vomited while handling the bloody body.
When they left the house in Thera's car, Cummings said he and Golosow ran into Chance Towner, who also made the trip to Clay. It was Towner who eventually called police and led them to the body.
Cummings testified that Golosow admitted to shooting Reid. Cummings said Golosow killed Reid because he had brought an undercover officer to his home.
"He said 'I killed the rat----- bastard,'" said Cummings.
While driving the car up Pisgah Ridge, an area just outside the town of Clay where the body was dumped, Cummings said Golosow started licking the blood off his hands. Cummings also said Golosow "pulled a bullet out of his pocket and sucked the blood off it and put it back in (his pocket)."
Under cross-examination, Cummings admitted he had never told police those details before.
Cummings said Golosow ordered the other two men to remove Reid's clothes and drag his body over the hill, where it was covered with sticks and leaves.
After the body was dumped, the car broke down in Clay. The men waited over an hour before someone showed up with a car hauler and took the men and the car to Cummings' residence at Ovapa, an area also known as Murder Mountain.
Cummings said Golosow and another man, Jeff Mollohan, came to the house a few days later looking for the car. He told them where it was, Cummings said, and they soaked it with gasoline and set it on fire.
Cummings and Kahlaf told differing stories about the murder weapon, which police recovered from the Ovapa residence.
Kahlaf said she picked the gun up while Golosow wasn't looking.
Cummings said Golosow handed the gun to Kahlaf and told her to use it for protection when the men left to dump the body.
Mollohan, who is in jail on unrelated charges, testified that he was in the "lockdown" area of the Central Regional Jail when Golosow slipped notes under his door asking him to testify he was present when Reid committed suicide. Mollohan said he wasn't present when Reid died.
The defense called Dr. Carroll Christiansen, who said he had treated Reid for depression and other ailments for 15 years. He said Reid has signed a "suicide contract" with a counselor at a local mental health clinic just a month before he died.
The defense also called a neighbor, Nita Mayes, who said she did not recognize Reid when she saw him a few days before his death because he had deteriorated so much.
A medical examiner testified that Prozac, marijuana, methamphetamine and amphetamines were found in Reid's bloodstream during an autopsy.
Had Reid shot himself, and also inflicted a head injury investigators said was caused by a blow from a garden tool, evidence showed he would have had to use his left hand, prosecutors claimed. Family members testified Reid was right-handed.
Following the verdict, Evans continued the case until May 29 for post-trial motions and sentencing.
Full Story See "The two sides of a murder suspect" www.thetimesrecord.net
| 
