A New Jersey man admitted to taking part in the 1990 murder of a 15-year-old because he had nightmares and felt immense guilt over the matter.
Steven Goff, 41, turned himself in this week, and was charged for the stabbing death of Frederick “Ricky” Hart behind Galloway’s Clubs Condominiums in Atlantic City 23 years ago.
Goff told NBC News that the murder made his life “a living hell.”
“I wasn’t worried about getting caught. I had no chance of getting caught from this crime, whatsoever. I was away scot–free but you know, that doesn’t mean that it was away in my mind,” he said.
When he made a court appearance on Monday, Goff told the Judge: “I did the crime.”
In a telephone call from jail Monday night to his friend Alan Rickel, Goff confided that he was tortured by what he had done, Rickel said.
“He couldn’t bear it anymore,” Rickel told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “He told me he had nightmares. He'd go to sleep and see the kid’s mother staring in his face.”
Goff had said goodbye to his friend at a lunch they shared on Friday.
“He said, ‘Al, you’re not going to see me anymore. I’m going to do something that will shock the world,’” Rickel said.
Rickel said he knew Goff had psychological problems, and figured he was going through one of his periodic dark spells. Then Sunday morning, Goff called Rickel from northern Michigan.
He said he had been heading for the Canadian border but changed his mind and decided to return to New Jersey and take responsibility for having done something horrible, Rickel said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
