Missouri mom drains pond to recover murdered son’s remains

A Missouri woman recovered the rest of her murdered son’s remains after draining a pond where his partial remains were found in 2017, two years after he went missing.

Connie Goodwin and her family used a rented sump pump to drain the Poplar Bluff lake-turned-pond — after it was initially drained to recover 40% of the 32-year-old’s remains in 2017 — last Saturday, People reports.

It took them two hours to find her son Edward Goodwin’s bones.

“I told [the Butler County Sheriff’s Department] that if they don’t [drain the remaining water], I told them that one of these days, I’m going to do it myself,” Goodwin, who ultimately undertook the effort with Edward’s son Gage, 22, and her husband Ed, told the outlet. “We saw two bones sticking up, so we kept pumping and then the next thing you know we started seeing the concrete blocks and then barbed wire and more bones.”

The concrete and wire were used to send Edward Goodwin’s body to the depths of that former lake.

The remains were confirmed to belong to the late Goodwin after his mother phoned Butler County Coroner Jim Akers, who fished out the rest of the discovery by hand, retrieving it from what he told People was “very thick” mud, “infested with wildlife.”

The fate of Edward Goodwin, who disappeared in 2015, was unknown until his partial remains were found two years later. Former friends Rickey Hurt and Eldrid Smith were arrested in 2017 and pleaded guilty last year to killing Goodwin.

Goodwin’s mother remembers him as “a loving father” and " a loving son” who would “do anything for anyone.

“He loved his whole family and his family loved him,” she said.