The Christopher Goins case centers on a 20-year-old New York crack dealer who, on October 14, 1994, walked into a Richmond, Virginia apartment and shot seven people, killing five members of the same family. Goins was convicted of capital murder, sentenced to death, and executed by lethal injection on December 6, 2000.1Clark Prosecutor. Christopher Cornelius Goins
The Gilpin Court Shootings
At about 9:30 a.m. on October 14, 1994, Goins entered 1008 St. James Street, Apartment C, in the Gilpin Court public housing project. He was armed with a .45-caliber Glock pistol. He shot five people in the head, killing all of them:
- Daphne Jones, 29
- James Nathaniel Randolph Jr., 35, Daphne’s boyfriend
- Nicole Jones, 9
- David Jones, 4
- Robert Jones, 3, killed in his crib
Goins then went into a bedroom and shot 14-year-old Tamika Jones nine times, including three shots to the stomach. The bullets struck her seven-month-old fetus, which did not survive. He also shot Tamika’s 21-month-old sister, Kenya, in the arm. Both girls lived. Tamika stayed still and pretended to be dead until Goins left, then called 911 and named him as the shooter. She later lost the ability to have children because of her injuries.1Clark Prosecutor. Christopher Cornelius Goins2Findlaw. Littlejohn v. Commonwealth
Why He Did It
Goins had begun a sexual relationship with Tamika Jones when she was about fourteen. By March 1994, she was pregnant with his child. Goins was involved with another woman, Monique Littlejohn, and grew hostile toward Tamika after Littlejohn learned of the pregnancy. Roughly a week before the shootings, Goins told a Richmond taxicab driver named Parrish Davis that he was upset about the pregnancy and that “he wanted to do away with her and her family.” Davis testified about that conversation at trial, and prosecutors used it to prove premeditation.3Virginia’s Judicial System. Goins v. Commonwealth, Record Nos. 951869, 951870
The Arrest in Brooklyn
Goins fled Richmond after the shootings. About a month later, on November 17, 1994, the FBI found him hiding in a one-bedroom apartment belonging to his half-brother in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. Tips from Goins’s acquaintances had narrowed the search to New York. Monique Littlejohn was arrested at the same location.4Roanoke Times. Arrest of Christopher Goins5The Washington Post. VA Tip Led to NY Arrest in Slaying of 5
Trial and Sentence
A Richmond grand jury indicted Goins on five counts of capital murder, two counts of malicious wounding, and seven firearm counts. Because of the intense local publicity, jurors were chosen from outside the city. Judge Thomas N. Nance presided.
The prosecution’s case rested on Tamika Jones’s testimony and her 911 call identifying Goins, along with Davis’s account of Goins’s threat. The jury convicted Goins of capital murder for the killing of three-year-old Robert Jones, first-degree murder for the four other deaths, two counts of malicious wounding, and seven firearms counts. On July 19, 1995, Judge Nance sentenced Goins to death for Robert Jones’s murder, four life terms for the other killings, and a combined 73 years on the remaining counts.6Roanoke Times. Goins Sentencing
The Appeals
Goins spent five years challenging the conviction and sentence in state and federal court, and lost at every level.
On direct appeal, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected all of his arguments, including constitutional challenges to Virginia’s death penalty statutes and objections to the admission of crime scene photographs, the 911 tape, and Davis’s testimony. The court upheld both the convictions and the sentence.3Virginia’s Judicial System. Goins v. Commonwealth, Record Nos. 951869, 951870
He then filed a federal habeas petition raising 36 grounds for relief, including ineffective assistance of counsel, jury-selection errors, and the prosecution’s failure to produce polygraph results. The U.S. District Court dismissed the petition, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed in Goins v. Angelone, 226 F.3d 312 (4th Cir. 2000). The appellate court held that because the crime was not interracial, there were no “special circumstances” requiring race-specific voir dire questions, and it found several claims procedurally barred under state law. The court denied a certificate of appealability.7U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Goins v. Angelone, 226 F.3d 312
The Execution
On December 6, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Goins’s final appeal and stay request in a 7–2 vote. Governor Jim Gilmore denied clemency about two hours before the execution, saying he saw no reason to intervene after reviewing the record.
Goins was executed by lethal injection at Greensville Correctional Center and pronounced dead at 9:04 p.m. Entering the death chamber, he said, “Look, we’ve got an audience.” His final statement was, “There’s no God but Allah.” Commonwealth’s Attorney David Hicks, who witnessed the execution, said Goins “died showing no remorse.” Former Richmond police Sergeant C.T. Woody, the lead investigator, called Goins a “cold animal.”8UPI. Killer of Five Family Members Put to Death
Tamika Jones, then 20, witnessed the execution. Before it took place, she told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “I just want him off this Earth. I just want him away from here so he can go to God and let God deal with it.” Goins was the 680th person executed in the United States since 1976 and the 81st in Virginia.1Clark Prosecutor. Christopher Cornelius Goins9The Marshall Project. Christopher Goins
What Happened to Monique Littlejohn
Goins was not the only person charged. Monique Littlejohn was indicted as an accessory before the fact on all fourteen counts. Prosecutors argued she resented Tamika Jones over their shared pregnancies with Goins and had told Tamika that “if Littlejohn could not have Goins’ baby, then neither could Jones.” Circumstantial evidence placed her in a car three blocks from the apartment on the morning of the shootings; Goins entered the car and drove off with her afterward. Investigators later found Goins’s identification in her possession and an unspent .45-caliber cartridge matching the murder weapon under her bed.
A jury convicted her on all fourteen counts and she was sentenced to 188 years, with ten years suspended. On March 18, 1997, the Court of Appeals of Virginia reversed every conviction. The court found no evidence that Littlejohn knew in advance that Goins intended to kill anyone; her earlier animosity toward Tamika was not linked to the murders, and the rest was “suspicion of guilt” rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt.2Findlaw. Littlejohn v. Commonwealth
The Richmond Context
The Gilpin Court killings happened during the worst year of violence in modern Richmond history. In 1994, a record 160 people were murdered in the city, up from a previous high of 117 in 1992.10The Washington Post. Richmond Homicide Rate Decreases From 94 High A Virginia legislative review commission later identified 1990 through 1994 as the peak of the crack epidemic in the state.11Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. Community Gun Violence in Virginia
Virginia abolished the death penalty in March 2021, becoming the first formerly Confederate state to do so. The state had executed 113 people since 1976 by the time it ended capital punishment.12Bolts Magazine. Virginia Death Penalty Goins’s execution came two decades before that change in the law.