Woman: Threat Led to Impregnation
Originally published by The Associated Press, March 7, 2002
AKRON, Ohio — A woman testified yesterday that her mother helped her stepfather impregnate her with a syringe when she was 16 after charting her menstrual cycle to determine when she was most fertile.
The 19-year-old woman, whose identity was withheld, said she agreed to the arrangement only after her stepfather threatened to kill her mother. She said she never told her mother about the threat he made while holding a gun.
Narda Goff, 43, went on trial yesterday on charges she helped her husband, John, impregnate the woman. She faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy to commit sexual battery and child endangering. Earlier this week, prosecutors dropped two charges each of complicity to sexual battery and rape.
"That was my mom's present for John—that I was pregnant," the daughter said.
The couple have said their daughter willingly allowed the injections to fulfill Mrs. Goff's wish to give her new husband a child. Mrs. Goff, who has multiple sclerosis, felt she was too old and sick to bear a child.
John Goff is accused of breaking the very law he and his wife successfully campaigned to tighten. The Goffs had lobbied lawmakers to toughen rape laws after Narda Goff's daughter—then age 9—said she was molested in 1993.
The couple persuaded lawmakers to change the law in 1996 to include penetration with any object as a component to rape. Previously, only sexual intercourse was considered rape.
John Goff's trial is to begin March 18. According to paternity tests, he is the father of his stepdaughter's baby. The boy, born in September 1999, is currently in foster care.
