In the spring of 1978, Linda Goldstone left home to teach a childbirth class in Chicago and never returned. The abduction, the roughly 36 hours of captivity that followed, and the murder of the 29-year-old became one of the best-documented capital cases in Illinois courts.
The trial court, the Illinois Supreme Court, a federal district court and the Seventh Circuit each described what happened and ruled on the man convicted of it, Hernando Williams.
This article follows that record and separates what the courts documented from what was only alleged or argued.
A disappearance after class
Linda Goldstone worked at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago as an instructor in the Lamaze method of childbirth.
According to the Illinois Supreme Court's 1983 opinion in People v. Williams, she was getting out of her car near the hospital on the evening of March 30, 1978, when Williams approached her and robbed her at gunpoint.
Her husband, Dr. James Goldstone, a physician, learned that she had not appeared for class that evening and notified the police of her absence.
Her car was later found by Northwestern University security officers.
Probation-report material read at the sentencing hearing, as quoted in the federal district court's opinion, described her as a 29-year-old mother of a 3-year-old son and the wife of a doctor.
Key dates at a glance
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 30, 1978 | Goldstone is abducted near Northwestern Memorial Hospital; her husband reports her missing after she misses class |
| March 31, 1978 | Cries for help are heard from the trunk of Williams's car near a friend's apartment; police are notified |
| Early April 1, 1978 | Goldstone phones her husband; later that morning she is released, then killed |
| April 1, 1978 | Williams is arrested at his home |
| October 9, 1979 | Williams changes his plea to guilty on all four charges |
| November 19, 1979 | Capital sentencing hearing begins |
| March 14, 1980 | Williams is sentenced to death |
| May 27, 1983 | Illinois Supreme Court affirms on direct appeal |
| 1985 | Illinois Supreme Court affirms denial of post-conviction relief |
| July 5, 1990 | Federal district court denies habeas relief |
| October 1, 1991 | Seventh Circuit affirms the denial |
| March 22, 1995 | Williams is executed by lethal injection in Illinois |
The captivity and the search
The sequence below comes from the Illinois Supreme Court's account, which later federal courts adopted. That account rests on Williams's own statements and on evidence presented at the sentencing hearing.
After the robbery, Williams made Goldstone undress from the waist down and forced her into his car. The court says it "appears" he took her to a shop owned by his father, where he bound her hands and feet.
He then placed her in the trunk.
With her there, he picked up his sister at work and drove her home. He then drove to a motel, where, the court records, he raped Goldstone.
The next day, March 31, Goldstone was still bound and locked in the trunk. Williams appeared at a suburban courthouse, where charges of aggravated kidnaping, rape and armed robbery from an earlier, separate case were pending against him. That case was continued.
He then drove to the apartment of a friend, Nettie Jones. While he was there, people in the area heard cries for help coming from the trunk, and someone notified the police.
Williams drove away from the crowd that had gathered. The opinion records that he went to a tavern, and that early that evening he checked into another motel and again raped Goldstone. He later picked up his niece and drove her home, drove his sister home from work, and spent the evening in taverns with friends.
What the police and family knew
The police were searching for the car. Officers investigating the incident at Jones's apartment obtained the license number and learned Williams had visited her. They searched the area without success and periodically watched his home, but did not locate the vehicle.
Early the next morning Dr. Goldstone received a phone call from his wife, who said she would be home soon. He heard a male voice in the background say, "Shut up bitch, tell him you'll be home in about an hour." She asked whether he had called the police, and he told her to tell the man he had not. The federal district court later cited Williams's own testimony that he knew she was married with a child.
Release, killing and arrest
The courts describe the end of her captivity as follows. At 6 a.m. on April 1, 1978, Williams let Goldstone out of the trunk. He gave her $1.25 and told her to take a bus home and not to call the police, then drove off. She ran to the porch of a nearby house for help.
The person who answered refused to let her inside but did call the police. Williams, who had only driven around the block to see whether his instructions would be obeyed, returned and ordered her off the porch.
He took her to an abandoned garage and shot her in the chest and head. The Illinois Supreme Court noted medical evidence that she had been beaten once or more during her captivity.
Williams was arrested at his home that afternoon while washing the trunk of his car. Early the next morning he gave a statement that a court reporter transcribed.
In it, according to the Illinois Supreme Court, he admitted kidnaping, robbing and shooting Goldstone. The federal district court added that he first denied the crimes and gave a detailed confession only after police told him his story did not check out.
The state's theory of the eyewitness factor came from his own words. The Illinois Supreme Court wrote that "by his own admission, the defendant acted as he did because he knew Mrs. Goldstone was going to report the crimes to the police." That finding became central to one of his later appeals.
Guilty pleas and the capital sentencing hearing
Williams first pleaded not guilty in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Pretrial motions followed, including a motion to suppress his confession.
The federal district court's 1990 opinion records that the trial judge denied most of the key motions. On October 9, 1979, Williams changed his plea to guilty on one count each of murder, aggravated kidnapping, rape and armed robbery.
The prosecution then formally asked for a capital sentencing hearing, and Williams requested a jury.
Illinois law at the time split a capital sentencing hearing into two stages:
- Eligibility phase. The state had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at least one statutory aggravating factor. Here the jury found that Williams murdered Goldstone in the course of armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping and rape, and that he murdered an eyewitness to those crimes. The district court counted these as four findings; the Seventh Circuit counted two aggravating factors, with the first covering all three felonies.
- Aggravation and mitigation phase. The state presented evidence in aggravation and the defense presented mitigating evidence. Williams testified on his own behalf. The jury unanimously found no mitigating factors sufficient to preclude a death sentence.
The hearing began on November 19, 1979. A Chicago Tribune report published December 9, 1979 described Williams, who called himself a "monster" with two personalities. It said a jury of eight men and four women deliberated slightly more than an hour before returning a death verdict.
The court records, which control on procedure, show the judge formally imposed the sentence on March 14, 1980.
Williams was also sentenced to concurrent 30-year terms for armed robbery and aggravated kidnaping. He received 60 years for rape, to run consecutively to a prior 30-year rape sentence. The death sentence attached to the murder conviction.
Appeals and the final legal outcome
Illinois law sent the death sentence straight to the state's highest court. On May 27, 1983, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the pleas and the sentence, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined review in 1984.
A post-conviction petition in Cook County was denied without a hearing, and the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed that denial in 1985. The U.S. Supreme Court again denied review in 1986.
Williams then sought federal habeas relief. District Judge Aspen denied the petition on July 5, 1990. The Seventh Circuit affirmed on October 1, 1991, noting that the state's courts had ruled the death penalty lawful under state law and consistent with federal constitutional standards.
The disputed issues
Williams raised many challenges across these reviews. The main ones were:
- Coerced plea. Affidavits from his own trial attorneys described intense pressure to plead guilty and the use of psychological information gathered for his defense. The federal courts held the claim was procedurally defaulted because it had not been raised in state court. They also held it lacked merit: strong advice from counsel is not coercion, and Williams had said repeatedly in open court that his plea was voluntary.
- Victim impact evidence. The district court found that part of the evidence, including a probation officer's remark that the family's grief was "sufficiently aggravating" to justify death, was constitutionally suspect. It still held the evidence harmless given the overwhelming admissible evidence and the judge's instruction to avoid passion and sympathy.
- Jury selection. Williams, who is Black, was sentenced by an all-white jury, and the state used peremptory challenges against the remaining Black venire members. Under the older Swain v. Alabama standard, the federal courts found his statistical evidence insufficient. The Seventh Circuit agreed that the state's explanations for its challenges were "tenuous at best." It nonetheless held that the later, more lenient Batson v. Kentucky rule could not be applied retroactively on collateral review.
- The statute and sentencing conduct. He also challenged the death-penalty statute's wording, prosecutorial discretion, the exclusion of some defense mitigation evidence, a probation officer's testimony about a "no comment" answer, and the dual aggravating findings. The courts rejected these or found any error harmless.
What the record establishes
Hernando Williams was executed by lethal injection in Illinois on March 22, 1995, after his conviction and death sentence survived multiple rounds of state and federal review.
| Strengths of the record | Limits of the record |
|---|---|
| Four courts and two levels of review described the same core facts | Accounts of the captivity rely heavily on Williams's statement and sentencing testimony |
| Williams's own admissions and plea are documented | Some claims, such as the coercion allegation, were rejected on procedure as well as merit |
| The Seventh Circuit acknowledged the weaknesses in the state's jury-selection explanations | Retroactivity rules, not a finding that the challenges were proper, decided the jury-selection claim |
Frequently asked questions
Who was Linda Goldstone?
She was a 29-year-old Lamaze instructor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, the wife of Dr. James Goldstone, and the mother of a young son.
When did she disappear?
She was abducted on the evening of March 30, 1978, as she got out of her car near the hospital. Her husband reported her missing after she failed to arrive for her class.
When was Hernando Williams arrested?
He was arrested at his home on the afternoon of April 1, 1978, hours after Goldstone was killed. He was washing the trunk of his car when he was taken into custody.
What was the outcome of the case?
Williams pleaded guilty on October 9, 1979, to murder, aggravated kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. A jury found aggravating factors and no mitigation sufficient to preclude death, and he was sentenced to death on March 14, 1980. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed in 1983, state post-conviction relief was denied in 1985, and federal habeas relief was denied in 1990 and affirmed by the Seventh Circuit in 1991. Williams was executed by lethal injection on March 22, 1995.
Did Williams confess?
According to the Illinois Supreme Court, he gave a transcribed statement admitting to the kidnaping, robbery and shooting. He later pleaded guilty. The claim that his plea was coerced by his own lawyers was an allegation that the federal courts rejected.
References
- People v. Williams (People v. Williams, 454 N.E.2d 220, 97 Ill.2d 252, 73 Ill.Dec. 360 (Ill. 1983)) — vLex United States
- Williams v. Chrans, 742 F. Supp. 472 (N.D. Ill. 1990) :: Justia — law.justia.com
- Hernando — Newspapers.com™
- 945 F.2d 926 — law.resource.org
- People v. Williams, 109 Ill. 2d 391, 488 N.E.2d 255 (Ill. 1985) — Illinois Supreme Court
- USA (Illinois): Further information on death penalty: James Free, Hernando Williams — Amnesty International, March 23, 1995
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